Rememories

Tomorrow will be my last full day in Africa for a couple months. It's one of those happy/sad moments when you realize you're about to embark on a new journey but are stepping away from some wonderful friends and memories.

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I've been remembering some great (and not so great) memories from my last few months here in Africa. I remember hiking to the top of St. Elsie's Peak with the rest of the DTS students when we first got to Muizenberg, playing games with the kids in the township, going to watch a soccer match in Cape Town (and getting stuck in town at midnight because of bad information after the game), spending a day wandering around with an old friend from California, and swimming with penguins. I also remember the simpler times. Walking to the beach at night, sitting on a couch sipping tea and watching people go about their business, the half hour walk (and therefore half hour conversations) to the township and back every week, the different speakers who took time out of their busy schedules to come minister to us each week, Thursday night worship at the various buildings we occupied, piling couches and mattresses into the classroom and watching movies at night on the weekends, praying and worshiping on the roof, the trips around the block that my accountability group would make every Wednesday morning. It's been an incredible 3 months and I wouldn't trade one moment for anything. I've learned so much and have so much to learn. I can safely say that these past few months have opened my eyes, but did they change my life? I'd like to say yes but only a mixture of time and my actions will show the truth.

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Something I've been realizing lately is how other countries feel about the Gospel. I think there's this stigma in America that is there's resistance then a country must be ''closed'' or against Christianity. Since I've been here in Africa I've met some incredible people that have been opening my eyes. I met a man who left his home almost 2 decades ago and had been serving as a full-time missionary in China. I met a guy not much older than myself who has been serving God in Afghanistan for 8 years. I even met someone who has led teams of young adults into N Korea. All of this goes against what I'd heard while living my sheltered American life.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..."

-Jesus

Car loans, Gatsby's, and Afghanistan

It's been almost two weeks since I last posted, I apologize for anyone that was absolutely dying to read my updates. I'd say it won't happen again but realistically it will happen a lot more frequently in the next few months (keep reading and you'll find out why). I've been in an uninspired mood lately and have had no desire to write anything relevant. Today is different though.

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So, my last post mentioned that I was still in need of almost $1,000 to finish paying for my outreach fees. God totally provided and everything is covered and paid for! I'm still praying about money for bills while I'm away but thats another topic haha.

This may have been the greatest testimony of money coming out of nowhere to pay for this trip. In August of 2008 I sold a car to a family I know with the agreement that they'd pay it off as they had the money. They ended up unemployed 2 weeks later. We talked it over and agreed that they'd continue paying as soon as they could. They repaid the last $555 last week, the timing could not have been more perfect!

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Lunch on the weekends is the African equivalent to Top Ramen around here. Sometimes I eat it, sometimes I find new foods to try. This has become one of my favorites. It's called a Gatsby, and it's the biggest sandwich I've ever seen. It's enough to feed 3 starving men though it usually fills 4 people up just fine. At the price of R75 ($12), the price is just right when split between a couple people. They're usually filled with chips (french fries), lettuce, sauce of your choosing, and a main item. This one was chips and calamari and it took Ben and I two meals to finish it.

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Our speaker this week was a guy from Afghanistan. God called him there 9 years ago, when he was 18. It was a privilege to hear his stories of faith and inspiration directly from the mission field. We shared our classroom with another DTS (Discipleship Training School) from Worcester, South Africa and despite being a bit more crowded than usual, it was fantastic. I also met a girl from Placerville (about 45 minutes from my California home) who was one of the Worcester students! It's amazing how small the world gets when you step away from what you know.

Our team bought our airline tickets early this past week, so assuming our visa's come in on time (they will!) this next week is my last week in Africa for a few months. We had a slight change of plans for our stop on Ranike. We're joining up with a prayer team from the Norway that is already established in that area. They lead prayer hikes throughout a bunch of tiny Himalayan villages, so we're probably going to end up going on an 8 day journey in the foothills of some of the tallest mountains in the world. It's going to be an amazing stop on our trip!

