Ah. So here I am. Two months overdue. Apologies. Outreach has come to an end and so finally I have time and internet to update you all. Wow, where do I even start though? Sum outreach up in one word? Afraid I can’t – intense, amazing, stressful, incredible, redic-redonk, magical – none of them really do it justice by themselves. God’s certainly been moving in the last five weeks – both through me and in me and it’s been really cool to see. There’ve been times when I’ve wanted out, when I wanted nothing more than to be just shlocking back home and enjoying all the comforts that come with that but more often than not I’ve been able to really embrace the time here – making strong friendships within the team and enjoy seeing God work in the lives of the people we came in contact with.
Out of all the places we went I think Kimberley – a small city in Northern SA – was probably my favourite. We had a contact who set us up to work in lots of different schools and the kids and young people responded really well to everything we said. Much better than the prisoners and the OAP-home-inhabitants at least! It was here God really transformed my public speaking skills too – I used to stand there, hands and legs shaking like there’s no tomorrow but God just completely took me and gave me a confidence that could have only come from Him so that these days I even quite enjoy it! Sometimes. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not claiming to be a world-class speaker these days but it’s been really cool to see God working in my life when I thought I was only here to let Him work in others. Blessed to be a blessing or whatever it is!
My sleep-talking has continued in spectacular fashion – much to the amusement of all the lads, and the girls too when they are duly informed of proceedings later in the day. There was one particular moment – I awoke one morning to Andy and Janeal in hysterics and so naturally in my dozy state I was very confused and just a tad annoyed – how dare they be so raucous when some of us are still trying to sleep! I was just about to give them an ear-full when Andy explained my alarm had just gone off but instead of reaching over to turn it off, I’d instead rolled over in my sleep and and in a non-plus kind of was answered it... “Hello?” Ha – never before have I tried to answer my alarm! I didn’t even pick up the phone – must have been some kind of dream! The annoyance left and soon I was laughing as well... good times!
After Kimberley we headed to Rustenburg where we were supposed to rest for a couple of days before heading on up to Botswana. That was our plan at least – seems God had other ideas. We ended up staying two weeks, making day-trips to Pretoria to try and sort out all our visa issues. Turns out the World Cup has completely thrown the whole system off kilter and to cut a long story Sam and Andy – the two Nigerians on our team – weren’t given what they needed for us to get into Botswana. We decided that if they don’t go, none of us do so we all stayed in SA. Was rather frustrating at the time – we couldn’t work out what was going on ‘cause we’d covered the whole thing in prayer and everything – why wasn’t God opening the door? Anyhows, we found out just recently that it’s been declared dangerous for white people to be in Botswana currently – something to do with the instability. Praise the Lord – he was in control after all. Should’ve known!
So we ended up staying in Rustenburg two weeks – we did some ministry but mostly it was just a really good time of relaxation and rest after six intense weeks. We stayed on the YWAM base there which came complete with swimming pool – provided the perfect spot for some sun-loving despite being freezing cold! We were also over-shadowed by a mountain and so one morning Jess and I decided to arise before the sun, pack a picnic and head on an exciting adventure up the treacherous slopes. As you can see – Rustenburg was a welcome respite from what had come before.
Woman’s Day. 9th August. Have you ever heard of anything like it? There’s a whole day dedicated to celebrating women while the men don’t even get a mention. Oh well – life goes on.
It’s crazy. As I’m writing it’s September 9 – feels like summer just completely passed us by down here! I mean, the weather’s been nice enough and people’s Facebook photos of Shepton Mallet Showground have reminded me (with only a little jealousy) that it is in fact summer after all but there’s been none of the two months of doing absolutely nothing which have characterised every summer previous. Strange. Oh well – in a strange sense I’m more refreshed than ever and can’t wait to get stuck into some hard work (don’t worry –I’m sure that’ll change after a week or two) at uni!
