Monday, May 26, 2008

Making Americans Into Soccer Fans


So one of the things I really like here is that soccer is on TV quite a bit. Tons of English league games that I never get to see in America are on live most weekends. (The season recently ended but it starts up again in August.)
Unfortunately most of my fellow interns are American and therefore do not enjoy soccer. It can often be a battle to get the TV for a couple hours on a weekend afternoon.

So this brings me to last Tuesday when I was having devos with my team (we have devos twice a week). The subject of team time came up and I said I couldn't do anything on wed. night because I was watching the UEFA Champions League Final, a very, very big game. Before I could breath the others said "lets make that team time. Soon there were tons of plans to pick teams, dress up etc. etc. I happened to have a jersey of chelseas, one of the teams playing and who i liked, so i wore that. But as you can see by the picture we went all out.

Watching the game was fantastic fun. It went to penalties and people were talking and having fun the whole time. When goals were scored we celebrated like mad.

So that was a good time in South Africa.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

More than Safe...

Recent headlines about South Africa have not been very encouraging. Stories about violence, xenophobia, and army involvement have probably left many Americans feeling at the very least a bit concerned about South Africa as a nation.

I would like to assure everyone that we here at Thrive Africa are quite safe. Living on a remote game reserve 3 hours from major cities does have its advantages. The violence is fairly contained to poor township areas around Johannesburg and is rooted in complicated issues of poverty and immigration. South Africans do not hate foreigners in a xenophobic sense at all. I personally was in Qwa qwa just the other day and it was as safe and calm as it always is. I plan to return next week with no fear in my mind. South Africa needs prayer (as does every country) but it is by no means falling into anarchy.

In fact we at Thrive are more than safe here in South Africa, we are blessed.
We are blessed to teach LaunchPad classes that disciple youth in seven locations. We are blessed to take part in an amazing Leadership Summit program that helps students at six different schools in Qwa qwa. We are blessed to facilitate mission teams from America that do ministry house to house and village to village passionately and effectively.

Most of all we are blessed by a God who has given us the opportunity to have an eternal impact in a place where no one else is ministering. My prayer is that no one who is committed to coming to Thrive this summer will be persuaded to stay at home because of the headlines on CNN. God is going to do great and amazing things this summer. Come be a part!

Monday, May 19, 2008

The Logistics of Growth

I had a little reminder of what growth takes this morning. I'm talking about ministry growth not personal growth.

I am in the LaunchPad department here, which is the after school Bible classes that are taught each week in Churches and schools in Qwa-qwa. Right now we have 7 classes in 7 locations with an average attendance between 15-50+. The current term is about to end with a new term starting in August.

A goal the ministry has is to get more Leadership Summit (Thrive's abstinence and leadership course) students to come to LaunchPad. If we meet our goal this would mean 50-100 more students in each class next term. This growth which would be a blessing, also brings tremendous logistical concern.

With more students, we need to figure out how to make the most of each location. How do we organize the game, how do we break up the lesson? How do we do it all in the 90 minutes that we have? Most crucially we need more people. More interns, more staff, more interpreters. Without the workers their can be no harvest.

I saw these issues come up at my camp last summer. I skipped the summer of 06, but between 05 and 07 my camp experienced tremendous growth. We went from having 125-150 kids be a good week to having over 200 as the norm. This brought with it many blessings but many issues too. Most pertinently the staff seemed more stressed more often because simply put there was just more kids. Office work became more of a challenge because there was simply more paper and computer work to do. I do not think we were understaffed we were simply trying to adjust to more people to deal with.

Growth by every measure is a blessing, but a blessing that brings many challenges. The long-term goal of Thrive is to have LaunchPad classes throughout Qwa-qwa (keep in mind an area of 1.8 million people is not small). Thrive wants to have Leadership summit in every school.
The devil certainly does not want this. But can you imagine? Bible teaching and leadership development classes throughout a township where no other outside ministry currently is working. An entire township revolutionized by the godly generation of leaders that it is producing. A country (South Africa) and region (sub-Saharan Africa)changed because of leaders from Qwa-qwa.

This honestly wasn't a fundraising pitch but now that I'm at this point I'll put it out there. Thrive Africa has been slowly growing for ten years. It appears to me that huge and radical growth will happen in just the next year or so. Will you consider giving now at this critical time to impact Africa in a lasting and meaningful way? Thrive will one day be throughout the whole of Qwa-qwa. Will you be able to say that you helped bring this about?

Thanks for reading, blessings.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Running in the Morning

I ran in the early morning here and it was a good enough experience to share with all who read this.

I woke at 6:45 AM this morning to get a run in. I had been running in the afternoons off and on here but days are getting short (remember winter is almost here) and getting done in the morning is the best way. 6 minutes after rolling out of bed I was off. I was surprised at how loose my legs felt, usually running right after waking up, they feel tight and tired.

It was a bit chilly but the sun had risen and was quite brillant in the east. It was quiet and I like quiet. Being a runner I generally like to be alone in my thoughts when I run. Even the simple distraction of a car going by can be annoying. Being on a game reserve in the early morning hours is probably one of the most serene places I have ever run. I have had similiarly peaceful runs in a few other places but here you have a view for miles and miles. If you have the means, I highly reccomend coming here to visit. It is stunningly beautiful.

The only thing out to bug me were animals and they were hardly a nuisance. There were tons by the main road into the reserve and I caused a few small stampedes as the herds of Blesbok and Lechwe sought to keep their distance from me. It's always cool to see the animals. Its a good reminder I am not in America but Africa.

I hope to do early morning runs twice a week. I love the feeling of being in shape and running here is quite nice. I am considering running a marathon in January 2009 in order to qualify for Boston in April 2009. I have plenty of time to get in shape here so we'll see what happens.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Random

So its been a while since an entry so I wanted to sum up a few things.

Ircus!

We went to a South African Circus on Tuesday night. While it was only one ring/tent, it was extremely entertaining. The misspelling above is because of a busted light in the sign at the entrance. Their were lions and tigers, acrobats and even quite funny clowns. Its always nice to get off the base but the circus was a special treat. Fun times!

Weather


My mom said people ask her what the weather is like here. Here are some highlights.
It's getting colder but the sun is usually out during the day so that keeps you warm. Often during the afternoons its quite warm outside. At night it gets quite cold but for the past couple weeks its been pretty mild. Sometimes the weather does get very very cold though. On sunday we had rain and clouds 90% of the day and we even had a fierce hail storm for a few minutes, pretty exciting. It'll get a lot colder sooner but we have already had a very small bit of snow. The mountains around Qwa Qwa had snow on their peaks for a few days a couple weeks ago.

Computer

My computer came back but it needs vista installed back on it to work properly. I return to America in a few weeks so I fix it then. Once I have a computer, things will be a lot better.

Praying for the world.

I'm a bit of a geography geek and a while back the other interns got into my head the idea of making a country list to pray for it intrigued me. It took me a while but I finally made the list a few days ago.

Heres how it works.
Each intern gets 20-22 countries. They were divided randomly and everyone has at least one country from each continent.
Its completly optional but I encouraged everyone to learn a little bit about each country and pray for at least one a night.

Heres the awesome part. If we pray for all 20 in a month we will have literally prayed for the entire world. Pretty cool? I thought so too.

LaunchPad and Hopehouse continue to be a joy and Im so happy to be here. Thanks for your prayers.