Thank you Father for Your Guidance
Friends and Family,
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!
With love and desire to see you all soon,
Ryan Carmichael/ Vuyo
