My family in Christ,
I have a quick praise and celebration I wanted to share with you all. So you know how we had the boys who didn't get tested stay in class and write down their testimonies and how this semester was going to affect the rest of their lives, well we had a lot of encouraging letters and I just wanted to share one with you! This boy uses my name, but please realize that it wasn't me who did the work, it was Christ through me and through you guys providing the funds to enable me to be here.
I had to correct a lot of spelling and grammar errors, their english is not perfect haha, but they do well enough to communicate most of the time. This is a letter from a 14 year old boy named Sumphiwe Makhanya.
"It started when you guys came to my school. Ryan convinced me when he started telling me about how to overcome bad things we do, then the day he talked about this he changed my whole mind and like my thoughts and all this stuff. Four hours later I went home along the road. There were girls who had been waiting along the pavement. All the girls were wearing attractive clothes with short skirts, high "hill" shoes, and wearing tops that were showing their breasts. I saw those attractive clothes, I thought of Ryan's words, that the Lord our God can help us overcome these things. After that thought something convinced me not to look at those girls who were wearing those attractive clothes and after that me and my friends passed those attractive girls and in my mind I said "thank you Lord for making me and my friends take the right decisions by not going to those girls who were trying to convince us to come to them." The next Thursday Ryan came to my class again. He then talked about the Holy Spirit. He continued to change my mind by telling me about how the Spirit helps us when we want to overcome these attractive things. I say thank you to Ryan because he changed my mind and now I am a changed man. Have a good journey when you go back to USA, you have changed my life.
When I read this, me and the guys celebrated and were so happy and proud of Sumphiwe! I hope this boys story brings joy to you all back home and encourages you somehow. The Spirit can bring power to us to overcome any obstacle! He can truly change our hearts and minds if we humbly allow Him to. The pure in heart shall see God! Christ promises us strength, peace, joy, wisdom, and countless blessings if we come to Him and give ourselves fully to allow Him to use us! There is nothing in this world more beneficial and sufficient than the Holy Spirit. We must be God-fearing followers of our Father in Heaven and in return He will fulfill us in a way that nothing else can! I have experienced the power of Christ's Spirit so many times on this journey here in Africa. He has changed my heart, mind, and soul in so many ways along with all of my teammates who I now gladly call my brothers and sisters! I can never express how much I appreciate all of your support and prayers. I consider one of the biggest blessings that God can bring is relationships. I consider myself truly blessed to have you all back home supporting and joining together as the body of Christ to bring glory and power to the Kingdom of God! Grace and Peace to you with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ my brothers and sisters! Look forward to seeing you soon!
*I posted a lot of new pictures of Swazi, boys at Salesian, and kids at Ithemba! hope they bless u like they have me
Wow, I can't believe I have less than a month left here in Swaziland. This has been the best year and most challenging year of my life, and I can't stop thanking God for this opportunity. I appreciate all of your support financially and spiritually! All of your comments, emails, and facebook messages have been so encouraging! I am so thankful for my family in Christ back home and for the family I have in Southern Africa now!
So we finished all of our HIV testing yesterday, it was awesome how it all worked out. Out of the 8 classes we had about 60 boys that had permission to get tested from the ages of 12-18. It was very hectic at times and nerve racking praying with the boys as they were SO nervous waiting for their results. God brought peace and victory to many of them! All of the results were kept confidential and the testing was taken in a private room with the nurses we hired. I don't know all of the results, but we could definitely tell when they were negative seeing them come out dancing, shouting, smiling, and hugging us! We could tell that maybe 2 were positive for sure by their tears coming out which killed us, they didn't talk to us about it, they just kept their heads down and walked out. I couldn't ask them their results or force them to talk. Having HIV is very shameful here and a lot of the boys before getting tested were saying "if I'm positive then I will just commit suicide, there's no point" so I waited with them to get tested and spoke to them about the results and how to handle it either way. They were given pre- and post counseling by the nurses also. Please pray for the ones who were positive and that they find peace and purpose through Christ. So there was a lot of celebrating and some heavy hearts, but now, after knowing their status, they can handle themselves accordingly.
