Closing out a year but starting anew

I am very happy to be writing this from my own living room in my house in America.

I have made it safely back to America and my internship is officially over.

While my travels were long they were safe and (besides a little turbulence) very uneventful. Thank you for your prayers everyone.

This will be the last entry of my blog. I feel like I need to sum things up and I'm not sure how. I would recommend taking a glance of previous entries. They highlight different events, activities, and thoughts that were in my head during my year away.

I guess I'll sum it up like this: I have always wanted to go to Africa and God gave me the opportunity to go there for a whole year. He allowed me to hear about a great ministry called Thrive Africa and gave me the motivation to apply for the internship. He gave me classes, teaching and friends I'll never forget over there. South Africa is a beautiful country with beautiful people and I won't soon forget it. Thrive is doing great things and I look forward to staying in touch with the people I met there long into the future.

Here is the most significant thing that happened this year to me. God gave me clarity on what I probably want to do with the rest of my life. I think it'll involve teaching and atheists which has led me to my next immediate step in the land of the Czechs. But long term there are atheists everywhere and you can teach anywhere. But I want to be very clear about this: without my intern year in South Africa I would be at best an ineffective missionary and at worse, not a missionary at all. This year was exactly what I needed and God had it all figured out. He is truly a good and faithful king.

With the idea of starting the rest of my life I would love to have any and all my blog readers partner with me in my journey to the Czech Republic. If you have facebook I started a group, join it for the latest updates and ways to help. Also if you are confused why I am going to Europe go to my brand new blog dedicated to my next year. You can find it at mattpeirce.wordpress.org

Thank you all again for reading this. Stay Blessed.

Last Entry From Inside Africa

I hop on a plane in less than 24 hours to go back home. My year-long internship with Thrive is at a close. It's hard to believe that my 10 months here are at a close. It's been an amazing year and I am so thankful I've had the opportunity to come and learn and grow and especially to get clarity on what I am doing next. While it'll be weird I'm happy to return to the states and enjoy some "home culture" for the next months.

I'll write a final entry when I arrive home safely in a couple days to officially close out this blog and point you in the direction of my new one (stay tuned).

South Africa is a beautiful country with incredible landscapes and people. It was a blessing every time I ran on our base and every time I got to meet a new person. While I am not returning to Africa for long-term work (at least at the moment) I will never forget it.

Cape Town-Touristy Things

Here is a brief recap of some of the many touristy things I did while in Cape Town

1) Saw Robben Island. Very cool and historical but was done too quickly and was not able to explore at all myself. Saw Mandela's cell and very glad I went.

2) Went to Ratanga Junction, South Africa's amusement park. It was tons of fun with a couple decent roller coasters and fun rides.

3) Went to Cape point the unofficial southern-most point of the African Continent. It was beautiful. I hiked a bit and saw baboons. It was very very cool.

4) We got to hang out and shop and the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront which is tourist central in Cape Town. Right on the water with tons of shops, a huge mall and plenty of entertainment. Pretty cool.

It was a really good trip and a great way to end the year. Stay tuned for my last entry in South Africa tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

I'll get back to Cape Town tomorrow but I wanted to highlight yesterday a bit.

I think this was my first thanksgiving without any immediate family members. A little different but it was very nice. We had over 20 people, including staff, interns, Neil and Alece's friends (two families with 5 kids-aged 6 months to 5 years-between them), and Neil's mom. It was quite fun. We had good food including turkey and mashed potatoes but also with a dish you can only get in Africa, Lechwe (it was tasty by the way).
One highlight was Alece had a thanks wall where you could take a sticky note and write what you were thankful for. At one point it got a little out of hand and the wall was covered with sticky notes but it was fun. Neil's were pretty funny but also delightfully inappropriate so if you want to know what he said you have to ask.

I wanted to write about the holiday because I really only have a couple days left in Africa and after a year of many big get-togethers this is going to be the last one. It's a little weird too because 7 (yes SEVEN) of my fellow interns are coming back and they realize that while they are done being interns they will be back within 2-6 months. I won't be. I know I would not enjoy or be effective as staff here but its still weird with all the returnees.
In the end, It was great getting to know everyone here and having the community I did. I will certainly miss it.

Cape Town Continued

We left for Cape Town at 5am and arrived in Cape Town around 8pm that evening. A lovely 13 hour trip in the car. The only thing to say about the journey is how remarkably empty the country seemed to be. We drove pass miles of mostly empty countryside with little more than grass, bushes and mountains in the distance. Very pretty but not very exciting.

Once in Cape Town we drove down the peninsula a bit until we were just outside Simon's Town, the South African Navy Headquarters. We stayed in a very nice rental house that was on a hillside above the ocean. This is where we had sessions and had some of our meals. It was beautiful. Running during the week was awesome. Not only did I see a new environment, I was running at sea level which left my lungs feeling very good.

One of the first big touristy things we did was take the cable car up Table mountain which is right in the middle of Cape Town. It was amazingly beautiful on top. I got to hike a little bit and see great views of Robben Island and the city below. The cable car itself is a very quick ride but very cool. It has a rotating bottom so you can see all the different views from it. Very cool.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Back from Cape Town

I made it back from Cape Town safely. Now it's really the homestretch only a few days to hangout, do thanksgiving,pack, and head to the airport on Monday.

Our trip, while visiting many tourist highlights in Cape Town, was done under the guise of a debriefing trip. We had a number of sessions where we got advice and tips from Neil and Alece about transitioning back home and making wise choices in the future. We also got to ask them any questions we had about the ministry and life and anything else you can imagine.

This was a really awesome way to end the year. It certainly brought a measure of closure to the experience, a fact that will need to really sink in once I get home.

Over the next few days stay tuned to more blog entries as I continue to write about all the stuff I did in Cape Town and finally end my blog when I arrive safely home.

"Czeching" in.

So I have a lot I could blog about but I'm going to Cape Town for debriefing for the next week. Pray for safety. When I return hopefully I'll be able to put some final entries in that sufficiently conclude this blog and this year.

In any case I wanted to tell any and all that I will be home in America from December until Julyish. I will then be going to the Czech Republic to teach for a year with the agency teachoverseas.org. I'm really excited about living there and going on to the next thing God has for me. If you have any questions please email me about it or otherwise stay tuned for more news and information.

I'll be back online November 25th. Be Blessed.

Last Week

Our internet was out for 4+ days. Sorry for the delay. Stay tuned for another entry before I leave for Cape Town on Monday!

Last week we had six South Africans visit us on the base. They were part of their own ministry and were here to learn and be trained in what Leadership Summit was about. They were busy in classes most of the time but we did get to eat meals with them and they said two things I want to highlight.
First they said to just about everyone they saw that they could tell the ministry here was run with excellence which is uncommon in Africa. This was a big deal because while excellence is one of the core values at Thrive it’s not that often you hear it recognized by people who actually live here.
Second one guy made the point that if we tried teaching our curriculum by ourselves that is, without Basotho coaches the students simply wouldn’t get it. I had not thought of that in the 9 previous months I’ve been here but it rang true. The curriculum Thrive makes and teaches is just so radical for these kids that if someone from their own culture doesn’t explain it, it won’t sink in.
A lot of ministries that seek to build up nationals into leadership are overly hesitant in letting the nationals actually take those positions. They wait so long for the nationals to be “ready” that it just doesn’t happen. Thrive is being bold in utilizing coaches and having Basothos be on their staff when their ministry is still so young. But their vision is to build up leaders and while Thrive may not be huge just yet it is accomplishing just that exact vision. It’s not always easy to put so much faith and training in nationals so quick and Thrive I’m sure has had (and will continue to have) its up and downs with training Basothos but they are being effective and doing God’s work and that is the ultimate goal.

LaunchPad Graduations Term 2

We had a second term of LaunchPad come to an end yesterday with a very festive graduation celebration. It was really fun and a more than suitable way to say goodbye to Qwa Qwa for the year.