After Rustenburg we headed down to East London to help the pioneering work that is being undertaken there – a new YWAM base is under construction! It was a good two weeks – during the first week we were joined by a team from Brighton – was surprisingly nice to relax with people who not only know the meaning of the word ‘banter’ but also entered into it with refreshing enthusiasm. Ha, no that’s not fair – South African’s do banter they just don’t have a word for it and they don’t say ‘Banterrrrrr...’ after every other sentence!
The cinema here costs about £3 – it’s crazy cool. Seen loads of films – including Inception, once it finally came out. I have to say I was impressed and confused but probably more the latter than the first. I think I need to watch it again. The best film I’ve seen has to be Toy Story 3, just for sheer comedy value. Top stuff.
Lecture phase was amazing – I grew a heck of a lot in my faith and as a person – but I would say I think I grew even more on outreach. It’s strange – that seems like the wrong way round but during outreach you really get the opportunity to put what you learnt into practice. There are days when all you want to do is go home and that really forces you to fully lean on God. He’s really drawn me deeper into Him, he’s increased my love for Him and He’s showing me what it really is to live life in Him. True life. What life is all about. And it’s been brilliant – I’m really enjoying life because He is giving me joy. It’s all a journey though and I know this is only the start. I’m well aware that it’s going to be a big culture shock coming back home and a bit of a faith-shock as well but I hope I can keep pushing into Him because that’s been the best decision I ever made and I hope I never forget what wonderful life can be found when we really seek him with all our hearts. Hmmm, really hope this doesn’t sound like I’m preaching – just trying to share a little of what I’ve experienced without sounding holier-than-thou. Trust me – I still have my struggles, I still have my troubles, I still have lots of rubbish going on but through all that I’ve found a peace and a security which sometimes seems close and sometimes rather distant but no matter how I’m feeling I hope I won’t lose hold of that when I come back home and settle into ‘normal life’ once again.
Home-time is just around the corner. In fact tomorrow morning I’m loading all my stuff into the back of a small hire-car and embarking on the eight hour journey to Cape Town. It seems so very, very long ago that I was arriving in that very same city – seeing proper shanty towns for the first time, climbing table mountain and staying with eight others in a far-too-small dorm. So very long ago and yet at the same time these six months have flown by and I can barely believe it’s time to leave already. This experience of the city should be a more pleasant one – Sandy and Jess are coming with and because of her contacts from a past job as a tour operator Sandy has managed to bag us luxury accommodation for only £5 more than the hostel. We’re going to stay one night, do some more exploring and then on Saturday they’re going to drive me to the airport to say our farewells. Now I know most of you back home only really want to hear about how excited I am to be back on home-turf and of course I am but naturally there’s a flip side as well. I’ve been with these guys for six months – we’ve laughed, cried (well they have), sang, danced and annoyed the living daylights out of each other throughout. Its going to be so strange going our separate ways. Leaving England was tough but at least I knew that in six months time I would be surrounded by all the friends and family I love so much. Right now I don’t know when, if ever, I’m going to see some of these guys, and that is really tough. But yeah – that’s just me right now – emotions seem to be going overboard but I guess that was always going to happen!
The last five and a half months have been some of the best of my life. Without a doubt. Anyone thinking about gap years or just taking some time out I would definitely recommend YWAM – six months just dedicated to searching after God is really never going to leave you disappointed. Trust me. This is it then. May write the occasional blog from here on in – but thanks for following this epic adventure. Keep it real.
X
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Chocolate Fudge Brownies, Mozza Rolls and Jason Gillespie
Hello! Sorry it's been a while again, internet isn't quite so available these days. It's exactly midday on Monday 20th July as I type but I'm writing on a friend's laptop and not entirely sure when I'll be able to put it up. Soon hopefully.
