Finally! The whole team is home

On Thursday September 2 at about 2:00pm the stragglers arrived at LAX. Travel weary after three weeks of being away from home and a flight home that took a total of twenty eight hours including a one hour stop in Dakar, Senegal and a four hour stop in New York.

Third Generation Smat Choices team in training.

We spent the last two days participating in the training of the third generation of Smart Choices team trainers in Soshangove. They consisted of on of the pastors in training from Ebenezer Christian Fellowship Church, two students from schools that have received Smart Choices training in the past year and other members of the youth group of Ebenezer Christian Fellowship Church.

Second generation Smart Choice trainers.

On Tuesday afternoon we had a meeting with the second generation Smart Choices trainers lead by Thomas Mphara to let know of some of their needs to be able to continue doing the Smart Choices and school discipleship programs in the schools. These included a request for new uniforms, a camera to record their activities, help with transport to get them to the schools, and a small stipend for the trainers to sustain them while not working but still participating in the ministry.

All of the orphans living with Zodwa and Pastor Elias Gomba.

All told we had a very enjoyable last two days with the Soshanguve team but we were definitely in the wind down mode. Thanks again to all who have supported us financial to enable this mission trip to take place, to all those who have been praying for safety and success, and to those been following our activities on this blog. There will be a report back celebration held in both Prescott, Arizona and Orange County, California. Dates and times of these activities will be advertised shortly.

The Longest Day

I think that today was the LONGEST day ever! We had a meeting with a large group of people that all have an interest in combatting HIV/AIDS. Each one of them had time to share or preach. We got to the church at 9 am and it didn't start until 10:45 and we finished at around 5:30! It's tough to sit in a chair that long! But there were some great speakers.

We had the minister of education's assistant there, as the minister was working with the strike and it is amazing at how much they were asking for the church to get involved in their schools. They are realizing that their strategy of using condoms is still keeping the HIV/AIDS problem at huge rates here in S.A. The only thing that will work is abstinence. Government doesn't want to say it isn't working but the statistics are proving it! They basically encouraged us to take this message into the schools and it is welcomed! That is very exciting! Our schools would never allow a faith based program in them.

Then we also heard from the representative of the National Aids Council. His statistics were staggering! 40% of women from 20 - 35 are HIV positive in some areas in S.A. This number is basically the same for several years now! We didn't even see any dip in the chart that they showed!

We also heard form Dr. Phalatse who was a fireball for Christ! He just said abstinence is the ONLY way to get a hold of this problem and he was powerful and entertaining and really interesting to hear from. We don't know if he has heard of Smart Choices but he covered all that we covered but much more Christ centered! He held nothing back. He and his wife have also started publishing a bi-monthly local magazine and welcomed us to submit articles for publication.

Then Glynn got up and he also did an excellent job sharing what we are doing in the schools and he refuted the National Aids Council (he had already left) but emphasized that only abstinence is going to stop HIV/AIDS not a national push using condoms.

One of our students from Botse Botse school last year.

Then we had Dawie and Lizel Pieterse from Campus Crusade for Christ and they shared how they are working in local communities to help build homes for orphans and community sights for soccer and how they work with local groups to teach skills to people so they can learn life skills to work. They are doing an amazing work all over the world! It was very inspiring to hear all that they are doing as an organization. All of this activity is part of a fairly new initiative by Campus Crusade called GAIN for Global AId Network.

Then we heard from Hospice workers and what they are doing with the sick and dying and what they are doing with the children left behind. They were asking for more help from the churches as well. And asking for people to take in orphans.

Then we also had a group of teens who did a skit that they present in the schools from a group called Life of Art. It was done in the Tswana language but even so you could get the point.

Then there was a group called Love Life and they ministered to those infected with HIV/AIDS kinda like what He Intends Victory does at our church.

That is what made for the LONGEST day ever. But it was also interesting to see so many people working together to help bring relief and healing to so many hurting people.

Tomorrow we are supposed to present the Smart Choices program to church leaders so they can go back to their churches and get the program going in their local schools. (when the strikes end)

Tammy

Safely Home

5 from the Arizona team and 4 (including Mike L. who was with us only for the first week of the trip) from the California team are now safely home. Thanks for all your prayers and support on this trip...we're happy to be home but still enjoying the great memories we've all created together.

Last few days together enjoying more great fellowship at breakfast

One of our last mornings together on the beach in Durban

Some of us got a tour of the Durban World Cup Soccer Stadium

Here's a slideshow and a link to some of the other pictures taken on this trip. Enjoy!

South Africa 2010

Please continue to pray for the rest of the team (Glynn, Mark C, Bill, and Tammy) as they are still doing some important business in Pretoria and will make their journey back in a few days from now.

Week 2: Greytown Project

We had another great week in Greytown and again we are amazed at how God has orchestrated a way for us to connect with kids in spite of the government employees strike which is being honored by the teachers.

As a result of the strike, one team had access to the school bus from Shalom Ministries to move some students away from there school to place where it would be safe for them to meet. This was at a preschool (Creche) across the valley. It was a very steep climb in that old bus and it took about an hour to drive the distance. We had to borrow a generator from a neighbor to have electricity to run the video equipment. Shalom Ministries is the church founded by Angus Buchan of Mighty Men and Faith Like Potatoes fame. The second team also had to drive a long distance over very rough roads to reach there teaching destination. There was no electricity in the building and a long cable had to be run from a nearby building to get electricity for the equipment to show the videos.

We also got to spend the evening with the children that live at the orphanage founded and run by Angus Buchan. These kids all appeared in the Faith Like Potatoes movie. Pastor Patrick Zondi who is the pastor we are working with in Greytown used to be an Elder at Shalom Fellowship and is still actively involved at the orphanage.