Arriving early, we found a lot of our students dancing with a boom-box in the classroom. It never ceases to amaze me how African youth can dance and sing so easily and so well. It was a lot of fun to watch them do their thing.
Once the ceremony started it just got better. We sang and prayed, listened to some awesome testimonies about stuff the students learned (being in relationship with God and him being by our side was a common theme), and than handed out certificates. We then took pictures and had some soda and snacks.
Since it was a less formal schedule this week we got to take lots of pictures with the students and talk with them a bit. It was great to see how excited they were and to just spend time with them.
To sum it up when we left most of the students came up and gave us all a hug. It didn't matter how much we had talked to them or not, we were their teachers and they truly appreciated us.

I will never forget how kind the Basotho people are. It was a great graduation.

Fun with Thabang

This last friday we had our third to last visit to Hope House. It's weird to think that I'm not going to see these kiddies again (for a very long time at least). In any case just because the year is almost over doesn't mean I can't keep learning new things about the kiddies. For instance, this week I learned that Thabang LOVES to hit me with a fake plastic cricket bat. Can you see how happy he is? Fun times.

Back home soon...

On this day next month I will be in America. That is all...

What its all about.

I taught the last class of my LaunchPad term yesterday. It's hard to believe only graduation is left but I wanted to share what happened yesterday because it was awesome.

I have taught the course Ordinary Day with Jesus with my fellow interns Kaylen and Katie and a staff member here, Cassie. The course teaches students how to live in Jesus' name and to experience God in every moment of their days and lives.
A few weeks ago I realized that after learning all this it would not be effective if the students did not have a chance to accept Christ. How can you live in Jesus' name if your not a christian? I asked Cassie and the others if it would be OK if after the last lesson we could share the gospel and give them an opportunity to live their life for Jesus. Of course, they agreed and as we decided roles for the lesson I was given the role to share the gospel.

For the week before the lesson I was excited but very nervous. I had shared the gospel and talked about Christianity a decent amount in my life but never in a class setting and I had never done a real "alter call" talk before. I prayed a crazy amount about it.
During the class while I waited for the girls to go through their teaching I appeared so agitated Kaylen asked "are you mad at me?" When I said no she asked asked, "Are you mad at someone?" It was kind of funny because I can't really express how I felt but I knew I couldn't go up with a scowl on my face. So I took a deep breath and went and let the truth speak.

I shared the Gospel and when I gave the kids a chance to choose to follow Christ around 10 kids raised their hands (I didn't take an exact count but there were about 20 kids total there that day.) I led them in a prayer and that was what happened.

It often is easy for me to be cynical about things like group salvations but with this situation I have no doubt about the student's sincerity. I have been able to teach these kids for 10 weeks and to see them excited to soak in everything we have been teaching. The kids who raised their hands were ready and understood what they were doing.

Reflecting on the whole situation I realize that this is what its all about. It's not about me growing, or learning, or even enjoying myself. It is about God being glorified by bringing people to himself. I had nothing to do with this term of LaunchPad, it was all God. I was just blessed to experience and see it as it happened.

Amen.

Staying Sharp

God has a funny sense of humor.

For example, in my experience whenever I start thinking that the task is done or the hard work is behind me, a new challenge or task pops up.
I remember when I was a counselor at my summer camp in the summer of 2004. It was my first summer as a head counselor and by the last week I was ready to go into cruise control to finish up. The last week I had a camper with ADD, glasses and hearing aids. Needless to say my last week was as busy and challenging as the rest.

In regards to this year I have done a lot. Specifically I have helped bind and collate thousands of curriculum for ministry programs. I will admit entering the last few months it has been tempting to look past all that is left to do and think about the end of this year. Its not as if I am homesick or I think it will be easy to return home from here but the thoughts and conversations come up. And then God enters the picture.

Last week we learned that the printer who did our Summit Curriculum for this year in America would not be doing it for 2009. Therefore we have to print everything on the base and collate and bind them ourselves. 5,000 copies, 74 pages.
We started this week and it should go quicker since all the interns are taking part. While it was a bit of a surprise I don't begrudge it. I'm still an intern and there is still really important things to do here.

In any case this task is a nice reminder that God, not myself, is in control.

Discovering Podcasts

Before coming to South Africa and meeting the interns I had no idea what podcasts really were. Sure I had heard the term but had never bothered to look into them or what they were. When I get here I find out that many of my fellow interns uses podcasts to download sermons and many other things. Moreover, ALL podcasts are FREE.

I had no idea that such a great source of information on Itunes was free. I was mildly interested but my laptop was busted and the idea of downloading other church's services seemed a bit strange to me. Isn't one sermon a week enough? Why go searching for others?

My laptop returned fixed this month and than in a class I have here I learned that past interns here have used podcasts to download and listen to their own church's sermons every week. That idea intrigued me but I forgot about it until the evening. I was on my laptop about to look at podcasts when it hit me. I can get my own church's sermons!

A quick search confirmed they were there and I quickly subscribed and downloaded the most recent sermon. My church is doing a series on the fruit of the spirit. Not only was the sermon good but it was just great to hear my own pastor's voice again.
I'm headed home soon but it is very comforting to know that no matter where I am I can stay in touch with my home church in the future.

In Durban

Hi everyone.

I just got back from a long weekend in Durban, one of South Africa's major cities. On the Indian Ocean about 3 hours from Harrismith, it is a pretty amazing city. With a large population of Indian and Muslim people, the diversity is striking wherever you go.

On Thursday we were treated by Neil and Alece to a day at Ushaka Marine World, a pretty cool water park. It wasn't huge but the slides were lots of fun. I also got to swim in the Indian Ocean for the first time in my life.

The main reason we were there though is for the Global Leadership Summit, a Global conference hosted by the Willow Creek Association. Willow Creek is a megachurch in Chicago but it broadcasts the conference to many locations around the world including 3-4 in South Africa. The conference was in a very nice Family Church which was in view of the ocean. We got to hear 8 talks from esteemed Church pastors and leaders including Bill Hybels. The major focus was leadership and I learned a great deal. Conferences always have a way of supremely motivating you to get your act together and do great things. Now my trick is to put the many things I learned into action. The two-day conference was really great to experience by all accounts.

On Sunday we headed home but before we did that we got to hang out at a humongous mall in Durban. It had an arcade, small bowling alley, a multiplex, food court, IMAX theater, and tons of stores. I did not buy too much but I did catch a movie and enjoy myself immensely.

Thrive Africa treats us well here. I am very thankful for all Neil and Alece and the staff do for us. Taking us on this weekend is just the tip of the iceberg of the many ways they support us. It will not be easy to go home come the end of November.

Testimonies from Leadership Summit

You may recall that in July I bound 5,000 Leadership Summit books with five other interns. I also said that I would have an indirect impact, never seeing how the students lives were changed. However I got to hand out books to students last month which was awesome.
And now to top that, Jen, the Leadership Summit director here at Thrive, sent the other interns and I testimonies from students. Its only halfway through the term but some of these testimonies are amazing. Here are just a few:

Motaung Mabatho

Leadership Summit helped me a lot because I used to hang with friends who gave bad advises. Living on Purpose and Save Sex helped me because I was a person who did bad things. It taught me that at my young age I should not drink but to save sex until I marry or get married because I will live a safe life and will have kids. I must be a strong teenager and have respect. I want to thank LS for helping me to have a safe life and for your prayers.

Radebe Simangele

I realized that after using the Save Sex book my life changed emotionally, that I can make good decisions for my life and to wait to have sex before getting married. I’m still a virgin and am proud of that. To keep my virginity is to not get involved in relationships. I now know that having sex before marriage is a sin in the eyes of God. I can choose good friends and not use alcohol.

Nhlapo Mantombi

Since the class sessions of LS came to out school and taught us about many things, I know that now I have to save sex for marriage. I don’t have to have sex when I’m still not married. I learned that alcohol and drugs are not right because they will drive me to have sex even though I haven’t drank alcohol or have used drugs before, I know that if I have some I can not control myself if I drink or use drugs because some people might take advantage of me because I’m drunk. It has changed my life because I now will not go to parties, I will not have sex, I will not drink or do drugs. It has changed my life because now I live my life God’s way. I read the Bible and go to church. That’s what I learned from the class of LS and I have learned more than that, I’ve learned so many things.

