Text of my newsletter email update.

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

February 15th, 2008

Dear Friends, Family and Supporters,

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

May God Bless you richly in the next month,

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