While some of the boys were getting tested, Davie, a teamate of mine, stayed in the classroom and got the boys to write out their testimonies, how this semester has influenced them, and how they want the rest of their lives to look like. We had about 150 letters and we are writing back to each one of them giving them support, answers to questions, and scriptures to hold on to. They were so happy to get their letters back! We still have about 60 letters left to finish and give back to them on Tuesday, our last day at Salesian.
The boys term ends April 24th and they have exams most of the week next week so we only have one more day with them all. Its sad and we wonder "did we do enough" and all that, but God is bringing myself, Davie, and Blair a peace of mind through it all. We presented truth, answered many big questions, and did all we could with the time God has given us. It is up to them now to change their lives and their country. Prayer support will be all we can give to them now. Our friend Daniel, a youth pastor from the Congo, will be continuing a bible study with the lunch classes we have on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I know He will continue to do amazing work with them!
So yeah, that's about it with the boys school, our main focus of ministry. We still have a few things we will be doing. We will still visit patients at Hope House, go to some care points, and speak in some churches as we end our time here. Saying many goodbyes will be tough, but we know that God has them in His hands which is the most comfort we can have! We will be taking a week to have debrief as a team in South Africa. So much has happened this year and we are going to take some time as a team to ponder it all, praise God, and prepare to come home! I leave Swazi May 12th to go to Johannesburg, SA then start flying home May 13th!
I really look forward to seeing you all in May! I will try and post some pictures of Swaziland soon. The internet is pretty slow here and it takes a lot of time to post them, sorry. I hope this has encouraged you somehow. Love you all and may God bless!
Thank you so much for all of your prayers, encouragement, and support! The Lord has really been working here and providing all the resources and wisdom we have needed so far. He has given us protection against the enemy that has been really trying to get us down and attack us in different ways, but faith in the Lord has brought us through so many victories!
So the last blog was asking for prayer about the boys school, and man have your prayers been working! God has been allowing us to do so much at this school. We get together to pray and plan everyday for the school. We have 6 classes of 30-35 students a week in classrooms plus 2 voluntary classes for the boys we don't get to visit in their classes. The voluntary classes have been a huge success! The school headmaster has allowed us to use the auditorium for a lunch time class and on average we have about 80 boys from the ages of 13-19 come and participate. We started off talking a lot about HIV/AIDS and sexual temptations. Sex and Lust are a HUGE problem here in Swaziland. These boys are surrounded by it constantly with a culture telling them to sleep around at any age and with as many as you want(ex. the King has 13 wives). Porn and masturbation are accepted a lot and they have the mindset that if they wear a condom they will be protected from everything. The billboard signs say to "Trust Condoms" and "Condoms, where the fun is at!".
So in the classes we have been discussing these issuses and clearing up any confusion. Seeing that these boys already know a lot about HIV and that just going in and telling them to abstain until marriage just isnt going to work. Many people have come into Swaziland doing abstenance programs for a week or so and behavior in Swazi just isn't changing. After talking to many locals and students we know that the boys have to have a new system to overcome this war of AIDS, and that new system is Christ! The past couple of weeks we have been speaking a lot about the Holy Spirit; what it means to have the power of the Spirit, how we accept it, how can it help us overcome this, how to pray and walk in relationship with the Lord, and then how it has helped us in our own lives. The boys have been responding very well! They ask really good questions and many of them have shown interest in learning more and wanting to follow God! Naturally, some boys just laugh and shun us, but we use that as motivation to keep trying to pour into them. It is sometimes difficult to see the boys laugh at AIDS when we have had friends we visit at Hope House and friends back in South Africa who have died from it. God is definitely testing our patience, love, and devotion to His people, and we love being tested because we become stronger through each testing of faith! I also thank God constantly for providing such Godly fellowship on my team to pray with and pursue God together! It has been such a blessing and learning experience to live with and minister with my brothers and sisters from all over the US and Canada.