Harrismith Mountain Race

This morning I took part in the Harrismith Mountain Race. I had been thinking about running this race since arriving here and to finally do it was very cool.

The race was 15k (9.3 miles). It starts in town and stays flat but than you literally climb up (almost 2000 ft. elevation gain) the mountain, run along the flat top for about a mile or so and then run down the mountain and return to where you started.

My goal was 90 minutes which I barely missed, running about 97 minutes and 30 seconds.
I stayed fairly in control the whole time, the distance was just far and the climb required too much walking.
Overall this really was a once in-a-lifetime opportunity and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I have to give props to the Thrive staff and Kaylen who cheered me on awesomely before and at the end of the race. Also props go to Shannon, Crystal, and Katie T. who decided to run the race on a whim and did so very successfully.

I'm pretty tired at the moment but very happy that I finished well.

Hospital Ministry

This past week on Wednesday afternoon I had the opportunity to visit Manapo Hospital in Qwa Qwa. Normally Thrive takes mission teams here but we got to go for the first time this week. It was so good I wanted to write about it.

First we went to the children's ward. The basic idea is you find a kid to talk to, introduce yourself and pray with them. I went up to a girl named Gladys (English Name) or Dimikatso (Sotho Name). While she had a very soft voice she spoke perfect English. She blew me away with her kindness. She got a kick out of my Sotho name, which is Tshepo (it means hope). We talked some and I prayed over her for healing and protection. Then I was able to give her a beanie baby (we had one for every kid). She loved it and I told her she should give it a name. She thought a minute and asked, "What is your sotho name again?" I told her and instantly she said "Yes, Tshepo, that's his name." She was a great little girl and it was a total pleasure to meet her.

After this me and the other men visited the men's ward. I met a man with a collapsed lung named Lazarus. He spoke great English as well. We had a great conversation about life and family and I was able to read some scripture and pray for him too. He was a cool guy and I think he was happy to have some company though he was definitely in some pain.

This whole year I have been amazed at the kindness of the Basotho people but Gladys totally blew me away. Hospital ministry lasted barely an hour but I left the building on a total high. Too often Christians talk about numbers at the expense of relationships. I know I only had a few minutes with two people but they were not idly spent. It was a total blessing to meet Gladys and Lazarus and my prayer is that God completely heals them and blesses them. I feel much more committed now to work at building relationships with my LaunchPad students because I only have so many more days here. God truly works through relationships more than probably anything else I feel.

So yah...my Laptop is fixed!

Pretty big news on the technology side of life. My laptop which I received as a gift last Christmas had been broken since the 1st week of March. After two trips to Joberg and trying to fix it when I was home in America it finally made it back to the base today!
It appears to be completely functional and I am very happy to tell you that I am writing this blog entry on my fixed Laptop!

Having it broken for so long was a challenge and I am not sure yet what lessons I have to learn from this but frankly at the moment I just want to be happy some and get set up again on my machine.

I have some blog entries to get written so here is the hopeful schedule for this weekend.

Friday: Hospital Ministry in Qwa Qwa.
Saturday: Recap of my Mountain Race Saturday morning in Harrismith.
Sunday: Testimonies from Leadership Summit Students

Stay tuned and enjoy!

Thabang and Hope House

So finally on my birthday my Hope House entry.

Thabang is the baby I have sort of developed a relationship with this year at the orphanage I visit every week. While we do a lot of stuff each week with teaching a lesson, reading stories, and leading crafts and games, we also do a lot of just loving the kids.
Out of 40 kids there are 4 babies including Thabang. With the babies, we hold them, play with them, and even a few times we got to feed them via a bottle which is fun. For whatever reason Thabang, a chubby, overactive, semi-asian baby took a liking to me. He is generally the one I gravitate to each week and he is always looking for me in order to be picked up.
That is the best part of being here for a year. You build a relationship with the people you meet. Every week I can say to the Hope House kids, "You be good, I'll see you next week." And I can expect Thabang to crawl across the room to come see me when I arrive at the orphanage.
But the best benefit is seeing Thabang literally grow up. He turned one this past spring and at that point he got around mainly through a ridiculous crawl motion that was part Rambo, and part I don't know how to crawl. About 2 months ago Thabang started to walk. A few weeks ago I pick him up and waved at him and he responds by saying bye bye. Pretty cool stuff.

At the end of the day isn't he just the cutest little baby you ever saw?

Been sick

So another roadblock came up that prevented me from blogging.
I got sick.

Last Tuesday I woke up with a random but fairly painful thing in my throat. The rest of my body felt fine for the next few days but my throat worsened and by Friday I had a crazy fever and headache. I'm not used to being sick for more than a couple days so I figured it would just go away on its own. After a miserable weekend I finally conceded I needed a doctor and off I went on Monday morning.

After waiting 30+ minutes for the doctor to see me he lay me down and determined that yes, in fact, my throat was very sore (don't you just love doctors?). In fact I had strep throat. Never had strep throat in my life but South Africa is a good place to get it I guess.

In any case he gave me 3 kinds of pills including penicillin and a mouth gargle to ease my throat. After popping pills all week I'm not completely back but feeling much better.

The worse part is I had to skip basically a whole week of training but not all is lost. There is still a lot of time till January.

OK seriously the next entry will be about Thabang. I'm finding it is hard to keep blog promises but we'll see what happens. Stay tuned...

A bit about some verses I like

The past week has been different because ideas for blogs have been lacking. I wrote 8 entries in August but only one so far in September. I'm not less busy and lots of cool stuff is happening, I just haven't had the inspiration. This one will be about a verse I like.

Being here and impacting the people through teaching and evangelism it's easy to forget that a huge part of this year is my own spiritual growth. Let me assure you; I have grown A LOT this year spiritually, emotionally and relationally. Recently I was led to some really amazing verses in Romans that I want to share. I hope they bless you like they have for me.

Romans 1:1-4

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.


It's really easy to skip the greeting part of the epistles in the New Testament. I glance at them and forget them all the time. But I looked at these a few days ago and was blown away.
For my money there is probably no better passage in the Bible that summarizes Christianity besides John 3:16 than this one. It simply covers everything.

Paul was called for the gospel. What is the gospel? It's what the the prophets (ie the Old Testament) promised. What did they promises? They promised a messiah, that is, God's Son. Who was God's son? His son was Jesus Christ. What was Jesus' nature? He was a descendant of David, that is, he was human. He was also the Son of God through the spirit of Holiness (I believe that means the Holy Spirit). How did he prove he was both God and man? He conquered death through the resurrection.
What is the result?

Jesus Christ is the Lord, the one true God who deserves nothing less than our unending love, devotion and adoration.

Christianity spelled out in 4 verses. Its not complicated or even hard. It's the ultimate truth that is at the center of our existence.

My prayer is that you, Christian or not, would embrace this truth today.

Hand-in-Hand

This past Thursday and Friday we got to do something for the first time in our internship. We got to help out with Hand-in-Hand, Thrive Africa's pastor training program. It generally manifests itself as conferences or seminars for African Pastors and their wives. We helped out by setting up and tearing down as well as helping hand out lunch (KFC!)and facilitating tea breaks. A few observations:

1:The conference was at Charles Mopeli Stadium, the major soccer stadium in Qwa Qwa (in one of the meeting rooms). It was fantastic to be in the stadium and see the field. Even better there was a full 8-lane track around the field. Very cool.

2:African Pastors know how to pray. When they got started it didn't matter I only know a few sentences in sesotho, I felt spiritual.

3: The conference as a whole went very well. The pastors were excited and were totally into the material. A pastor from Michigan and her friend came to speak about the importance of working as a team. It was really good. They even had gifts from America for all the pastors.

It was a nice change of pace and a very cool experience. Till my next entry.

A fun little anectdote to kick off marathon training.

