A Challenge for American Christian Males.

In staff meeting today a statistic was mentioned that blew me away. The statistic along with a few others led me to write this entry.
First, the statistics.
Last year’s intern class had 11 people in it, 10 girls and 1 guy. My intern class this year has 10 people in it, 7 girls and 3 guys.
Thrive has a summer internship that lasts for two months that currently has eight accepted applicants.
All eight are women. (Note that only 12 total will be accepted.)

Notice a pattern anyone?

We have to face up to the fact that American males are being shamed by their female counterparts in terms of willingness to go to the mission field. I had this same discussion earlier this fall with a missionary from a different organization. His outlook was even more negative. He said something to the tune of “American males are going to be called to account for their unwillingness to go.”
This is not just one ministry’s problem; this is a missions problem.

My goal with this entry is not to speculate why females are embarrassing males in missions participation. My goal is to put a challenge out there to my American Christian male counterparts.

Here it is:
If you are an American, Christian Male and you aren’t involved with missions in some way you are doing something wrong. You are either ignoring God’s call on your life or you are simply making yourself too busy to hear something from God.

Let me elaborate. I am not saying that you must pack up tomorrow and join me in Africa. I am not saying you are a terrible person if you have never thought of missions before. And I am most certainly not saying that you’re a bad Christian if you have not done anything with missions before.

I learned about the different roles in missions a few weeks ago. There are many ways to get involved. You can pray for missionaries. You can support missionaries financially (a heartfelt thanks to the many males who have done both these things for me.) You can mobilize others to go to the mission field. You can do missions/ministry in America. And most obviously you can go yourself.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. You don’t just pray or write a check and then act like you’re off the hook. God calls everyone to constant missions involvement (if you doubt me check out the Great Commission, Matthew 28:16-20). God is likely calling you to something more radical than you could even imagine.

Do not feel like I am trying to guilt-trip anyone towards going overseas. That is not my intention. My purpose is to highlight the fact that guys are woefully under-represented on the mission-field. You should not go to the mission field out of guilt but it is good idea to think about stepping out of the box and trying to equalize the ratio a bit more.

If you add the three statistics from the beginning of my entry, men are outnumbered 29 to 4. Men make up less than 15% of the missionaries in these three groups. Imagine for a second if they were equal 50/50. That would mean 25 more missionaries out on the field, doing God’s work.


Jesus says the harvest is great but the workers are few. Do you want to change that guys?

Text of my newsletter email update.

Hi everyone. Here is the text of my email newsletter for you to enjoy.
If you want it via email just let me know.

February 15th, 2008

Dear Friends, Family and Supporters,

Greetings from beautiful South Africa! I have arrived safely and I am greatly enjoying this beautiful country. While I am happy to hear that people are enjoying my blog and pictures I am excited to give you all this update on what I am doing.
After a week of orientation, I have begun to settle into the schedule here. The bulk of our schedule is taken up by classes. Usually taught in the mornings, I am taking six different classes for the current term. These include a leadership lab, Introduction to World Missions, and a Sesotho language lab. The most interesting (and busiest) of the classes is the International School of Ministry class that goes over every facet of Christianity. It meets four times a week and for good reason; at the end of the year we will receive an Associates’ degree with its successful completion. While the homework is starting to build up, I am greatly enjoying the classes and I am learning a lot.
Another aspect of my internship is behind-the-scenes work helping out Thrive staff with their ministry work two days a week. I have been placed within the LaunchPad department with a specific focus on outreach. I will help facilitate the many mission teams that we host here. The first team comes in two weeks!
Ministry activities have been the most challenging, but also the most rewarding times so far. The first thing we did was two days of relationship evangelism in the local township of Intabazwe. This entailed visiting people’s homes, getting to know them and sharing the gospel. While very foreign and uncomfortable for me at first, it worked quite well in the relational society here and I learned a great deal about the culture. I have also started teaching a LaunchPad class once a week at a school in Qwa Qwa. The class I am co-teaching with a fellow intern is called “Christ in You” and goes in-depth about how we live our lives after becoming Christians. It is being attended by twelve eager high-school students and I am praying for even greater attendance.
Lastly, the fellow interns and I get to go to a local orphanage each week called Hope House. There we teach the kids (ranging in age from newborn to 16) a Bible lesson, as well as play games and just love them. One of the kids, named Lindo, was probably the unhappiest kid I had ever seen when we arrived last week. I tried valiantly for twenty minutes to get him to crack a smile but to no avail. Finally when the craft started, I got him to giggle and we began to play fight with the paper bag puppets we had made. Once he got outside to the playground he was all smiles. Seeing him again on Friday was the highlight of my week. A picture of Lindo and I is below.
I cannot tell you how amazing it is to be here. It is already getting busy and tiring but every moment is new and exciting and I am building friendships with the other interns that I hope will last a lifetime. Thrive Africa is doing amazing work in this corner of Africa and it is a great privilege to be a part of it this year. Thank you so much for your prayer and support. In the last two weeks I have received close to $1500 dollars to allow me to make my February deadline. I now only have $1000 more to raise by March 15th. Thank you so much for your prayer and support. I would not be here without it.