Some of the boys have shown interest in being tested for HIV and we have been praying about it and talking with some local nurses about helping us with that. Laws in Swazi say that any child under 18 must have parental consent to be tested. So we talked with the parents of the school this morning, about 250 parents showed up, and we presented the idea. We explained how we were going to go about the testing, the counseling if they are positive or negative, how and who will continue on discipling them after we go back to home to the States. The parents asked some good questions and ultimately approved for us to do the testing! There has been a few local youth pastors that have been coming to our sessions at lunch, listening in and we have gotten permission for them and a couple boys we have been discipling outside of school to continue a bible study during lunch after we leave! So it is so nice and comforting to know that even after we leave that there will be Godly men continuing to disciple the boys at the Salesian! It is not us doing the work anyway, it's God, so if God wants to use other people to continue His work here, that's fine by me, as long as He is continued to be glorified here I will find comfort in God's promise to be faithful to HIS people! It has just been such a blessing and honor to be able to start His work at Salesian.
Some other news that I am so excited about and seeking God's guidance for is a calling to come back in November and serve in Zimbabwe alongside some Zim friends I made while I was in Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa. I went back to SA last week for a week to pray and plan with them. It was so amazing to see how God had given us the same vision and scriptual basis for this trip! I had emailed my friend Trinos Moyo who is the leader at Ithemba about praying to see if God would want Him and I to take a 4-5 month trip to Zim to deliver food, medical supplies, and water purification tablets to the people within the church there. We would be "inspiring and motivating" the followers of Christ and reward their faithfullness during this hard time in their economic situation. By taking care of the people within the church we know that the nonbelievers will know God's disciples by how they love each other! Trinos also expressed a calling to help do some marketing for some of the local artists to other countries and provide a career for them. Their is a 90% unemployment rate in Zimbabwe right now. Many other people that are members at Ithemba and from Zimbabwe have shown interest in doing this too. They have many connections with churches there and with some of the village chiefs to allow us to stay there and minister in different churches and villages. I am so excited to see how God works this out, brings glory to His name, and how His Kingdom is given power! Please pray with me about this mission from God for a clearer vision and for financial support.
Sorry this has been so long, but I hope that hearing of how God is working here encourages you all back home! I only have a month and a half left here, which is sad, but also exciting to come home and catch up with all my friends and family in Christ! I truly miss you all and think of you everyday. Please keep a peaceful mind by having a true faith that gives us confidence that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us and spread the love that is so graciously given to us all in abundance!
We miss and love all of you very much and are looking ahead to when we are together again.
As for the here and now The Lord is calling on us few for a great and unique purpose.
Four of the Guys on the our Swazi team were given permission by a local
priest last Monday to come into the
local boys high school (Salesian High School) and preach/teach for
eight different class periods every
week until we leave! This is a phenomenal opportunity and the Lord is
leading the way. He has already been preparing us and is providing for
us information, community support and resources
to pour into our planning time. We are all very focused on this
opportunity and while we are now beginning to see the magnitude and
challenge before us we have been assured that our Lord is going ahead
of us and we are eager to go with Him.
Upon receiving the invitation we began to plan and schedule almost
immediately but there remained a sense that we actually still had not
received permission and blessing from the Lord to go ahead with this
ministry into the school, valuable as it seemed. We conversed over
Saul's impatient mistakes and King David's faithfulness in inquiring of
the Lord while making descisions. (1st Chronicles 14:9-11)
We then took the time to pray and also asked a leader and friend from
last semester, who is now in Canada, to pray about it and let us know
if the Lord had spoken anything to her. She was not given any
information or any update whatsoever as to the inquiry or the
situation other than
"maybe pray for the boys school and see what ya get."
The reply is as follows: Prayed for 'the boys school' and got a strange reply from the Lord..
well, hopefully only strange to me. Simple really, it began with Him
emphatically saying 'YES' and then He added later, 'move ahead'.. Hope
that means something to you.