I start officially training for my marathon this week so to commemorate such a special occasion I thought you might like this story that happened this past Friday.

Fridays have always been notoriously difficult days to run because my motivation just disappears. After a long hard week the last thing you want to do is wake up early and run AGAIN.
This Friday was especially bad. My alarm went off at 6:45AM and I had no intent to get up. 6 miles in chilly weather had no appeal. I quickly rationalized that I could run later in the afternoon and got back to falling asleep again.

Than I heard a knock.
I ignored it, assuming it wasn't for me.
It knocked again and so I decided to get up and see who it was.
I got up, pulled back the curtain, opened the door and to my surprise it was none other than: JESUS.

Just kidding. That would of been cool though.

It was an intern, Shannon, who wanted to see if Marc was awake to go running. He was out cold and I told her so and than shut the door. And then as I walked back to my bed I made a surprising decision: I decided to go run. I was already up and felt OK so I put on my running gear and went out.

One thing to add is I listened to my Ipod during my run, specifically to worship music. I hate headphones but running by myself can be hard and I wanted some motivation for it. I had managed to turn sleeping in for an hour into a worship session. I felt really good after my run. And I have Shannon, my angel of motivation, to thank.

I’m a Christian, and I’m a runner

Running is a significant part of my life. It’s significant enough that in a blog that is mostly about Christian stuff and working for Jesus I will include this entry all about running and my life. Some people think running is boring. To me it’s a part of my life that won’t go away until my legs do. When you really like something you can talk about it for hours but I’ll try to keep this entry shorter than that. No promises.

I started running the winter of my freshmen year of high school. I was a soccer player who played year-round and wasn’t good at any other team sport. My friends who were in the same boat went out for indoor track and so I followed them. I fell into distance running because nothing else seemed to be like something I would be decent at. My dad ran a lot when he was younger and so getting into the sport appealed to me as well. My second race I got put into the varsity mile for some reason and ran 5:23. Not a great time but for a freshmen I was like wow this is kind of fun and I was hooked.

I didn’t get serious about track till junior year when I finally broke 5 minutes in the mile and my teammates said I should do cross-country(XC) instead of soccer my senior year. I told them if I got cut from varsity soccer I would do XC. I got cut that fall and went out for the team. I had no idea what XC was about but I got 3rd overall in my second race. I was in the top 3 or 4 on my team that season. The 3 captains were all seniors and good friends of mine. It was a blast. I destroyed myself in workouts and we got 3rd in the league. After doing pretty decent in track I decided to run in college.

People always ask how much I run and usually I’m loathe to answer because it’s not a set distance and people generally freak out when I tell them. But for the sake of freaking people out here are some fun stats.
Most miles I ever ran in a month: 322
Most miles I ever ran in a week: over 80
Longest measured run I ever done without stopping: 16.25 miles
Miles I ran in the 2006 calendar year: 2,736

While my stats don’t approach the obsession of Olympians (where 100 miles a week is the norm,) they are a bit crazy. People say “I could never do that!” or “how do you do that?” It’s pretty simple really. I’m an athlete. I like doing athletic things. I’m not blessed with great skill or even talent (I was never close to qualifying for nationals) but I have a work ethic and ability to not get injured (knock on wood) that rivals most. Running is something I'm decent at and it gives me joy when I do it, even when it hurts.

I’m over a year out of college now and I run considerably less. I write this entry because I am running a marathon in January to qualify for Boston next April. I’m doing a plan that is much easier than college, because running here can be hard but I should in good shape by the new year.

Most people hate running as a dreaded obligation to be done to avoid being fat or out of shape. For me it’s simply part of my life whether I do it a lot or a little. I hope that everyone finds something (after they find Jesus) that gives them as much joy as running has for me.

I told you no promises.

Growth Spurt

This week we had our second class of LaunchPad where we handed out curriculum books to the students and taught Lesson 1 about living in Jesus' Name. We had the students break into small groups at the end of the lesson to discuss what they had learned (its a new inititive we are doing semester and a pretty cool one at that). Fun times.

The main thing I want to get across in this entry is growth.

We doubled our class size, having nearly 60 come after having just 30 the previous week. We are expecting growth this term and we are acting in faith about it too.
This week we brought a lot of extra paperwork and supplies for all the extra kids. I expected more but not a growth rate of 100%. We barely had enough books and pencils for everyone. I want 90 kids next week. I have no idea how many will come, but I'll tell you one thing, we'll be ready for them.

My next entry will be about running. I can just see the excitement on your faces. Stay tuned and be blessed.

Starting to Launch...Again

So finally an entry about LaunchPad. Term 2 started this week but there is more to the story.

A goal this year for Thrive is to connect students from Leadership summit,our school AIDS prevention program, with LaunchPads, our after school Bible Discipleship classes.
To reach this end we moved almost all our LaunchPad classes from churches to LS schools if they weren't already in a school. Another thing we did was have LaunchPad assemblies in schools the week before this one.
An assembly was basically a 45 minute presentation that the interns and I prepared for multiple schools to plug LaunchPad. We would go to a school, and if the time and space was available, hundreds of kids would stream out of classrooms to hear us speak. We played some games, did a skit, gave a brief lesson, and told kids all about LaunchPad.
The goal is to see rapid and continued growth in our LaunchPads.
While we were not able to do the full presentation at every school we went too, they were tremendously fun and we saw fruit from our labor this week.

My intro class was on Tuesday at Clubview intermediate school. I'm teaching the curriculum, Ordinary Day with Jesus, with two other interns. It goes over how to experience Jesus in the moments of our ordinary lives.
We had 29 kids this week but it was very encouraging. They seemed to really enjoy it and for many it was their first time at a LaunchPad.One girl even asked if she could bring her mom (its geared toward high schoolers, but all ages are welcome.)

Great things are going to happen over the next 10 weeks in LaunchPad and I look forward to telling you about them.

Surprisingly, another entry about Leadership Summit

I'm going to keep this short because of time but here it is.

So remember those 5000+ books I bound with 4 other interns? The books that I dutifully cut for three weeks, and placed in a box never to see again? The books that I had to have faith would get in the hands of young Basothos and change the course of their lives?

On Monday I had the opportunity to hand out books to school kids in Qwa Qwa.


The smiles, the excitement at holding up a brand-new full color book AND getting their picture taken was incredible. It was such a blessing to get to do this, especially after all the work we had done.

The Leadership Summit term has begun. Get pumped!

Worshipping Jesu Kreste

So I know this entry should be about LaunchPad but great things are happening so bear with me as the blog catches up to my life this week.

This weekend we had the amazing opportunity to go to Passion Johannesburg. Passion is a conference series that Louie Giglio and his Christian movement 268 generation started that is currently on a 17-stop world tour. So basically this was a one-in-a lifetime opportunity. Very briefly, these guys are about doing conferences to get university students around the globe. Louie gave some some amazing talks and we worshiped with 6,000 others in a giant room with Chris Tomlin and the band Fee. Pretty intense.

I want to talk about worship briefly. As most of you know I am not uber-spiritual and that affects my worship. I am very laid-back compared to most people when I worship. I rarely lift my arms, I don't like jumping, and dancing is not much my style either. I like a fast paced song as much as anyone, but I really like just quietly standing and absorbing the words of a good hymn. Be thou my vision is a personal favorite.

As you can imagine this conference was not that kind of worship. It was 6,000 mostly young, mostly crazy, young South African people wigging out for Jesus. And at first it was hard to get into it. I often feel like I need to get into a super spiritual state to enjoy worship. I over think it and get distracted and suddenly I'm just standing there saying words.

Hardly worship.

But yesterday I managed to in some small way let that go. Louie said a verse from Corinthians about being out of your mind for Jesus and thats what I had to do. I had to stop thinking. I had to stop thinking about the people around me. I had to stop trying to get spiritual and just shut my eyes and sing the words as loud as I possibly could. And soon the tears flowed.
I can't tell you if the tears came from God or if I'm just a weepy emotional person when worship happens, but frankly I don't care. I had stopped thinking and had started worshiping God.