We have come to the end of the first two weeks of our mission activity. We are spending the day today at the beach front in Durban to wind down and relax after a very full two weeks of ministry. We started out by an OD (Ocean Devotion) on the beach. We took our devotion books with us but ended up just absorbing the glory of God's creation on the beach. We spent the rest of the day buying African curios and walking along the sea front. Some of us were handing out tracts and witnessing to people we encountered. Some of us spent some time in the food court at the casino on the beach front since that was the only place we could find a WI FI connection. Some walked over to the new stadium that was just built in Durban for the Wold cup. Tomorrow after breakfast we will be heading back to the King Shaka airport to turn in our rental van and head back to Johannesburg. We will say farewell to most of our team as they head straight back to the USA. Four of us will rent another car and and head to Pretoria where we will be staying for the next four days. Each day we will drive out to Soshanguve to minister with Zodwa and her teams.

Week 1 wrap up: How God implemented his plan

We are sorry that we have not had any posts on the blog since the end of last week but since we have left Richards Bay we have not had any Internet connection until today.

In the first week within minutes of learning that there were no students at out first school we received a phone call from someone who said she was running a private school and she heard we were in town and she asked us to come and do a Christian program with seventy students.

One of the other teams found no students at their school and they engaged some kids strolling around. Before long they had a soccer game going and they had the attention of about sixty five kids. While the kids were playing soccer the team leaders contacted the principal to see if they could get a class opened up. She was very supportive and obliged by coming and opening a classroom for us. After they had been playing soccer for a while Mark B. told them he had something to teach them and lead them into the class room. The kids came back for the next two days and by the third day there were still about forty five to fifty students.

Colby Zack and Phoebe were confronted with the horrendous task of trying to get a class of more than two hundred students from two schools through the entire program in one day. Part of our training is to drum into the team that things rarely go the way we plan and to be flexible when the unexpected occurs. This team was ready and up to the challenge and got the job done.

End of week one

After finishing with our Smart Choices program on Thursday we have enjoyed a day of sight seeing and a day of rest.

We got up at 4am to go to the Hluhluwe/iMfoloze game reserve in Zululand. What a treat for us to see so many animals in their natural habitat. I think the highlight must have been spotting a young male lion! We past him the first time around and when we backed back up he was crouching in the bush. Then he got up and walked right in front of our van and stopped in the road and swished his tail and then sauntered off - as if to say 'oh yeah, I am king of the jungle!' :-)

We were blessed to see a large variety of animals and the most delightful thing was most of them had their young with them. It's a sight to behold when you see baby giraffe, baby rhino, baby elephants and baby monkeys. We were also thrilled to see a hippo out of the water and up on the slope eating grass. This is highly unusual as they easily sunburn if they are out of the water during the daytime but, it was a cool overcast day so he must have thought 'why wait to eat'.

We stayed until the park closed and arrived back home at 8 pm. After sitting in a van for so long only I was thinking that it took us longer to travel 200 miles round trip than it took us to fly from Washington D.C. to Johannesburg.

This morning we said good-bye to Mike Langdon as he had to fly back home today. As we gathered for our morning devotionals he wanted to share what God had laid on his heart. I wanted to share some of what he shared with us. I am so blessed that he took the time to pray over us and God gave him a scripture for each one of us. I thought that I would give you the scriptures that he gave us and maybe you could also be praying for us according to His word for our lives. We are praying for each other as well that we would grow as it says in 1 Timothy 4:12b, that we would set examples for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Myra Isaiah 41:10 Kelsey Zeph. 3:17 John Col. 4:1 Glynn 1 Cor. 9: 24-25 Mark C. Gal 6: 9-10 Bill Col 3:16-17 Mark B. Ps. 63: 1-2 Sam 2 Timothy 2:1-4 Colby Ps 62: 1-2 Zach 1 Cor. 9: 24-25 Phoebe Philemon vs. 4-7 Tammy Ps. 37: 3-5

In His Service (Tammy)

Teaching in the Schools! - Colby Long

Greetings from South Africa...

Well we started our "Better Choices" curriculum this week. HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, along with the real need, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any time an opportunity to bring God's Truth to the public schools and it's community opens up like this... How can we not take part? Bringing hope to the nations...

All the preparation, organizing, teambuilding, and prayer... all leading up to this week!

As a side note, I think I can speak for all of us, when I say that we could already see God unfolding His perfect plan for all of the work that was ahead of us. God quickly knit all of our hearts together for one purpose: share the Gospel, all for God's glory!

Here is another display of God at work this week, are you ready for this? We've talk a lot as a team so far about being flexible on missions trips, and in all are preparation we found opposition right away... it seemed where God was building a house, the enemy was building right next door. The enemy knew the Gospel was going out to the nations! It just so happens that this week in South Africa, at least in our province, that most of the schools were suffering from a teacher's strike, which in turn shuts the schools down.

No school = No students...

No students = No venue to teach the students...

Right?

WRONG! It was amazing to see God at work, in His perfect will and timing, open up so many doors for the nations to hear His Gospel! By the end of the first day, in all it's excitement and change of plans, we had collectively shared "Better Choices" and the Gospel with over 400 students and locals! Over 400 South Africans were reached! on the FIRST DAY! praise God!

God will accomplish what He wants, when He wants. God is good, All the time...All the time, God is good!

So all in all we finished our curriculum with hundreds of locals in the Richard's Bay area today and saw God do some great work, in educating the people and students about HIV/Aids, and presenting the Gospel through the Jesus Film, Testimonies, and God's Word. Many students were led to the saving truth of Jesus, committing their lives to Him! Praise the Lord.

Thank You for all your prayers, please pray that many would continue to come and hear the Truth of Jesus as we travel to Greytown on Saturday.

In Him - Colby Long