We will be moving ahead, totally on
faith that God will use us to build a gospel based boys leadership
program. Stressing the urgency of the Aids crisis, gender roles,
responsibility, discipleship and the freedom available from the cycles
of temptation, sin and death through a deeper faith with Jesus Christ. Its about fellowship.
They
need to know Jesus is more than just a superficial, intellectual recognition of
heaven and hell. They say the gospel in Africa is a mile wide and an
inch thick. Very shallow.
They will decide its future, and they must know the facts about this this fallen world.
Swaziland is the most "Christianized' nation
in the world and it will be the next to disappear.
How can this be??
The Population in 2006
was about 1.1 million only last year in 2008 it sat just over 900,000
and know that there are many, many people being born every single day.
We need the Holy Spirit's Power and Presence. In us, in the class, in the boys lives.
His Conviction and His Redemtion. Freedom from the enemy, harmfull culture, hopelessness.
His Guidance and Encouragement. Renewal, Rebirth, Revival.
We as a Church can choose to come together on this now. We need your prayers.
Use post its. Reminders. Tell everyone you know. I would encourage you to copy this link and send it to someone.
Pray for the boys to be open with us, for relationship to grow, for
the light of the Gospel as the only true salvation for this country and
for their very own souls. Pray for our lesson planning.
Pray for Delivery, leading and for great zeal in seeking a holiness and fellowship with our God as we walk this new path with Him.
Hey everybody! I finally made it to Swaziland on January 7th. It has been very interesting and intense since we got here. The Swazi people are extremely friendly, loving,and respectful. I know that they will teach me a lot and I pray that God will continue to use me here to show them a love from Christ as I serve here in different ministry sites. I don't have much time to use internet here, but I will try and tell you all as much as I can.
The past couple of weeks we have been visiting many different ministry sites that we will be able to serve at in the next 4 months. So far we have visited carepoints around Swaziland where kids that don't have family or enough money to eat come and get a meal of rice and beans. We sit with them and love on them, talk with them, play with them, hold them, diciple them and they teach us so much too. We visited a couple hospitals here in Manzini and talked with some kids and families there. We visit a place called the Hope House for termanily ill people(mostly AIDS and TB) and sit with them and talk, teach them, they teach us, learn SiSwati(the language here), and pray with them. We visited a home for abandoned children and played with them. We visited some homes for street kids where they are given a home and enough money to go to school and then taught a skill such as woodworking, welding, basket weaving, honey making, and car repair to start there own small business, It's an awesome ministry that this Irish guy started here. Me and some of the guys on my team visited a prison to see how we could serve there, we will be preaching there once a week, playing music for them, and finding some bibles for them to read. The Chaplain there said they dont have any bibles so we are using some of our ministry money to buy some SiSwati bibles for them. He said that the bibles they had in the past were stolen or had pages ripped out of them, but we thought if they want to read the bible that bad to rip pages from them and steal them thats fine by us, we will get them more bibles to steal and read at home haha. The last place was the St. Josephs school for the disabled where disabled kids come and live and go to school, learn skills to be able to take care of themselves when they grow up, and go through phyiscal therapy. That's about all the ministry opportunies we have had so far, but i am going to be focusing on a carepoint near our house, the Hope House, Prison ministry, and the St. Josephs school for the disabled. I will be dicipling a couple boys at the carepoint one on one and teach them how to follow Christ with their life. Many Swazi people believe in God, know about Jesus, and confess that they are Christian, but they incorporate a lot of witchcraft and cultural traditions that contradict the bible. So we won't be preaching the gospel so much as dicipling them and helping them follow God completely!