I worshiped God.





HOLLA!

Speaking Up

Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words.

Forget that, its crap.

The first quote above you've probably heard a lot if your a Christian. Its from St. Francis of Assisi and is very memorable in terms of its depth and simplicity. The second quote is a very loose paraphrase from Niel, the guy who co-founded the ministry Thrive Africa (i.e. the one I'm with) with his now wife 10 years ago.

If he sees this and doesn't like it I'll take it down but I write those quotes because I really liked what he said. You know when you hear something that totally changes the way you think about something and you love it? That was what happened when I heard Niel speak. (For the record he said the above at Mabula when we were on safari.)

Let me be honest. All appearances to the contrary I am not the nicest guy in the world. I'm cynical, sarcastic and often overly-logical for most people. I'm often too honest with people and I tend to offend people a lot. I like people but I often forget that I'm friends with them in the heat of a good debate or argument. When I say a compliment or when I am just genuinely nice to someone that isn't me, its Jesus working through me. I say this to make the point, no matter how hard I try my actions will never be sufficient enough, by themselves, to share the gospel with someone.

On the other hand I have had a interest in apologetics since middle school when I found out that not everyone grew up in church and that many people thought what I believed was crap. I love discussing religious and controversial things. I've read the Bible 2.3 times at the moment. I pride myself on having some sort of answer for every question a skeptic can think of. I say all this to make the point, speaking about God and Christianity is the way that I share the gospel best.

I think too often Christians get blinded by this false idea that Christianity is about being really, really nice. Now disregarding the fact that one doesn't get to heaven by being super good, Christians are obsessed with always being perfect. While Jesus was turning over the tables in the temple, we live so as not to offend anyone. We do a bunch of token actions like go to church, give some money, buy Christian music, do a short-term trip and then tell no one about Jesus. Ever.

Now I'm not saying stop doing good things. Strong relationships are the key to effective evangelism and I'm learning and I'm growing in being nicer and less offensive while I'm here. What I am saying is we have to stop worrying about making sure everyone is happy when we are around and start telling them about the truth that is in us.

Is the Bible really the Word of God?
Is Christianity really the best way to live?
Is Jesus really the only way to heaven?


If so we better start preaching it.

Fueling an economy

So today I returned to Qwa Qwa for the first time in over two months. I want to talk about the assemblies we are doing but I'll wait till the end of week so I can give a broader picture. Now I want to discuss something about Leadership Summit that came to mind.

One of the distinctive things in my mind about Leadership Summit is that we use native Basothos from Qwa Qwa to teach the classes. We call them coaches and we recruit them, train them and grow them to be strong Christian teachers for the students. One of the things that hit me today though is that we also pay them. This may not seem like a big deal but in an area with over 80% unemployment and chronic poverty, job creation is huge.

Today during lunch we went to a coaches' house (named Alfred) for lunch (we had our own lunch he just offered us his home to enjoy for the hour). His house was very impressive if not for its size but for its niceness. A kitchen, living room, and 3 bedrooms. A bathroom and a sink with clean, running water. A refrigerator, freezer, TV and stereo. Not American but everything one needs. He lives with his two cousins, one of which has an incredibly cute baby. You could see that while they weren't excessively rich, they were doing far more than just scrapping by.

By paying its coaches, Leadership Summit is creating strong, local, Christian leaders who are economically independent. That is, Thrive Africa is fulfilling its vision.

Pretty inspiring stuff, if you ask me.

I saw Animals.

So I finally did it. I went on safari in Africa. It is trendy for mission teams to have a day off to do touristy things and Thrive sets up a one night, 2 game drive trip to a game reserve north of Jo-berg that is pretty sweet. Thrive trip just went and we got to join them.

I saw rhinos (uber cool), elephants, (took a long time to find them but cool), lions (not so cool because they hid in grass far away), african buffalo (funny because of the way the baby got milk from its mom), giraffes (cool), and many other cool animals.

One funny anecdote from the trip was there is a morning gamedrive at 630AM. We got up at 5:30 and since there was a coffee maker I had some coffee (Matt, the other intern with me had some tea) at 5:45 our game driver showed up with more hot water and tea so Matt and I had yet another hot beverage. We then hopped on a game drive landrover for the next 3 hours. For a while it was ok but by the last hour Matt and I were more than a bit uncomfortable. When we saw animals we didn't just get excited we almost let it go right in the car!

Needless to say, when we got back to the lodge we jumped out and booked it to the nearest urinal. I won't describe what happened in the bathroom but lets just say it was a nigh spiritual experience.

Oh did I mention the buffets? They are amazing. We had a dinner and a breakfast one and both were superb. If you have the means I highly recommend an African safari.

So now its back to work but it was a delightful 2 day mini-break. Peace

On Rest

So lately I being thinking about rest. Let's see if I can articulate my thoughts in a meaningful way.

The main question I have is where is the balance between doing the work you have and taking the time you need to rest?

Being here there is a lot to do. Generally Monday through Friday I am up by 8AM at the latest and I work or have things to do all day till dinner and sometimes after. I don't usually go to bed later than 11 or midnight but it is often a long day.

Obviously missions work is work and there are hard things and things that take a long time. But sometimes I feel like as Christians and missionaries we have to work that much harder. Isn't God calling us to more than the standard 9-5 job? But isn't also important to get the rest you need so burnout doesn't occur? I am here because many people have supported me with prayer and money. If I am lazy I am not just being stupid I am letting down my supporters in a way. Where's the line?

I'll be honest I sleep a lot. I was a distance runner in college and making sure I had enough energy for practice was paramount. I slept more than most of my classmates. I don't sleep as much as college but I'm always aware of how I'm feeling. If I need a nap I'll take it (time-permitting).

I bring this up because this weekend I get to go on safari for a couple days. Its going to be fun and given that over the last few weeks I have bound in the ballpark of about 6,000 curriculum for Thrive with 5 other interns I think I deserve it but thoughts do nag at times. Its almost like "I need to do more, before I can relax."

In conclusion I think God has me here to learn, grow and work. I have been doing all three. I can only do the work God has set before me no more, no less. If I don't get rest I will do the work in a sub-par way and everything here is based on excellence. May I encourage you to do the work set before you today. When you are done, take a nap, watch TV, chill with your family. Just do it all in the name of Jesus.

Peace and Blessings.

My Family

I feel like I have a lot of potential entries in my mind but this one came into my head this past weekend so here it is.

It's often the little things in life that are the most meaningful. I can't believe I just wrote something as cliched as that on my very own blog but I am pretty honest and it's true so there it is.
I say that because its a big deal when I get an email from my non-immediate family (that is anyone besides my parents and sisters). I love them all and even see many fairly often but e-mail just generally hasn't entered our line of communications much. The other thing is most of my non-immediate family is not christian or at least not as "dedicated" as we may look to them. The idea of possibly doing christian work/missions for my whole life is at the very least unusual to my family. After all I'm smart, I have a college degree and I work pretty hard, I should have a normal, well-paying, entry level job right now right?
Instead I am an intern in South Africa with a christian ministry not getting a steady paycheck.

But here is the thing. Even though my family may not understand what exactly I am doing (or even agree with it) they still love and support me. Getting an email from my grandma this weekend was fantastic. She informed me that she just read my blog and liked it. A email I got from my other grandma just a few months ago struck me because of the concern it portrayed. Was I eating enough? Was I healthy? Was I learning a lot?
I know that my grandmas don't agree with all or even most of my beliefs on Christianity and life. But they love me anyway. That is something I value so much because I see people here who don't have what I have always taken for granted.
My parents supported me fully in coming here. I know its hard for my mom to have me be on a continent away for a year but she did everything she always does in prepping me for anything: making sure I had all my paper work in, took me shopping and never flinched about it at all.
My parents are white, protestant and republican but I am 100 % sure that if I came home as a gay, muslim democrat they would still love me just the same.