Something I didn't have time to mention in my last blog – the night of Sunday 4th July. So we were staying in a boarding school, we were the only ones there so I'm sure you can imagine at nights it can get pretty scary (for some, obvs I was fine); long dark corridors, windows rattling etc. Well this one particular night we were all having problems sleeping, and then, close to midnight (we are all normally in bed by half ten) the payphone, right at the end of the dark corridor, started to ring. We left it the first time but by the third time we couldn't ignore it any longer and so Sandrine and I ventured down to see what on earth was going on. We picked up the phone only to find a dead tone – no one was there. Weird. That didn't stop the phone from ringing though – it rang several times more and each time we picked up, no one was there. By this time Sandrine was thoroughly freaked out and so a prayer meeting was called in the early hours of the morning. We walked up and down those corridors and around the school just praying for peace and against this spirit of satan that was causing the phone to ring annoymously. Eventually – I think it was gone 1 – we decided we had prayed long enough, the phone had stopped ringing and the girls were generally feeling a little better. We headed to bed. Two days later I gave Beej a ring. “Mate, why didn't you ring me back the other night. I rang so many times!” were some of the first words he said. AH, GOSH. I couldn't believe it – so it was Beej who'd been the spirit of evil that we'd spent so long rebuking! Top stuff Benjamin.
So. We spent all of last week in Outdstroom; biggest town in South Africa apparently but still most definitely smaller than Bath. It's redic though – apparently there's over 300 churches! Crazy. How many churches are in Bath do you reckon? Can't be much more than a hundred surely? I couldn't believe it when the Pastor told us. Although he also said he could count the good ones on his fingers – that's the big problem; there's loads of churches not 'cause there's loads of Christians but because there's a few Christians all going their own way and disagreeing with each other. And there's a huge amount of religion in this place – everyone belongs to some church or other but for many of them it's about the one service a week and not about relationship with God. Speaking of the Pastor though, this guy was a serious lad. We arrived at his house last Sunday and still two hours after meeting him I was still wondering where on earth the Pastor was – I didn't think that the young banterful guy that we'd been introduced to was actually the Pastor who was due to host us! Turns out he wasn't that young – 38 – but he was still very youthful. When we first met him we were all sitting down in the living room and he came in and said with all seriousness, “Shall we pray” and none of us even questioned it but then he burst out laughing and said, “only joking” as if it was a rediculous idea that we should pray! Ha, I think you had to be there but still – I took an instant liking to this guy. Reminds me of that time I was in the Junior School, we were having assembly and Mr Stafford was talking about the arrangements for Sport's Day. He rounded it up by saying in an off-hand kind of way, “Now all we need to do is pray for good weather...” at which point the whole auditorium bowed forwards, as one used to do when saying prayers at the Junior School. He didn't mean it literally poor guy! Unfortunately I think you had to be there to really appreciate that one too – hopefully some of you were but if not my most profuse apologies!
