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!

Living the African Life, Southern Style

I realized my last few entries haven't given a good idea of day to day life here. Here are a bunch of random details and stuff thats going on that will hopefully feel more connected to my time here.

First I should say that internet is actually quite good considering where I am. Right now I'm typing this halfway up a mountain on the middle of a game reserve. I'm over 2km from the entrance of the reserve that merely opens up to a dirt road. Take a left on the road and follow for probably close to 5k will take you to an actual tar road. Take another left follow for probably 8k and you reach the N3, The Main Highway between Johannesburg and Durban. Harrismith is only about 5 minutes from this point. Harrismith is a nice quaint town that we visit once a week to enjoy. During our town time we buy groceries for the next week, do light shopping, pick up mail and visit KFC (the only fastfood in the town). We have begun to frequent a local coffee shop that has quite good shakes and desert beverages. Its small but a very nice little town.

Running on the base is becoming much more enjoyable. We are close to 6000 ft in elevation and if you have never run much let me describe this to you. Running up a hill at elevation is like taking the worst hill that you've ever hiked up and doubling its gradient and length. Lets just say the lungs aren't too pleased with you when you crest the top. Thinking about it your legs feel like crap too.
It is getting better though and to be honest there is a hill that I have run in New Hampshire that was considerably worst than anything I have run before. Im getting about 3-4 runs in a week and get to enjoy seeing the local game during almost every run. Lechwe are quite beautiful as are blesbok. Look them up if you don't know what Im talking about. I just had my best run here on tuesday. It was cool late afternoon and my lungs felt good and my legs felt even better. Being able to run here is awesome.

Living accommodations here are quite nice but you have to come to terms with the reality of moths. Every night you get used to seeing moths flying around and killing at least a few. They can be annoying but generally aren't too bad to deal with. You also get used to persistent flies buzzing around your head during the day. Again a minor annoyance but not a big deal.
An annoying thing is that two of the last few nights we were visited by a bat in our cabin. Getting them out made for a bit of an unwelcome night-time activity but I'm looking forward to a bat free night tonight.


I'll have an entry about ministry soon. I wanted to tell you all that I leave for Botswana on March 25th. We are going to northern Botswana for about 2 weeks to help out the ministry Love Botswana Outreach mission (www.lovebotswana.com) We will be doing hard manual labor lightly renovating a house as well as anything else needed.

Please pray for me as I seek to prepare my heart for this new experience. It will be hot, hard and tiring but we get to bless an awesome ministry so Im excited for another opportunity.

Launchpad and Hope house are going amazing. Please pray for growth in the students I teach and that they will live out living with Christ on a day-to-day basis.


If you have not done this already bookmark www.thriveafrica.org. They have great near daily updates in their field blogs as well as great pictures of me and the other interns doing our thing here.


Thank you for your support and be blessed.

Religion versus Spirituality

Being here, an ocean away from the distractions of home and focusing so much on God and Christianity, questions about my own faith are being raised constantly. Here are some thoughts on this subject.

Ready for a bombshell? I consider myself far more religious than I do spiritual. Now I know it is much more fashionable for evangelicals to say they are spiritual and that they hate the word religion but hopefully I can shed light on why I am the opposite and maybe even put forward an argument on why being religious is better for me than being spiritual.

Christians often use the following phrases: “God told me to do this”, “I am waiting for God’s call in my life”
I never use this language because I would be lying if I did. God has never spoken to me in a literal sense or even a more figurative sense, such as a dream or a vision. I can see the many blessings God has given me in my life and I can see how God has led me to this point (see the first entry of my blog) but he does not speak to me in the spiritual sense. Many Christians say “I’m waiting for God’s call in my life” and too often it seems like it ends up being a cop-out in order to continue the status-quo.
Honestly if I waited for God’s call in my life to do something I would have done nothing up to this point in my life. I did not decide to apply and go to South Africa because God spoke to me. I came because it was the best opportunity that was put before me and because I have always wanted to go to Africa and because it was the right thing as a Christian to do.

I am more religious than spiritual. I go to church weekly on my own volition. I read the Bible more or less daily. Rather than have devotions I read straight-through the Bible chapter by chapter. I am almost completed reading the Bible for the second time in this manner. I have studied apologetics thoroughly and excessively. I pray daily and while it has become more spiritual here, it is still something I am not great at. I know Christianity, I know its doctrines and I know why I believe them. Overall, Christianity is as intellectual for me as it is spiritual, if not more so. I do not say this to point out that I am better than anyone (I'm not) but to show how being religious more than spiritual has worked for me.

The other day a fellow intern announced to us that she was going to do a two-week fast from TV, non-worship music, and food. She is doing this because she prayed and God told her to do this fast and during it God would tell him the vision she had for her. Let me be clear, I have no doubt that God spoke to her and this fast is completely genuine. As my friend, I hope God blesses her experience and I look forward to hearing about how God spoke to her during the next two weeks. I believe and am glad for all the spirituality in Christians today, but this is not me at least not at the moment.

In today’s pluralistic Western culture many Christians are trying to win people to Christ by saying it’s not religion it’s a relationship, it’s spiritual. That is all well and good but I think we must tread carefully. Christianity unmoored from its Biblical, historical, doctrinal truths can quickly become little more than glorified New Age feel-good mysticism. (There are examples of mysticism in the Bible, including certain visions, but I mention it here with its negative, non-Christian connotation).

I do not write this to make everyone more religious. I write this because Christianity is so rich, so wonderful, and so true, that it can speak to everyone. It can speak to me as an excessively logical, educated, western American and it can speak to the poor Indian Hindu child who has never owned a thing in his life and it can speak to the formerly New Age pagan who used to believe that everything was spirit. Christianity is the great truth of our existence and I would feel greatly saddened if it was restricted to only one understanding of it.

May God Bless you as you discover how Christianity and its truth is meaningful for you.

A Challenge for American Christian Males.

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

Notice a pattern anyone?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Text of my newsletter email update.

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

February 15th, 2008

Dear Friends, Family and Supporters,

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

May God Bless you richly in the next month,

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

What am I actually doing here?

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

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

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

Fortunately this is not the case.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned for the newsletter and blessings.

Random

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

For now a few random details will have to suffice.

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

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

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

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


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