I am so excited about working at these ministries full time now that i know where exactly God has called me to work here. I am also very concerned for the people here. The statistics for this country are astounding and heart-breaking. The life expectancy is at 28 years, the AIDs rate is at over 40% and rising, in the past 3 years 250,000 more people have died than been born bringing the population from 1.2 million to 950,000, 56% of kids can't go to school because they can't afford the school fees, 40% unemployment rate, and the country is supposed to be wiped out by AIDs by 2025 if something doesn't change. Dicipling these kids is our best chance of helping them save their people. I was talking with a local pastor and he said he has to hire people who arent even pastors to do funerals for him because there are too many people dying in his area. This country is really struggling and God has to change their hearts completely. Please pray for us as we bring Christ's love, truth, and hope to them with pure hearts.
I love and appreciate you all and look forward to seeing u all in May. Thank you again to all my supporters, God is really working here through your gracious giving. I will try to write about what all I have been personally learning here(which is a lot and life-changing) and then update you on how the ministries are going and what God is doing through that. Again I am so thankful for you all and feel completely blessed in my life, God is good and may he be glorified and honored. Peace and Love.
Wow, there is so much I could say, but I dont think I can express everything through words. I want to apologize to everyone for not being very consistent with this blog. I have had a lot on my mind and been pretty busy here. The ministry at the Ithemba has been productive, confusing, heartbreaking, but mostly awesome. I learn more every day and try to use each opportunity to love and learn. I found out that from January 6th- May 15th I will be in Swaziland doing some intense ministry within this troubled Kingdom. So knowing that I have been excited about this amazing opportunity and extremely sad leaving the friends I have made here and the kids I work with everyday. I wanna talk about the Ithemba though cause that's mostly what I have been doing.
The Ithemba has been amazing. The kids there are a tough crowd. They have almost no discipline at all. They are very defensive and violent, but thats all they see. My job is just to be an example to them and try to show them what a man is supposed to be according to God's teachings. Since they can't understand me speaking most of the time all I can do is just love them how Jesus loved and loves. I am able to communicate some hrough body language, my tone, and just trying to play with them and speak to them. All of our kids speak Xhosa (it's pronounced like this, "Xh" which is a click in the back of the mouth with a lil spit and then somehow say "osa" along with the click haha) and they love it when I try to speak there language. One of the girls gave me a Xhosa name so the kids call me Luvuyo now. Luvuyo means person that brings you joy or happiness. So that was very encouraging and nice to have.
There are 4 women that work at the ithemba all the time. I have gotten pretty close to them and hate to leave them. I sit and croquet with them sometimes and talk, its always an interesting conversation. Three of them have HIV and we arent sure about the other. Three of them also get beat by their husbands that take the $120 US dollars they make a month and get drunk with it. Fishing is a big industry here on the coast and the fisherman are all on strike, which has been causing a lot of riots, killings, and theft . There is one woman that I am really gona struggle leaving, her name is Lusunda. We work together teaching the 6-9 year olds math and english everyday. I got to go help build her new shack. I loved helping her but hated it at the same time because the materials they use to build these shacks are almost useless. The week after we put it together it rained real hard here and leaked all in her house. I hated building it with those materials because I knew that particle board for walls will leak. She just makes no money at all and her husband is on strike with the fisherman. Lusunda is a very strong woman who is raising her 6 year old son named Iya (he also comes to the ithemba all day with Lusunda.) The ithemba has a church service for the communities on sunday mornings that she sings at. I have been playing in the worship band on sundays there too. I love playing the african worship songs, they are so simple and passionate. We all dance a lot there too! Thinking of Lusunda kept me up the other night until like 2. I just hate leaving her in a worse situation than when I got here. I know that it is not I that does the work, but our Father in heaven. So all I can do is just pray for her really. Please pray for strength for Lusunda and for her son Iya, and that her husband would get his head on straight. I have talked to her husband, but he is very good at hiding what is really going on.
I have a few friends here from Zimbabwe and they have been talking about all the economic problems and asking for prayer for their family and for their "people". Hearing it all and the hopeless state they are in breaks my heart.