May God Bless you richly in the next month,

Matt Peirce
Twenty4seven Intern with Thrive Africa
www.thriveafrica.org
blog: http://mattinsouthafrica.blogspot.com

What am I actually doing here?

So my apologies for having no blog entries in over a week. I got a 24-hour bug this past Monday and while it was fairly miserable I think it's pretty much gone from my system now. To make up for it, by Saturday I hope to have my newsletter out and an additional blog entry to this one. Enjoy.

I made the title of this entry much more provocative then it will actually be but hopefully even more people will be enticed to read it now.

So what is my day-to-day like here? Am I just climbing mountains, running over beautiful terrain, and learning that a Lechwe is actually an animal and has absolutely nothing to do with milk?

Fortunately this is not the case.

Here's what a typical week looks like for me right now.


Monday mornings we either have a big staff meeting from 8-10 or classes till lunch around noonish. After lunch we usually have behind the scenes work which entails helping out in a specific department of the ministry here. I'm in the Launchpad department with a specific focus on outreach. When we host missions teams I will be making sure they have everything in their cabins that they need. Right now I'm doing a lot of binding, collating and data entry for various classes and curriculum that Thrive has. Its a good learning experience doing a lot of office work.

Tuesday we have intern devotions from 8:30 to 9:30 as a team which is nice. The rest of the day for me involves behind-the-scenes work, no classes. Oh, we also finish everyday at 5PM so I have time to run before dinner at 6:30 which is nice.

Wednesday we have corporate prayer with the staff, then classes till Lunch. After lunch I go into Qwa Qwa with my fellow intern Kaylen and we teach a LaunchPad class. Teaching is not the easiest but it is very satisfying. We have a good group of High school age students who are eager to learn about God and the Bible.

Thursday we have team devotions and then classes till lunch. After lunch we go into Harrismith. This is a fun time where we get to enjoy the town which is pretty nice. We also buy anything we need and go to the local supermarket called Spar. We cook all our own meals on the weekends as well as make our own breakfasts. It has been interesting and somewhat fun planning and helping cook for 10 people. Thursday night we have our church service with staff. We do some singing and then usually Niel (co founder and director of Thrive) preaches.

Friday we have classes all morning but after that we get to go to Hope House in the afternoon where we just have a blast with the kids. Tons of fun.

Weekends are mostly free to do our homework and sleep in, besides the occasional outing which is fun. We do not have church on sunday mornings because after a week of waking up before 8am and going till it gets dark having the two days to sleep in are pretty essential for us all. Not the most traditional but it works well for the staff and us here.

So thats what I'm doing here. A great mix of classes/learning, ministry and work.
Thank you so much for your support and prayers. They mean the world to me.

Stay tuned for the newsletter and blessings.

Random

Greetings from South Africa!
So things are slowly starting to normalize with our schedule here. Classes are causing homework and I have been busy with various office work and ministry activity. I want to give a more detailed look at what a week here is like for me but I'm going to wait till next week to do that. My monthly email newsletter will be coming out in the next two weeks as well. If you want it in your email just let me know via matt.peirce@gmail.com
Otherwise i will post the text of it on this blog.

For now a few random details will have to suffice.

1) Finances. God is providing greatly as I close the gap for my tuition. In the last week over $1000 has come in! I have well over 5,000 dollars now and only need a bit over $1000 to cover the full cost of my year here. Praise God! I still need more but have no doubt that he will provide it. My last payment is due march 15th. If you wish to give please let me know and I will give you all the necessary information.

2) Prayer
Each Wed. morning we have corporate prayer with the staff. It is done "African" Style. That is all-together as the spirit leads you.
The first week was nerve-wracking as I had very little idea how to do this and I did not want to come off as doing something "wrong". The last two weeks have been much different though.
I have truely gotten into the prayer, being honest, truthful and emotional as I almost never am during prayer. God is working richly during these times and Im so thankful for them.
Thank you all for your prayers of support, they are invaluable and amazing.

