South Africa Update

In my last post I mentioned how I had been in Africa for a month and now It’s nearly been two months! Time has really flown by.

A lot has happened the past few weeks. We had another 10-day team come, and this week we are doing a camp for teens who are displaying leadership potential. Having the 10-day team here was a lot of fun. We are all familiar now with what needed to happen, and I was able to be a group leader this time around. It was a lot of early mornings and late nights, but it’s all worth it. Being able to spread Gods Word is incredible and it gives you a great feeling!

Like I said, this week we are all busy with the group of teens that are here. The program is called International Leadership Academy. High school students are identified that display good leadership skills in local schools and are selected to participate in the program. They come to Shikwaru Lodge for a week of training in leadership skills. After the week they are all required to do a community project and turn in a report within 6 months of attending the training. It’s amazing to see the ambition and hope that these young leaders have. It’s such a great opportunity to sow into the lives of these passionate young people. They are the ones that will leave a lasting impact in their communities.

Life never slows down here! We’ve all been busy lately, but everyone’s kept a good attitude and it’s been a great growing/stretching experience. Something I’ve come to appreciate lately is my internet restriction. We are only allowed 30 mins of internet time a week, which isn’t much compared to what I was used to; but I’ve realized how much time I really wasted on the internet, especially facebook! I spend so much more time reading my bible and being productive. If you know me at all, you know I was addicted to facebook, but it’s been quite freeing breaking that addiction! It sounds funny, but it’s true

God is continuing to do great things and reveal Himself to us all in great ways. The more involved I get in missions the more importance I see in it!

I ask that you would continue to pray for all of us here in SA and for all the kids we are around. Please also pray for direction in what God wants me to do after November. I know it’s a long ways off, but the first two months of this journey have already gone by quite fast and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to slow down anytime soon!

Thank you and God bless!

One Month

I've been in Africa for a month now, time has really flown by! For the last few weeks we’ve continued training, and this week we finally started distributing books in schools. We’ve worked on school presentations and learned more about the Book of Hope, we even had a test….still waiting for the results, but I think we all passed J We also got to go into Mahwelereng, the community the last group of interns worked in. There we visited several churches and pastors. It was a great chance for Josh and Kelly (the leaders) to catch up with people, and for all of the new interns to meet the people of the community. While we were there we also visited the creche (daycare) that the last group worked with. We spent last week in Polokwane doing sports ministry and kids game training. It was a long week, but we all learned a lot and got a lot closer to each other, and we’ve got some great stories from the week J

Like I said, this week we started doing book distributions in schools. Right now we have a 10-day team of about 20 women from some churches in the Kansas City, MO area. It’s been amazing how many people from KS. A few weeks ago we went to a church in Polokwane. We weren’t really sure what to expect, but I think we were all surprised by what we heard. During the service they had an elderly woman named Carol come up to share her testimony. It turns out that she was called to Africa at the age of 17 in a small church in Kansas City. Her testimony was so powerful and encouraging for all of us. She’s been faithfully serving in Southern Africa for about 40 years. She has been working with the church we visited for 30 years and had asked several times to share her testimony, but it never worked out. However, Sunday, possibly the only time we will visit that church, was the day they had her share her testimony! It’s things like this that make me realize how much God cares for me and reminds me of the awesome plan He has for my life!

Doing the school presentations has been great! Yesterday after we were done with out last school in the community we were in and we were heading out it happened to be the time when school got out and we saw hundreds of kids running around with their Book of Hope, it was so awesome! Seeing that makes all the training, stress, and hard work fade away.

If you're interested, my new address is:

Post Net 30

Private Bag X 2449

Mokopane, 0600

South Africa

I’m really excited about the rest of this year, and I know it’s just going to get better and better…. I ask that you all continue to keep and the team in your prayers!