Seeing all this corruption here in J-bay and hearing what is going on in other countries really angers me and gets me thinking on what we can do to help. The reality is that I cant fix anything, God will use me to fix what He wants fixed. When I looked at the kids the other day after talking to Trinos (a guy from Zimbabwe) about the problems going on, I saw a solution or a strategy if you want to call it that. Loving these kids with God's love can change the future. I believe whole-heartedly in the power of God's love. It can't be a love out of obedience though, it has to be God's love pouring out of me. I am learning to do that and live off of His spirit, because my flesh is weak but the spirit is strong.
I put a few photos up on my blog page if you wanna check that out. I put a picture of a boy named Coco on there. We go by and pick him up everyday and bring him to the Ithemba. He lives in a small shack with his alcoholic father. We try and give Coco a bath and clean his clothes once or twice a week. He doesn't know how to do anything because he is always on his own and only 5 years old. The kids make fun of him a lot because he always smells so bad. He used to cry when I gave him a bath, but he has warmed up to me now. He sat in my lap at church on Sunday. I am having a hard time leaving these kids knowing they are gona have a lot of hardships as they grow up. So all I could do for Coco as he sat in my lap for the last time, was pray for him. Prayer is really all I can do for them as I leave. I have loved and taught them as much as I could, but it will have to be God that really changes their life around. I know that God loves them just as much as anyone else and He will be faithful to that. Please pray for Coco and many other kids just like him at the IThemba.
This week we are going by and speaking to the women at the IThemba at their houses. This will be my last week working with the Ithemba. Next week is our last week before christmas break. My whole team will be going to St. Francis Bay for debrief of this semester and saying goodbye to a lot of teammates as I go to Swaziland until May. I will miss my friends and family this Christmas. I pray for you all. I love you and would love to hear from you if you could send me and email. I do not have much time to respond though. When I am in Swaziland, I won't be able to talk hardly at all, the internet is next to nothing there. Peace and Love with Christ our Father.
Wow God is so faithful! Last week was such an amazing experience and answer to all of our prayers. Beat the Drum was so powerful. It's a one week program in which we go around showing a movie called "Beat the Drum" and then talk in the schools, clinics, and prisons about it. Its all about HIV/AIDS awareness and living a pure life. The government allowed us to speak in the schools so we weren't technically allowed to talk about God, but we did haha. We all trained for 2 days in a small town called Summerset East. It's about a 3 hour drive north from Jeffrey's Bay. It had been arranged for myself and a friend named Siabonga, a South African, to stay with a single elderly woman named Rose Daniels for 2 nights at the beginning of the week. When I first walked in she said very sternly "I asked for no white people, you won't think my house is good enough." She was referring to me because Siabonga is black. I just smiled and said no it's a great house and expressed my gratitude for her allowing me to stay in her house for free. Then she asked if we were Catholic and we both responded no. Her being born and raised catholic she didn't seem too excited about us being there. By then I am a little nervous, but we kept faith that this is where we were supposed to be and just responded with love. After talking to her more she warmed us to us and asked if we wanted if we wanted tea or coffee. We sat and talked to her. After briefly introducing ourselves, she told us everything about her and the town. I swear she talked for 2 hours straight haha. There is definitely a lot of racism still, she referred to everyone she talked about by their race, whether they were white, black, or colored(mixed). I got very excited about ministering to her throughout our stay. We just kept talking about our ministries and our hearts towards it. She seemed very surprised and curious. God worked in her life throughout the next couple days opening her mind about races working together through me and a black working together. Every conversation with her was very interesting for sure. I left for 5 days then stayed with her one more night at the end of Beat the Drum week. I came back later in the week and talked about how Beat the Drum went for me and all that God did through that. She was amazed and said that she learned a lot from me and asked me to pray for her. That was really cool to see the change of heart in her. Grandma Rose was definitely a blessing.
After the training I went with a smaller team of 12 to an even smaller town called Pearston. Its a farming town of about 1500 people. We prayed continuously for the spirit to move in the town and for the devil's hold on their mindset to be broken so that the truth would set them free; and it sure did!
