Once again we have been at a ministry place with out interent access. Here is the update from the last week.
After all the rest of the Americans arrived in South Africa, and we had some debrief time, we all raced down from Johannesburg to Jeffery’s Bay. Still waiting on the official results, I’m pretty sure we came in 3rd, 30 minutes behind both South African teams. Last week from Jeffery’s we headed to a small town to teach a program called Beat the Drum in 2 of the local schools. Beat the Drum is designed to openly discuss the issue of HIV/AIDS and lead the kids to make a decision for abstinence. More than 30 million people in Africa are now infected with HIV.
While working in the schools, we were split up to stay in homes with families around the community. Kim Lynch and I stayed with an amazing family! When we first walked in the house there had to be about 20 people. We knew we were in for an adventure! Finally we discovered that Mamma Kate and Papa Stanley only had 2 kids, but about 8-10 other family members and friends also stayed in the house. I felt a bit like I was living with the Cosbys or Jeffersons.
One of the most amazing parts about the week (outside of seeing many kids make a commitment for abstinence and some even for Christ), had to do with our family. On Friday night, we had a youth service at the church that was hosting us. The daughter, Shandra, the aunt, Mieta, and the best friend, Twiggy, of our family showed up. When they came in Mieta immediately started talking to me about how she had been drinking all day and how she “used to be a Christian”, but doesn’t go to church anymore. I explained to her that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian but need to make a commitment to Jesus. She seemed to know this but told me that she wasn’t ready, but that sometimes reading God’s word makes her feel good. I told her that if she hears God knocking on her heart, she needs to open up the door to Him.
Well by this point the service had started. So I had to wait till it was over to finish our talk. During the service we did the “In the Light” drama, which deals a lot with being bound to alcohol and drugs. I was hoping it would hit home with Mieta. Later in the service, Stefan, invited those who wanted to accept Christ to stand up (I didn’t know this at the time because it was in Afrikans, but found out later). Mieta and Shandra both stood up! Kim found out from Mieta afterwards that she did accept Christ and wanted to “not do bad things anymore.” I talked to her a lot about how she doesn’t have to give into the temptations because Jesus has conquered sin for her! It was amazing what God did that night!
So here is where we are now. Kim and I were originally going to join another group to go work at a Bible college, but feeling called back to the Beat the Drum ministry and our family, we are going to the same town to work in a different school this upcoming week with the other group. The best part about it is we get to live with the same family! We are so excited to hopefully get to disciple and minister more within that home! Mamma Kate takes such good care of us and makes sure that we don’t go hungry! God has blessed Kim and I with such an amazing family and ministry opportunity, and I can’t wait to see what He does this week!
P.S. Next blog I’ll try to get up some pictures of our family!