Outdstroom as a town is okay, take it or leave it, but I did really fall in love with the township in which we were actually staying and in fact spent most of our time. Everyone was just so friendly (I think it's potentially 'cause I'm white but still) – I often enjoyed just taking a stroll along the streets, meeting kids playing their games and smiling at the mums as they looked on from their homes. I took a liking to one particular group of kids that I met on one of our door-to-door sessions. I started talking to a couple of young guys and soon we were joined by about ten of them, all interested in what we were doing. It soon materialised that by far their favourite past-time (maybe bar football) was dancing and they were all keen to show me their Michael Jackson moves! It's almost unbelieveable – ask any kid out here to dance and they will immediately imitate MJ, normally quite well too. How do they even know what they're doing though – these kids all live in tiny houses, no internet and often without a TV, how on earth have they even ever heard of Michael Jackson, let alone know exactly how he used to dance?! Baffling. It was soon my turn to show them some moves from the Northern Hemisphere though and, lacking any other inspiration, I plumped for the Macarina – always a safe bet! This was anything but safe though, the kids were all over it – carnage - they just couldn't get enough and didn't seem to even consider that us old folk just don't have the energy to keep going forever! Even as we were dancing more kids came up and joined us and people smiled as they walked past – must've been quite a sight, just dancing on the street in what was a previously relatively peaceful little street. Those kids were great though – those ten soon became my favourites and if I had time off in the afternoon I would slip out of the house by myself (standard rule is that you're supposed to roam in pairs) and head down-town to meet up with them. There'd always be at least one just chilling on the street and as soon as we met up the rest would not be long in coming, all pleading for more of my dance moves! On Friday we ran a children's meeting and all of my new-found friends were only too-keen to come! It was brilliant – we had about forty kids there, twice the amount we were expecting so we had to cancel one of the games we'd planned for the smaller group! We did one of our “funny” dramas which the kids all loved and then I just explained it and gave a short, simple message. Really good meeting. The next day I went back to the kids to say goodbye (They didn't seem to grasp the whole concept fully – “when will you be coming back?!”) and we were just chatting when one of them said something about our drama yesterday and before I knew what was happening they were all fighting over what part they wanted to play. There we were, on the street, spontaneously acting out the drama we'd done the previous day, me playing my part and all of the kids filling in the other roles! Was such a priceless moment – just wish I could have it on camera. I think you get the picture though – these kids were cool. Enough said.
So, I was on one of my strolls around the community, and I must have looked slightly confused because one lady called out, “Are you lost?” We got talking and when she found out I was from England a smile passed over her face and she exclaimed, “Ooo, I know someone who's in Germany!” Ha, what do you say to that?! “How wonderful, same continent!” It was cute though. I carried on walking but it wasn't long before a group of people, adults and teens, shouted from outside their house, “Oi MJ!”, “Yeah Michael Jackson, how's it?” Not entirely sure but I think it was 'cause of my slightly MJ-resembembling hat. I smiled and carried on walking but then decided to stop, hold the rim of my hat, tilt it down and thrust my waist a couple of times, like all the kids round here like to do! Got the best reaction ever - “Wooooo, we like the way you move!” I smiled again then turned and carried on walking. For a split second I actually thought I was just a little bit cool. Didn't last long though! Love that about this place – I could never get away with doing anything like that back home! Simple pleasures. Something else that you just never get back home – spontanes worship times. They're the best – we were just all chilling in the living room the other day and before I knew it someone had grabbed the guitar and people were dancing and singing and just altogether making one joyous noise. Sweet times.
I was walking (again!) the other day but I hadn't gone very far before I rounded a corner to be greeted by five girls, two of which shouted “Matttt!” and ran up to me for a hug! 'Awww' I thought, it taking me a couple of moments to realise that I actually did recognise these kids – think I'd chatted to them the other day. It's so lovely how kids express emotions so freely though – felt way more appreciated by all of them than I ever do by the rest of my team, which may be because that is in fact the case, or it may just be because us adults don't like to show our emotions quite so readily. Not really cool is it.
Friday evening was insanely cool though – we had a youth meeting which a whole host of people came to and during the response time at the end about ten people seemed to genuinely give their life to the Lord, or at least make a recommitment. Was so exciting – the atmosphere was incredible and we were all just singing and dancing. I've always internally-rubbished it when people say the biggest miracle they've ever seen is someone give their life to the Lord – I've always taken it to mean that they've never actually seen a “proper” miracle but now I know what they mean – it's genuinely awesome. Like with the lady who was healed a couple of weeks back, the healing was exciting but her recommiting her life to God as a result was even better in a way! At the end of this meeting we were all taking loads of photos and this girl who I'd said hello to earlier came and put her arm round me, intending for Sam to take a photo of us but he, quite oblivious to us, was looking through his photos. She refused to let go however, so were just standing there like lemons, arms round each other, waiting for someone to notice and take a photo of us so I could escape! Awkward turtle.