When we first arrived in Pearston we all prayer-walked the whole town and there was such a hopeless feeling around. The people were very welcoming and really interested in why were there though. We were the first missionaries to go to that town and the first Americans they had ever seen too. It was a huge honor and blessing to be God's hands and feet! It was also amazing to have a like-minded team to work with. My teammates were all so helpful and we all worked with the guidance of the spirit and with the authority of the spirit. The first night we showed the movie beat the drum in the town hall for anyone to come and watch. We had about 200-250 people come and the room was packed out. We all explained why we were there and how we wanted to share some truth with them throughout the week. They all responded with great appreciation and interest.
The next couple days we showed the movie in the middle and high school. We introduced ourselves and gave an intro of what we were going to be speaking about. The students were very excited to hear what we had to say but they were very opinionated in how they saw love and sex. They all thought there was no way to show a girl or boy you loved them without having sex with them. When we separated the guys and girls, we asked the guys what makes a man a real man. A lot of them answered saying "it depends on how many girls you sleep with." It's the same way in the states in a sense of impressing the other guys, but in South Africa that's really what makes a man "a man." It was heart breaking but also hopeful because we could see God working in their hearts as He spoke through us. We spoke about respect, true love, lust vs. attraction, masturbation, and selfish desires. When we spoke to them, we really didn't have what we were going to speak about planned. God really spoke through us and we were able to present some truths that they needed to hear. We didn't know exactly what they didn't know and what they needed to know so we just let God speak through us. Which is what needs to happen in all instances of our lives. God always knows what people need to hear. We just have to be his shining light, and what an honor that is!
We played an HIV/AIDS video in the clinic and police station and God moved through that too. People were motivated and scared of the facts about how the HIV disease is passed on. We encouraged them all to get tested. We weren't able to have a testing time set up for the town, but our team in the nearby town had a testing station where hundreds showed up. Many people found freedom in knowing their status and committed to abstain from then on!
The last night in Pearston we had a big youth rally. About 250-300 kids from ages 10-19 showed up. I led worship for them and that was a really passionate time for them to express their thankfulness to God for bringing truth into their lives that week. After that we split up all the guys and girls again. A few of us shared testimonies and spoke. After that we drew a line in the dirt and asked them to cross the line representing them coming home to Jesus. As they stepped on the line they had to confess their sins before all the guys they live with in the town. We wanted them to do this so they could practice courage. They all crossed the line! It was so intense! So many guys promising the other guys they wouldn't be seen at the tavern anymore drinking and sleeping around. One boy in particular stood there and pointed out his friend. As he pointed at his friend, another boy got in the way. He boldly said "no, that one. I will never drink with you anymore and will not sleep around with girls for money. God has changed me and I'm going home!" He turned around and gave me a hug and we prayed with all the guys who made commitments to follow God and live out the truth that was presented that week. The truth truly set them free!
The final morning, 8 people from our team left and 4 of us stayed. We prayer walked the town one last time and planted a seed in front of the school symbolizing the seeds that God had planted in their hearts and the growth that the spirit would feed into them. We prayed over that too. One thing that just brought tears to my eyes was when a boy that was at the youth rally the night before yelled at us from a distance and started running down this dirt road to me. He slowed down as he approached me and took off his torn up hat. He already had tears in his eyes as he started speaking to me. He said " thank you for telling us the truth, please don't stop what you are doing and don' get tired." That blew me away for him to have the courage to run up to us and that he encouraged us to keep doing this. That was such a strong motivation and answer to prayer that God would work in Pearston that week. God was truly faithful to that town and to our prayers. Thank you for praying with me this past week. I love you all. Please continue to pray that God would keep speaking to them after we left and that the students would keep courage to live out the commitments they made to each other. They can change their community and start a revolution. We gave them material to study and we hope that they will hold on to that and live that out.
I will update again next week. I will talk more about what God has been teaching me and what all is happening at the Ithemba family support center! I love you all.
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Hey everybody, this is my first blog. Im sorry it has taken a month to get started. We have had a pretty busy and constantly changing schedule. I will be posting new updates every week (hopefully haha). First of all i just want to thank all my supporters who were willing to give and join in this ministry with me. So much has happened and I know God has so much more to come!