3)Yesterday.
Yesterday I took part in a Leadership Summit/Launchpad celebration/advertisement at the school in Qwa Qwa. We got to spend the morning organizing games for 600+ students at the Botisbelo Secondary school. Then the fellow interns and I did a skit advertising Leadership Summit and Launchpad for each separate class. We did the skit 12 times. Fun stuff. It was great hanging with all the students and pray that they will decide to attend Thrive's awesome programs.
After the morning we went to Hope House, an orphanage in Harrismith, for the first of what will be weekly visits. The kids range in age from new born to teenagers and are all incredible. Being able to play, teach, and love these kids each week will be a highlight of my time here.

4) photos.
My apologies for having no pictures on this actual blog. South African internet is tolerable but slower then American broadband and uploading photos on here takes too long. I have been posting photos on facebook so please check out there. If your not on the facebook network and want photos, let me know and I can probably email you some.


Thank you so much for your prayers and support and stay tuned for a full update on my responsibilities and activities here as well as my newsletter.

Relying on God/Relationship Evangelism

My internship is less than 2 weeks old and I have already come to what I find to be a
profound lesson. It is this: When one is doing full-time ministry or Christian work, relying on God becomes a moment-by moment experience.

This is as opposed to when a person is just living in their ordinary go-to-work life. This past fall when I was at home merely working and raising money, relying on God was very much in the background. I would read the Bible and pray before I went to bed but rarely extended my religious devotion beyond these simple acts. Life was very much just doing what I wanted without much concern or thought to its overall value or importance.

Being in South Africa, learning about Christianity and doing ministry work daily, God has very much moved back to where he should be in my life: the forefront. It is impossible to make it through a day without relying wholly on God and his sustaining
spirit.

Just getting up in the morning is cause enough now to give a passionate prayer to God, thanking him for the day and asking for strength to do what he wants me to. Throughout the day, I am constantly reminded to take a step back, breathe deeply and seek God’s presence. Without God I realize I would be utterly incompetent in this entire endeavor. Ultimately, to do ministry (at least fulfilling, worthwhile ministry) is to be completely subject to God and his will.

If I sound holier than thou don’t worry, I am still as sinful as ever. I fall short in many ways and am continuously reminded how unworthy I am of the many blessings God has bestowed on me in my life. It’s funny, that in a way, God uses my shortcomings as a reminder that without him I would be an angry, failed mess.

The last two days we were given the experience of doing relationship evangelism which is what most short-term teams do when they come here for their trips. What it consists of is going into a local township and meeting with people, getting to know them, and hopefully sharing the gospel. While this is very bad strategy in America, in Basotho culture it works quite well because they are very hospitable and relational. I was still nervous as anything before we started. It just goes against my grain to walk into a person’s home with the express purpose of telling them about Jesus. It took tons of prayer on my part just to walk into the first house with some confidence. However soon I had unwittingly engaged a man in explaining (through broken English) the history of his home country, Malawi. God was at work.
Throughout the last two days I was praying constantly for wisdom, boldness and love. God answered richly as I learned so much and seeds were planted through of God’s love.

First thing I learned was that poor people are human too. This sounds strange but it is true. When you look down the streets where we were you just see poverty, at least at first. However, after playing with the children, sitting in their houses, helping with their dishes, and talking with them, you see how they are not so different from us. Their house may just be simple concrete and brick with a tin-metal roof but it is really a home. They have the same chores as us, the same worries as us and the same desires as all of humanity. It was great to get to know the people here and enjoy their company.

Our last visit today was with a sangoma, or witch-doctor. She was very nice but also quite adamant about her beliefs. She was smart as well, arguing that most of her beliefs concerning ancestors were merely a part of her culture and not a hindrance to a full relationship with God. We had an intense two hour-plus conversation and it was literally exhausting. Relying on God was a necessity as it was often impossible to come up with the right words to say.

Our time in town is now over; all we can do now is pray. I pray that those who read this in America who are not in full time ministry will overcome the busyness of their lives to garner a realization that what we need is full reliance on God whether or not we are in ministry.

To encourage you in this here are some of the people I met over the last few days that you can join me in prayer for.
Bolando, the cute little baby who seemed sick, that he would grow up healthy and in knowledge of the God who loves him.
Sizwe and his family, who opened our house to us and even though they have belief in God seem as if they are unable to fully appreciate God’s love for them.
Finally Joyce, the sangoma, who was so nice to us, but was so defensive as well. Praise God that she puts God first, but pray that she can be freed from her allegiances to other powers of this world.

Without reliance on God, any freedom we have can be considered an illusion.
May God Bless you until my next entry.