So last week we got back to the house we're staying at one evening and I was just chilling in the living room when the lady of the house came in , clearly a little frustrated and said in a stern voice, “Matthew, pick up that toy!” Now I was slightly taken aback considering I hadn't long been introduced to this lady (I was surprised that she even remembered my name!) and yet here she was bossing me around the house! I assumed it must be a cultural thing and sheepishly bent town to pick up the toy in question before realising that just behind my left shoulder sat her 10 year old boy who also goes by the name Matthew! Ahhh. All made sense!
Sunday saw us take a 8 hour minibus ride across the South African outback. The roads were amazing – completely straight for as far as the eye could see with barren waste-land either side, never seen anything like it. Huge expanses of land that don't seem to have been trodden on for decades. Was cool though, felt like we were on some mass road-trip. Which I guess we kinda are.
Okay. Timecheck? 7:11pm Wednesday 21st December. Just going to keep writing this one til I find internet. We're in Kimberely now for two weeks – a city (famous for diamond mining apparently!) in northern South Africa. This place has impressively large shopping centres – allowed me to go bible shopping the other day. Found the nicest bible ever, leather bound and all, 40 pounds down to 15. Bargain! Took it to the till and they only charged me 9 for it! Isn't that just the best feeling ever? Thought as much.
I know what you're thinking... 'Don't you have anything more interesting to talk about than bible-shopping?' Aha, glad you asked, in fact I do! The place we're staying in this week is self-catering, giving us all a chance to demonstrate our wonderful culinary abilities. Jess and I were in charge of preparing supper yesterday – macaroni cheese. Simple enough. Or so you'd think but somehow we both managed to screw things up big-time. I don't know what it is with me and kitchens but I seem to jynx every one that I step foot into. I just seem incapable of making a good meal. It's all a learning curve though, isn't it?! I think our most costly error involved the addition of the cornflour to the sauce. I'm told cornflour is used to thicken and so I kept adding until the sauce got thick. Fair enough, right? Next thing I knew I was scraping the bottom of the box and the sauce still wasn't thick! And then we didn't even think to taste the sauce before pouring it all over the macaroni. Error. Big error. We didn't give up on it though – we laid on hands and said a quick prayer before going to put it in the oven only to find the oven wasn't in fully functioning order. Not functioning at all in fact. We thought it could be a blessing in disguise though – we'd have to cancel supper, blame it on the oven and no one would ever know that the food was actually inedible anyway! It was the perfect plan until Raymond (now our leader) told us to just whack it all in a pan and put it on the hob instead. Nooo. We did what he said but after rinsing it through with milk and then water and still having it taste like pure gloopy cornflour, we decided to call it a day, raising our hands in defeat. Everyone was like “Don't worry guys, you tried your best...” which really only made things worse – felt bad tipping a whole tray's worth (and this is no ordinarily-sized tray!) in the bin. Oh well, we ordered pizza in the end which quite frankly tasted better than any macaroni ever could. All's well that ends well.