Before I even got to Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa (which is where im staying until december 19th) I was able to speak with a south african phycologist on the plane. He was really interested in what I was doing here in Africa. I explained it all and my heart towards it all and some scripture to back up my reasoning. We also got into conversations about how love perfects all and lots of deep stuff. I ended finding out he was muslim, which was quite a surprise after all he allowed me to say about christianity. This woman who was on the other side of him on the plane came up to me after the flight with a lot of excitement and said she was a missionary in Port Elizabeth for 14 years and she was so happy because she said what was discussed really got through to that man because I hit a lot of big points and, that whatever the purpose God has for me being here that could have been it. It was really cool. I really felt the Lord guiding my thoughts and speech. So that was definitely cool to be able to be used by God before I got into my official "ministry time".
I could talk about all the interesting cultural stuff and cool stuff we have seen but thats not why im here. Im here to serve God and His people. So just to keep me focused I want to talk about the ministry we are doing here. If you are curious about anything else just shoot me an email at RyanJCarmichael@gmail.com. I will be able to respond to you through email, and would love to talk to you all individually and here how you all are doing too!
I got assigned my ministry location which will be working in a type of safety house for kids. Its called ITHEMBA which means "hope". These kids go through so much at young ages, such as; disregard from their parents, no schooling, rape from friends and family, beat for new things and small amounts of money, and into drugs(glue, gasoline, and alcoholics at young ages). The Ithemba is a place where the kids can come and we watch over, feed, and teach them. I am teaching 5-9 year olds math, english, and just started teaching a couple of them music. They are naturally talented and desire to learn music but they dont have the opportunity to learn anywhere else so they love learning how to play guitar and a little music theory. Its also a great time to talk to some of the kids one on one instead of being in a big room with kids running around everywhere haha. I have already been discouraged a little by the feeling of just babysitting the kids, but I have been encouraged by my leaders that by being the only male working at the Ithemba, I have an opportunity to be a huge example of a good fatherly figure and Jesus to them. Most of the fathers/men here are fishermen and come home and drink every night and abuse the kids and women so they dont have a good image of what a Godly man looks like. Its difficult and need your prayers for patience and persistence with the kids so I am able to represent Christ at all times. They wear me out a lot. Right when you walk in, they come and literally climb up on you, sometimes 3-4 at a time haha. I consider it a huge blessing though that God allows me to be used for the benefit of His kingdom.
This Friday we will be leaving to go work with an organization called "Beat the Drum". My whole team will be going to that with some other ministries around the area talking in the schools and prisons about AIDS awareness. The other day I was asked to go to another smaller rural village separate of my team and work there with beat the drum. I am very excited about that. I get to stay with a rural family and minister to them and then work within a smaller area with some African missionaries instead of my AIM team. I feel as though I will need to/ learn to rely on Gods guidance more and become closer with some of the other Africans. We will be there for 8 days then come back and I will come back to the Ithemba. There is a lot of racism there so please pray that we will be able to break that mindset. There will only be myself and one other american working in this town.
I have been learning so much lately. Learning what I am not and what is not mine. My home is in Christ. He is my present and future. By committing to follow Him I give up all of myself; body, mind, and soul. "Blessed are the Pure in Heart, for they shall see God." Matthew 5:8. When all of myself is given up and I come to God with a Pure Heart, He is with me and with all of us when we do this. This has helped my prayer life so much and helped me be able to listen to the spirit at all times and not just when I sit down and pray for advice when I feel as though I cant handle a situation. I can actually pray to God and speak to Him. I am so excited about practicing this and solidifying this in my life in the next 7 months. I praise God that His promises are eternally true and that we can always depend on Him. The closer we draw to Him the more he reveals Himself, and it never ends!
I love you all and would love to hear from everyone. So please comment or email me sometime!
*I cant take any pictures in the townships or of the kids just yet. I will try to post some pictures of where I am working and with whom soon.