Because of the amount of traveling we'll be doing and the areas we're planning on visiting, I won't be bringing my laptop with me. Except for our time hiking, we're expecting to be relatively close to internet cafe's the majority of the time. One of my teammates is bringing a computer along and we'll all have cameras so there will be plenty of pictures posted sometime in June! Updates from now on will be less frequent but I plan on being to post occasionally, we'll see how it works out...

India Update

I stumbled across this great quote the other day on somebodies Facebook wall. I can't remember the source and Google wasn't very useful, so the author is unknown for the time being. I'm absolutely enthralled with this quote right now, I honestly think this fits so many people. How many of us will strive to reach that though?

"The world will know when I achieve my potential, the ripples

of my existence will outlive many generations."

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This mustache is incredible.

I was looking for a picture on Google and randomly came across this glorious mustachioed Indian man. Someday I'd like to shake his hand and thank him for achieving his mustache potential.

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This evening we received some confirmation about places we'll be staying and helping with in India, so I thought I'd share it with everybody!

We'll be leaving South Africa on March 28th and arriving in Coimbatore, India shortly after that. The plan is to stay there and help with the work in the slums and townships for 3 weeks. There is a lot of poverty in Coimbatore, we'll be helping out wherever we can and in whatever capacity we are able to.

From Coimbatore we'll head south to Trivandrum (the most Southern YWAM base in India). In Trivandrum we'll be working with churches and camps in the area. We'll be teaching classes similar to what we've held during our DTS.

After Trivandrum we'll head to the Northern part of India to a town called Ranike. In Ranike we'll be helping restore old classrooms and working within 3 different areas around Ranike. We'll be doing a lot of strategic praying throughout this area and again, helping wherever necessary and loving people.

We'll fly from India back to SA in the beginning of June, spend a week debriefing with the other outreach teams, and then I fly back to California!

I would love to give you more details, but this is all of it. We're open to whatever God has for us and going wherever He leads. These are places that He put on our hearts and doors that were opened, so this is our plan.

I'm still praying for God to provide another $950 in the next couple days. Every dollar counts, if you're interested in contributing please use the "Donate" button on the left side of the page. I'd appreciate prayer support as well as ideas on ways to raise money over here. There's two other members on my team that are trying to raise more financial support, please be praying for them also!

Stories of faith

I think South Africa has some pretty sweet money. I'd say it's the coolest ever, but I really don't have much to compare it to.

South African currency is called a Rand. The conversion rate constantly changes but it's roughly 7 Rand for every 1 US Dollar right now. So, $7.50 would get you that R50 with the awesome lion's head on it over there to the right. -->

During a time of prayer for the DTS (Discipleship Training School) students tonight, we were asked to write down how much money we were still waiting for God to provide for our outreach fees (which are due on March 10th).

Out of the 27 students we still need R95,000, or $13,500.

I personally still need R7,500 to pay for the rest of my outreach to India. That's a little over $1,000. I love seeing God work and move and I was so encouraged to see how many different people that God used to provide for my ticket to India. I'd like to share a few testimonies about different people God used recently.

• $10 received from a Dutch friend. I've never met this guy in real life (we've only had a connection online). He's also an unemployed college student. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that we don't believe in the same God, but he still believes in seeing the world changed and improved.

• $4 from a friend in the Mid-West. I stayed with this friend and her husband for a few days last year and was blessed to have met them and enjoyed their company. This friend has ongoing health issues and they continue to pay her hospital bills using only the husbands income because she can't work. They later sent another $20!

• $100 received from a family on the East Coast. I lived with this amazing family for a few months in 2009. One day at work I was given an old box of books. I picked one out and then passed it on to them. It was filled with Bibles and old Christian books from an estate sale. One day, one of them picked a Bible out of the box, flipped it open, and found a $100 bill! They passed it along a few weeks ago, what a blessing!
  

The list could go on and on, but these are some of my favorites. Each donation is a blessing in it's own right. It's someone taking a minute to pass something on, it's another person partnering with the ministry God is using me for right now. It's a step of faith and an act of giving.

I've really been dwelling on Hebrews 11 lately about the great cloud of witnesses (I'd encourage everyone to re-read it , click here). I love all the stories of faith, but I think my favorite part lately has been the first few words of verse 38...the world was not worthy of them. I want to have faith like that.