Today we went to two high schools – our first visit to schools since they've only just gone back after the holidays so none of us really knew what to expect. Reminded me quite a bit of Monkton actually – these were posh school with team-photos lining the corridors and green blazers being sported by all. Their cricket pitch – which consisted of a few tufts of straw-like grass – couldn't really compare to Longmead though. I was due to share a message at the first school's assembly (you have no idea how much I was wetting myself at the prospect of talking for 15 minutes to about 600 boys and girls not much younger than me. I actually felt physically sick beforehand and wasn't entirely sure whether it was just 'cause of the nerves of whether I was actually ill. Not going to lie – I was hoping with all of my heart it was the latter!) – but when we got there we found someone else setting up their projector in the hall! What a shame, we'd been double-booked! Thought we'd have to just go back home but then an opportunity arose to speak to the CU – a group of about twenty 16-17 year olds. Much more manageable, the only problem being I had a prepared a message aimed at non-Christians. Raymond told me to just change my message. What?! It's enough of a challenge for me to prepare and share, but attempting to change my message 25 minutes beforehand! I prayed and yet again God just took over – he laid on my heart another message to share, he calmed my nerves and when it came to doing the actual sharing God just came through in a way I hadn't even hoped! All the kids were engaged and attentive and they laughed at all the right moments which always helps. I shared with confidence I didn't know I had! PTL! I think I definitely prefer the smaller, class-room type of situation where you can interact with the guys a little more than just standing and preaching to a big audience. Safe. The guys there were all really cool as well – got chatting to about seven of the lads outside afterwards. In a way I want to stay here and disciple them properly. It takes time but discipleship is way more important than any preaching ever will be. I've just got to trust that I've planted a seed and that someone else is going to come along and water it. I was getting discouraged about that when we first came on outreach actually – I was thinking that we don't stay long enough in any one place to properly make an impact – but then I read something in 1 Corinthians were Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered but God gave the growth”. Both are needed – people who plant seeds and people who water them – and I just need to rest assured that this season of my life is one where I'm planting seeds in people's lives. I need to trust that other people are going to come behind and water that seed but most of all I need to trust and pray that God's going to give the growth because ultimately it's him that does the work. Amen!
Something I didn't have time to mention in my last blog – the night of Sunday 4th July. So we were staying in a boarding school, we were the only ones there so I'm sure you can imagine at nights it can get pretty scary (for some, obvs I was fine); long dark corridors, windows rattling etc. Well this one particular night we were all having problems sleeping, and then, close to midnight (we are all normally in bed by half ten) the payphone, right at the end of the dark corridor, started to ring. We left it the first time but by the third time we couldn't ignore it any longer and so Sandrine and I ventured down to see what on earth was going on. We picked up the phone only to find a dead tone – no one was there. Weird. That didn't stop the phone from ringing though – it rang several times more and each time we picked up, no one was there. By this time Sandrine was thoroughly freaked out and so a prayer meeting was called in the early hours of the morning. We walked up and down those corridors and around the school just praying for peace and against this spirit of satan that was causing the phone to ring annoymously. Eventually – I think it was gone 1 – we decided we had prayed long enough, the phone had stopped ringing and the girls were generally feeling a little better. We headed to bed. Two days later I gave Beej a ring. “Mate, why didn't you ring me back the other night. I rang so many times!” were some of the first words he said. AH, GOSH. I couldn't believe it – so it was Beej who'd been the spirit of evil that we'd spent so long rebuking! Top stuff Benjamin.
So. We spent all of last week in Outdstroom; biggest town in South Africa apparently but still most definitely smaller than Bath. It's redic though – apparently there's over 300 churches! Crazy. How many churches are in Bath do you reckon? Can't be much more than a hundred surely? I couldn't believe it when the Pastor told us. Although he also said he could count the good ones on his fingers – that's the big problem; there's loads of churches not 'cause there's loads of Christians but because there's a few Christians all going their own way and disagreeing with each other. And there's a huge amount of religion in this place – everyone belongs to some church or other but for many of them it's about the one service a week and not about relationship with God. Speaking of the Pastor though, this guy was a serious lad. We arrived at his house last Sunday and still two hours after meeting him I was still wondering where on earth the Pastor was – I didn't think that the young banterful guy that we'd been introduced to was actually the Pastor who was due to host us! Turns out he wasn't that young – 38 – but he was still very youthful. When we first met him we were all sitting down in the living room and he came in and said with all seriousness, “Shall we pray” and none of us even questioned it but then he burst out laughing and said, “only joking” as if it was a rediculous idea that we should pray! Ha, I think you had to be there but still – I took an instant liking to this guy. Reminds me of that time I was in the Junior School, we were having assembly and Mr Stafford was talking about the arrangements for Sport's Day. He rounded it up by saying in an off-hand kind of way, “Now all we need to do is pray for good weather...” at which point the whole auditorium bowed forwards, as one used to do when saying prayers at the Junior School. He didn't mean it literally poor guy! Unfortunately I think you had to be there to really appreciate that one too – hopefully some of you were but if not my most profuse apologies!