I am not sure if that many people read this blog besides my family but I just wanted to say thank you for all you do for me and have done for me. All the Birthday cards, christmas presents, holidays together, college tuition payments, rides home from school. I wouldn't be here today without you.

I love you and miss you all and am thinking and praying for you.

Be Blessed.

Bonding During Binding

So I have been binding books 4-7 hours a day for the past week and a half. We have over 3500 books bound with a goal of 5000 by next friday. We are making good pace.

Anyway sitting in the same room doing the same thing for hours a day can make someone a little weird. With that in mind I hope you enjoy the following jokes/ tidbits of funniness that I've come up with while binding (note: we are binding save sex curriculum).

"Why did sex cross the street? To save itself for marriage."

"What's that lassie? Sex fell down the old well? Let's go save it!"

"What are we exactly saving sex from? Has it been accosted?"

So ya this is what happens when you work for Jesus. Fun times. Be blessed.

What is it that makes Christianity so special?

A few weeks ago we had a staff meeting that led to my earlier blog about feeling spiritually refreshed. It also raised some important questions about Christianity and the nature of salvation. It forced me to think about my faith and why I am a Christian. I am pretty big on apologetics so it was a fairly fun exercise.
Here are some reasons why I think Christianity is so special and why I think it is the one true religion available on this planet.

1) Salvation Cannot be obtained.

Every other religion, every other single one promises some form of heaven if the follower does enough good things. In Islam you mush follow the 5 pillars, in Judaism you must follow the Torah, in Hinduism you must make sure your karma is in order.
With Christianity I can do nothing to earn my spot in heaven. My sin is too great for me to overcome. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, our bridge to God that forgave our sins and made us clean. Apart from God's grace and mercy I am destined to hell. Period.

2)Freedom from fear.

Knowing that you are locked into heaven the moment you are saved frees you from the fear that you might be going to hell. The Muslim and Jew and Hindu never know until the day they die if they were good enough to reach heaven. They may do good things out of love and obedience to God but they also must, at least some of the time, do things out of fear of hell. The things I do are never out of fear of hell but because I love the God who loved me so much to die for me even though I was sinner when he did so. I am free to live my life in relationship with God with confidence that I will be in heaven one day.

3) The Bible is compelling.

I respect the other books of the other major religions of the world, they are full of significance and value. But for my money there is no book on this planet that is more compelling than the Bible. Written over 1500 years in different places by different people it is remarkable how well it ties together from beginning to end. Christians generally believe it is the infallible word of God in the original autographs. I am not saying I never question anything in the text, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because of how powerfully it does work together. No other story on earth is as important, significant, or amazing as the one in the Bible.

So thats a few reasons why Christianity is my thing and I believe it is valid for everyone on this planet to consider and make a decision on.

Hope this helps and enthuses.

Behind-the-scenes or on the frontlines?

This morning I started binding thousands of curricula with 5 other interns. At first glance this is obvious behind-the-scenes work for the ministry. I see no people, I talk to nobody except the other interns and I'm in the office close to 8 hours a day sitting in a chair. But I refuse to accept the premise that the work I'm doing for the next three weeks is behind-the-scenes. Here's why.

The books we are binding are Leadership Summit curricula, specifically the Save Sex book. This curriculum teaches young people in Qwa qwa about Love, Sex and Relationships. It tells them how to save sex for marriage and Biblical perspectives on the issues. It is full-color, interactive, and effective in effecting the lives of youth. In America how to teach young people about sex can be controversial, but here it is a bit simpler. Leadership Summit is already teaching in 6 or 7 schools in Qwa qwa and is making an impact. Teen pregnancy rates have dropped drastically in many of the schools where Leadership Summit has been taught for the past few years.

Every time I bind a book I'm giving a high school student a chance to learn how to make choices that will change their life. Every time I bind a book I'm helping a young person avoid AIDS. Every time I bind a book I am not behind-the-scenes, I am on the front lines of the battle to help change the continent for the better. God has priviledged me with this work. Far be it from me to say that God was wrong in putting this task before me.

Here's to an Africa that is not just a stereotype, an Africa where people are strong, healthy, Godly and completely sold out to Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Pray for Zimbabwe

I have a bunch of things I could blog about but I have been meaning to write this for weeks so here it is.

Please pray for Zimbabwe. If you have never heard of it, Zim is a country in Southern Africa that is currently in a crisis of sorts. It has been ruled for 28 years by the same man, Robert Mugabe, since independence in 1980. Mugabe is 84. You may be surprised to learn that he was just reelected to another 6 year term. Unsurprisingly the election was largely seen as a sham by most of the world.

Under his rule Zim has descended into chaos with a spiraling economy, a dwindling life expectancy and the worst inflation rate in the world. While he likes to blame the western world for his country's problems it is largely understood that his corrupt and violent policies have ruined a once prosperous and hopeful nation.

The victims in all this are the Zimbabwean people who, unless they are supporters of Mugabe, live in constant fear of beatings and retribution by the president's cronies and gangs.

Check out cnn.com or nytimes.com for background and stories on Zimbabwe and then please pray for peace for the people of Zimbabwe. While I am safe from the trouble there it is burdensome to think that only hours away from me such trouble is happening.

Thank you.

Spiritually Refreshed

I am spiritually refreshed today.

I should make it very clear how unusual a statement that is for me. A earlier entry on this very same blog, written mere months ago, says how I describe myself as more religious than spiritual and how I am OK with that.

But there can be no doubt. I am refreshed in a way that goes far beyond the physical. Let's see if I can explain it in some way that makes sense to you, the reader.

People talk about the spirit a lot here. I have generally listened, pondered and than tried to knock down the idea that I can have any meaningful contact with the spirit within me, let alone the Holy Spirit. It just simply has not been a part of my experience so why go to the trouble of trying if I am already a Christian?

But God has a way of putting things before you in a way you can't ignore. We are doing a unit in our ISOM (Christianity) Class called being Led in the Spirit. A recent lesson in the unit had tons of scriptures talking about the spirit and its role in our lives. If Scripture says it, I can't ignore it so it entered my head. Around this time too I was feeling just a bit sad too. Almost imperceptibly slow I felt like I was becoming more disconnected with the people around me. I felt like I wasn't measuring up, that I couldn't and therefore I was losing interest in trying.
It was a bit disconcerting.

Then last night I played a card game. I never play cards. It was really fun. I felt a lot better. I felt close to the people I played with. It was pretty heady stuff.

Then this morning we had a staff meeting. We have been watching a series by John Bevere mostly about why its so important to forgive rather than be offended. We got into some complicated heady stuff involving salvation which would be impossible to explain here but here's the thing. Rather than walking out confused or frustrated because I couldn't understand something I walked out refreshed. I was confident in my salvation but I knew I needed to pray.

So that's what I did. It was only a few minutes but I just sat down alone on the porch and talked to God for a few minutes. I can't properly retype here what I said but basically I realized I had been in the wrong in many ways and that I needed to let God's salvation refresh me. I hadn't lost salvation but I had disregarded its importance for a while. I had completely ignored any possibility of a spirit-filled life and I was being drained because of it.

I'm not sure what's next. I haven't started praying in tongues or doing mass-healings. But I do know that God is with me and I am willing to hear from him whether that be in a mental way or a spiritual way. Here's to the future.

Random

It's been a while so here's some fun random updates.

Money

My money for my tuition is almost completely in! A couple pledges I received during and after my trip to America will give me less than 200 dollars to raise. Depending on the gifts it could be even less. I've had to be patient and wait on God and pray but he has and is providing. It will be great to officially finish support raising for my internship. To everyone who has prayed and given support thank you.

Painting Hope House.

This will be in my upcoming newsletter (to be sent out in the next week or so, stay tuned) but I wanted to share it with you all on here. A sponsor recently donated paint to the orphanage we visit weekly and this Saturday, instead of chilling on the game reserve and watching DVDs, we went in to paint! We only had one day so it was a bit rushed but we got the entire girl's wing of the building painted. It looks pretty awesome. Hope House is a very nice orphanage though by American standards it perhaps does not quite measure up. In any case it was great to improve the kids living space in a small way and it was cool to get off base and do some more service.