Outdstroom as a town is okay, take it or leave it, but I did really fall in love with the township in which we were actually staying and in fact spent most of our time. Everyone was just so friendly (I think it's potentially 'cause I'm white but still) – I often enjoyed just taking a stroll along the streets, meeting kids playing their games and smiling at the mums as they looked on from their homes. I took a liking to one particular group of kids that I met on one of our door-to-door sessions. I started talking to a couple of young guys and soon we were joined by about ten of them, all interested in what we were doing. It soon materialised that by far their favourite past-time (maybe bar football) was dancing and they were all keen to show me their Michael Jackson moves! It's almost unbelieveable – ask any kid out here to dance and they will immediately imitate MJ, normally quite well too. How do they even know what they're doing though – these kids all live in tiny houses, no internet and often without a TV, how on earth have they even ever heard of Michael Jackson, let alone know exactly how he used to dance?! Baffling. It was soon my turn to show them some moves from the Northern Hemisphere though and, lacking any other inspiration, I plumped for the Macarina – always a safe bet! This was anything but safe though, the kids were all over it – carnage - they just couldn't get enough and didn't seem to even consider that us old folk just don't have the energy to keep going forever! Even as we were dancing more kids came up and joined us and people smiled as they walked past – must've been quite a sight, just dancing on the street in what was a previously relatively peaceful little street. Those kids were great though – those ten soon became my favourites and if I had time off in the afternoon I would slip out of the house by myself (standard rule is that you're supposed to roam in pairs) and head down-town to meet up with them. There'd always be at least one just chilling on the street and as soon as we met up the rest would not be long in coming, all pleading for more of my dance moves! On Friday we ran a children's meeting and all of my new-found friends were only too-keen to come! It was brilliant – we had about forty kids there, twice the amount we were expecting so we had to cancel one of the games we'd planned for the smaller group! We did one of our “funny” dramas which the kids all loved and then I just explained it and gave a short, simple message. Really good meeting. The next day I went back to the kids to say goodbye (They didn't seem to grasp the whole concept fully – “when will you be coming back?!”) and we were just chatting when one of them said something about our drama yesterday and before I knew what was happening they were all fighting over what part they wanted to play. There we were, on the street, spontaneously acting out the drama we'd done the previous day, me playing my part and all of the kids filling in the other roles! Was such a priceless moment – just wish I could have it on camera. I think you get the picture though – these kids were cool. Enough said.
So, I was on one of my strolls around the community, and I must have looked slightly confused because one lady called out, “Are you lost?” We got talking and when she found out I was from England a smile passed over her face and she exclaimed, “Ooo, I know someone who's in Germany!” Ha, what do you say to that?! “How wonderful, same continent!” It was cute though. I carried on walking but it wasn't long before a group of people, adults and teens, shouted from outside their house, “Oi MJ!”, “Yeah Michael Jackson, how's it?” Not entirely sure but I think it was 'cause of my slightly MJ-resembembling hat. I smiled and carried on walking but then decided to stop, hold the rim of my hat, tilt it down and thrust my waist a couple of times, like all the kids round here like to do! Got the best reaction ever - “Wooooo, we like the way you move!” I smiled again then turned and carried on walking. For a split second I actually thought I was just a little bit cool. Didn't last long though! Love that about this place – I could never get away with doing anything like that back home! Simple pleasures. Something else that you just never get back home – spontanes worship times. They're the best – we were just all chilling in the living room the other day and before I knew it someone had grabbed the guitar and people were dancing and singing and just altogether making one joyous noise. Sweet times.