Outreach Staff

Last week we had 16 new Americans arrive for almost 2 months. They are our Outreach staff interns and will be a great help to us as we host many mission teams the next 2 months. Winter(summer for you Americans) is our busiest time so it should get interesting. It's been great getting to know new people and I look forward to working with them in ministry.


So all is well here and South Africa is very awesome, if a bit chillier. I'll let you know exactly how much I have left to raise once I receive my checks. It won't be very much!

Peace and Blessings.

Testimonies From LaunchPad

My trip to America came at a perfect time because the first term of LaunchPad ended right before I left. At the graduation we gave out feedback forms to find out what the students learned and liked in the class. Here are excerpts from what a few students said in the class that my fellow intern, Kaylen, and I taught:

I learned that if I want to live a good life I must follow Jesus. I learned that to live a proper life I must change my mind and my attitude. I have learned about putting aside and being done with my old self. I have seen the Lord Jesus Live through me!

I didn't actually believe in God but this class has made me realize how important Gos is to me. It has taught me to believe in God, have faith and even convince people about God. I now know how to talk to people who are yet to believe that God is there for us and he will stand firm with us to the end.

I have learned about how I can go to God for comfort when I am in need. I have learned how to transform my mind and how not to think badly about others and class has been more like a friend to me because every time I come here I would forget about all the problems I have and all the bad things I come across everyday. Class has taught me that no matter how many times I have wronged God he will still forgive me and that we will always love me. I have taught myself not to think of myself more than others because God loves us equally. God has done good things in my life because without him I would not have learned how to love others and I just LOVE HIM!!

These are just a few students from my class which is one of 7 classes that was taught this past term. God is doing good things in Qwa Qwa and I want to thank you for letting me be a part. Your prayer, financial support, and interest got me here. Thank you so much. Be blessed.

My crazy trip to America.

So here I sit quite exhausted with my sister's wedding over and I hopping on a plane back to Africa in about 16 hours.
It's been quite a whirlwind of a trip. I arrived in NYC, made my way down to Lynchburg VA for my good friend's wedding, spent a night at the summer camp I have worked at in the past, then went back up to Massachusetts, hung out, and was part of my sister's wedding today.
All in all it was a great time. I drove a car, watched American TV, saw many family and friends and even relaxed a bit. Right now I'm feeling just a bit torn however. I really can't wait to get back to my interns, they are great but also they are who I know. I know they are over there plugging away and I know that I should be over there with them. I know I have about 6 months left in this internship and I look forward to experiencing and finishing them but being back in America is a bit tough.
It is tremendously comfortable here and not just because of mere material things. America is my home, my culture, everything I know is here. Being back made me realize how abroad I really am. It can be disconcerting thinking about the distance. In any case, I should be clear and say again I cannot wait to see my fellow interns. They are fantastic, I feel comfortable around them and I do look forward to getting into my routine again with them.

One last thing is that this week was important because I was going to get my laptop finally fixed. Well, after multiple trips to Circuit City, a fed-ex delivery, and far too much maneuvering with automated phone-lines, here I sit typing on my home desktop, not my still-broken laptop. It is a bit depressing.
All is not lost though. New (hopefully good) discs will arrive on Monday and be sent by my parents to me in South Africa. Receiving them in a week or so I should be able to properly recover my computer. Here is to hoping.

I want to welcome any new readers to my blog that I may have talked to during my visit. I hope you enjoy my entries and feel connected with what I'm doing in Africa.

Finally I must say that my brief trip back showed I have a lovely family (and sister CONGRATS), lovely friends, a lovely God, and even a pretty lovely life. Thanks to all who make it great.

Here's to Peace, Blessings, and Africa!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Cornerstone Church

Hey Everyone!
Sorry for no updates since Botswana.
I still don't have my own laptop back. While it is getting fixed for free (which is fantastic) its taking a long time to get sent back. It's not a burden but it is annoying asking someone every time I want to do some work or write an email.

In any case a mission team from Cornerstone Church in Michigan was here with us this past week and were a total blessing. While it was an adult team they had a totally child-like passion for the ministry they were doing and did a fantastic job.
Two days last week I got to go out with the teams in Qwa Qwa and helped them start relationship evangelism.
Going out with them was great and totally fired me back up about being here. Some of the group had come last year and knew/remembered people who they had met from the year before.
One family had two older ladies as well as a crippled brother named Sco (not sure of spelling). We spent a few minutes with them and when they brought Sco out into the room he just smiled from ear to ear. He was so happy to see his friends return. We prayed for that family as well as a number of others. We planted a garden for a woman where she could plant vegetables and gave families bibles in Sesotho (the local language).
I also helped with an afternoon of children's ministry where the team basically led songs, games and Bible lessons for close to 100 kids the entire afternoon. While I was basically crowd control I had a great time just hanging with the kids trying to make conversation.

I feel almost comfortable now with being in Qwa Qwa amongst the people and it is really awesome. Thanks so much for your prayer and support. Lives are being changed here, one by one.

Blessings.

Botswana Part 4 (Back Home!)

Written 4-6-08

I have returned safely from Botswana! It was another long drive through the desert but we made it. Our trip was a great success. We finished sanding all the floors, painted all the ceilings and walls, and gave the floors and windows their first coat of varnish. One on the interns, Matt Moline, who has significant construction experience, completely re-tiled a bathroom and a vanity.
We worked 9-12+ hour days with our only break being a half-day on Sunday for church. While it still has some minor work to be completed, we did in 10 days what LBOM would take weeks or even months to do. With Matt's and others expertise we also did it properly. While the work was long and hard we did get to use our last day to relax at a lodge in Maun called Audi Camp. This place had a pool and a restaurant and we got to relax and swim the entire day as well as enjoy two fabulous meals.
It is very strange being back on the base in Harrismith and tomorrow we jump right back into term 2 with classes, work and ministry.

It was really wonderful to see and spend time in another country and to see and help another ministry. Stay tuned for my newsletter and photos of my trip.

Here's to Africa!

Botswana Part 3 (Church & Daisy)

Written 3-31-08

Yesterday we got a welcome respite from our work for half a day and we got to go to the church in Maun that LBOM started. While we did not go to the actual service we ending up doing something just as rewarding, we helped with the children's ministry.
All kids from preschool-grade 5 meet separately from the adults. After some singing and talking they split into age groups to do different stations. I volunteered to be at the teaching station w/ Daisy, an awesome older lady who superbly translated for me as I read the story of the Ascension.
After teaching, the kids went to play games and I ended up chatting more with Daisy. She was a fantastic woman who just loved the kids and would randomly pray for the youth as we taught and chatted.
She told me about her life and how God had brought her from South Africa to Maun. She then asked me about my testimony and I told her about my life and how I got to Botswana. Half way through my story Daisy stopped me and showed me her arm, "Look" she said, "Goose pimples." It was at this moment that I realized how extraordinary our conversation was and how God had brought us together for that very moment.
Daisy had such joy and it just poured over into me. Near the end of the chat as I was telling her about my family she put her hand on my shoulder and prayed for me. Her kindness and spirit struck right through me. Her 6 year old granddaughter came over at one point after this and I ended up praying that her parents would come to church.
It was such a pleasure to meet Daisy and it was a great privilege to teach and bless the kids here. God is truly working here across the ocean and I can only stand back in awe.

Botswana part 2

Written 3-28-08

I just finished my third day of work here and things are going relatively well. We have quite a job to do. We are completely renovating a house on the Love Botswana Property that will be used for housing for LBOM interns. We are sanding down all the floors, painting the ceiling and walls, and then varnishing the floors. I have become good friends with the power sanding tools, taking care of the edges and corners in rooms so the big sander can come in and do the rest.
We are working long hours so that we can finish before we leave but I feel much better than my first two days working. LBOM looks like a great and established ministry and it is great to help them even in this indirect way.

Back from Botswana!

Note: While I was away I did not have internet access but I did write 4 blog entries to post when I got back. I'm having computer issues here (read I don't currently have one to use) so me posting them will be slightly delayed but I hope to post them every couple days. Pictures will be up ASAP also. Enjoy the blogs and more news to come.


Blog entry written 3-25-08

I’ve made it to Maun, Botswana safely. Our trip took two days, most of which was in a car but it wasn’t too bad. The first day we drove 7 hours to the border and spent the night at a nice, if humble, guesthouse. The next morning we woke at 6 AM and by 7:30 we were in Botswana.
The first thing I noticed about Botswana is that there is not much to notice. Our drive took us past miles of scrubby desert bush and squatty tress. I slept and read off and on but was usually woken by Neil (who drove us) blasting his horn to get animals out of the road. Donkeys, Cows, and goats all were present and all cared little about getting out of the way of fast moving vehicles. We were actually driving through the Kalahari Desert but there was no sand just scrub and nothingness. We did go through a few towns where we got gas, snacks and bathrooms and had pizza for lunch at the Kalahari Arms Hotel in Ghanzi. We arrived in Maun around 6:30PM, made dinner and settled in. All is well and our work starts tomorrow after a tour. Here’s to Africa!

Leaving for Botswana

I'm leaving for Botswana tomorrow morning bright and early at 7:30AM. Please pray for safe travels and a fruitful trip. It will be a difficult trip doing hard work in hot weather but I'm looking forward to seeing more of the continent.

I will have no internet access for the next two weeks so no updates will be forthcoming but I plan to have tons of pictures posted when I get back and look forward to blogging about it.

Till then happy Easter and God Bless!

Thoughts On Easter

It is Holy Week so I thought it would be good to write a message that was back to more spiritual things.
Before we had Thrive Church tonight I was flipping through my Bible. I usually do this at this time because I have nothing else to do. I found myself at Isaiah 58. The section was titled "True Fasting." A couple interns have fasted recently so I was intrigued. I had no memory of this section before.

Basically it goes over a scene of people who want to be closer to God and say "look at the fasting and things we have done, why haven't you responded?"
God replies essentially saying "Away with you!" "You may have fasted but you were still harsh to your neighbor, you have only thought of yourself during the entire time."

God then describes the fast he desires in verses 6-10. Basically he says when you fast don't think of yourself but think of others.


Here is my point. In much of Christendom today we have uplifted personal piety over simple obedience to God.

We do many prayers, and we attend many church events and we buy many Christian books all in the hope of feeling closer to God. We try to be holy at all times and we end up judging harshly the people who do not meet the standard we have set for ourselves.

The problems with this are myriad but can be summed up concisely: they are all me-centered, not God centered.

Christianity is the one religion where God through his infinite mercy and grace has brought himself close to us. He paid the price, he died on the cross, he defeated sin and he gave us the Holy Spirit. Why are we trying to do so much to be close to a God who is already right next to us?

It is also striking how much we uplift ourselves over others. Many Christians, including myself, often act as little more then self-righteous pharisees. We pray loudly and repeatedly, we surround ourselves with only Christian people and we dismiss with a scoff the many people who are literally dying to get some of the truth that has been so generously bestowed upon us. Again we see our faith as only about ourselves, not about God.

God does not want our prayers, our sacrifices, our church attendance. He wants our hearts. He wants us to be completely sold out for him and he wants us to lift his name above every other. I am not saying that doing religious things are bad, they are essential; but to do them with the wrong heart makes them worthless.

This Easter I pray that we look beyond ourselves. I pray that our attitudes will be the same as Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) I pray that we see others as better than ourselves. And I pray that we will recognize that while we are completely unworthy of any blessing we have received from God he gives them to us anyway. He made the ultimate sacrifice, he doesn't need anymore.

Let us follow God with all of our heart, soul, and mind this Easter and through that let us change the World, not for our glory, but for His.

God Bless.

LaunchPad & Hope House

I thought it would be good to write about my two major ministry activities here. These are the LaunchPad class I teach weekly and Hope House, the orphanage we visit weekly.
Here is some brief information about each and how they are going.


LaunchPad

LaunchPad is Thrive Africa's Biblical discipleship classes. Currently 7 classes are taught each week in different locations in the townships of Intabazwe, Qwa Qwa and the surrounding areas.
The classes are on a few different topics. Some are Foundations of Faith, some are Being a Contagious Christian. The one I teach is called "Christ In you" which I teach with another intern named Kaylen. We teach at the Botisbelo Secondary (High) School in Qwa Qwa.
The classes focus on how we are changed when we become Christians and how we should live with Christ in us. We have a curriculum of 10 different lessons that have scripture and points, but we have to go over each lesson to put examples in and personal stories. It has been a challenge to get used to teaching each week but I think my examples are getting better and my eye contact with my class is definitely improving.

The first lesson we gave the kids a chance to accept Jesus before we started so Christ was really in them. Most of the 11 or twelve there accepted. It is awesome to not only see salvation decisions but to be able to pour into these high schoolers lives with the Word and Spirit. While attendance fluctuates, we have a good core of about ten students who have comes every week. Our last few weeks we have had over 20 students with a high of 29 students.

Pray that these students will continue to grow as we teach them. They are so eager to learn about God and it is a privilege to be able to teach them.

Hope House

Hope House is the highlight of my week. Every friday (today) we go and spending a couple hours with the kids. There are about 40 ranging from babies to high schoolers. We teach them a bible lesson, do a craft with them and play games with them. While we have only been going for just under two months we all know each other well now and have giant smiles when we meet each other. Some of the younger toddlers stand at the fence as we get into our cars to leave.

Last week we led the kids in a salvation prayer. It appeared that most of the older ones were eager to pray. These kids are all so precious and it it awesome to have fun with them.

Pray for them, at least one of the babies has HIV and others do too (we do not know which ones do or don't of course.) Pray that they will grow in love and confidence in order to become the leaders of tomorrow.


Your support is making this possible. I can't thank you all enough. Blessings.

African Church (and other things)

The first mission team arrived (from Desert Springs, Arizona) on Saturday night and that meant we were able to go to African Church on Sunday Morning!

I had never been to an African church so I got decked out. I put on my pair of khakis that I had been saving for special occasions and I even tucked my shirt in which I never do.

We went to New Life Church in Intabazwe, the smaller township that is right next to Harrismith. The Pastor was a big jolly looking man named Mbana who was in a Hawaiian style t-shirt that was loud and proud for Jesus. His bright gold watch and ring was a bit disconcerting to see in such a place of poverty but regardless this guy was completely sold out for Jesus.

The actual church building was barely larger than the one room in my home church that I helped teach sunday school in. However as we walked into to hear the music and singing we knew we were in a place of God.

It was a nice reminder to see people who were passionate for Jesus even though they did not have a million dollar building or even a building with more than one large room.

After singing for 15-20 minutes we had great joy when a bunch of the older kids from Hope House walked in. They seemed as happy to see us as we were them and one even came over and sat with us. Their smiling faces are a great joy for me here.

Singing is generally accompanied by swinging hips here and while I didn't get that far in my worship I did get started clapping my hands and swaying as best I could. I honestly love hearing the combined singing of others more than singing out loud myself. In any case the songs, a mixture of sesotho and english were great.

One thing I must point out is the absolutely crazy interpretation during church. Whoever is speaking is interpreted by someone but they change languages constantly. It is an interpreters nightmare I imagine. One second the speaker is doing sesotho, then english, then zulu. Its fun to behold.

African church was lots of fun and I enjoyed being more deeply in the culture and seeing how they worship. I look forward to returning.

Computer Issues

On a sad note my totally awesome laptop had its hard drive busted during an unfortunate accident by one of my fellow interns. While Ive only had it for a few months so I did not lose much data is it very sad. Right now I am typing this entry on a ghetto laptop that Thrive has as an extra. I hope to get my laptop fixed soon but until then Im stuck with this. I may not be as able to upload pictures as easily but I'll let you know about that. Finally I will probably start writing my monthly newsletter next week. Stay tuned!