I was walking (again!) the other day but I hadn't gone very far before I rounded a corner to be greeted by five girls, two of which shouted “Matttt!” and ran up to me for a hug! 'Awww' I thought, it taking me a couple of moments to realise that I actually did recognise these kids – think I'd chatted to them the other day. It's so lovely how kids express emotions so freely though – felt way more appreciated by all of them than I ever do by the rest of my team, which may be because that is in fact the case, or it may just be because us adults don't like to show our emotions quite so readily. Not really cool is it.
Friday evening was insanely cool though – we had a youth meeting which a whole host of people came to and during the response time at the end about ten people seemed to genuinely give their life to the Lord, or at least make a recommitment. Was so exciting – the atmosphere was incredible and we were all just singing and dancing. I've always internally-rubbished it when people say the biggest miracle they've ever seen is someone give their life to the Lord – I've always taken it to mean that they've never actually seen a “proper” miracle but now I know what they mean – it's genuinely awesome. Like with the lady who was healed a couple of weeks back, the healing was exciting but her recommiting her life to God as a result was even better in a way! At the end of this meeting we were all taking loads of photos and this girl who I'd said hello to earlier came and put her arm round me, intending for Sam to take a photo of us but he, quite oblivious to us, was looking through his photos. She refused to let go however, so were just standing there like lemons, arms round each other, waiting for someone to notice and take a photo of us so I could escape! Awkward turtle.
So last week we got back to the house we're staying at one evening and I was just chilling in the living room when the lady of the house came in , clearly a little frustrated and said in a stern voice, “Matthew, pick up that toy!” Now I was slightly taken aback considering I hadn't long been introduced to this lady (I was surprised that she even remembered my name!) and yet here she was bossing me around the house! I assumed it must be a cultural thing and sheepishly bent town to pick up the toy in question before realising that just behind my left shoulder sat her 10 year old boy who also goes by the name Matthew! Ahhh. All made sense!
Sunday saw us take a 8 hour minibus ride across the South African outback. The roads were amazing – completely straight for as far as the eye could see with barren waste-land either side, never seen anything like it. Huge expanses of land that don't seem to have been trodden on for decades. Was cool though, felt like we were on some mass road-trip. Which I guess we kinda are.
Okay. Timecheck? 7:11pm Wednesday 21st December. Just going to keep writing this one til I find internet. We're in Kimberely now for two weeks – a city (famous for diamond mining apparently!) in northern South Africa. This place has impressively large shopping centres – allowed me to go bible shopping the other day. Found the nicest bible ever, leather bound and all, 40 pounds down to 15. Bargain! Took it to the till and they only charged me 9 for it! Isn't that just the best feeling ever? Thought as much.
I know what you're thinking... 'Don't you have anything more interesting to talk about than bible-shopping?' Aha, glad you asked, in fact I do! The place we're staying in this week is self-catering, giving us all a chance to demonstrate our wonderful culinary abilities. Jess and I were in charge of preparing supper yesterday – macaroni cheese. Simple enough. Or so you'd think but somehow we both managed to screw things up big-time. I don't know what it is with me and kitchens but I seem to jynx every one that I step foot into. I just seem incapable of making a good meal. It's all a learning curve though, isn't it?! I think our most costly error involved the addition of the cornflour to the sauce. I'm told cornflour is used to thicken and so I kept adding until the sauce got thick. Fair enough, right? Next thing I knew I was scraping the bottom of the box and the sauce still wasn't thick! And then we didn't even think to taste the sauce before pouring it all over the macaroni. Error. Big error. We didn't give up on it though – we laid on hands and said a quick prayer before going to put it in the oven only to find the oven wasn't in fully functioning order. Not functioning at all in fact. We thought it could be a blessing in disguise though – we'd have to cancel supper, blame it on the oven and no one would ever know that the food was actually inedible anyway! It was the perfect plan until Raymond (now our leader) told us to just whack it all in a pan and put it on the hob instead. Nooo. We did what he said but after rinsing it through with milk and then water and still having it taste like pure gloopy cornflour, we decided to call it a day, raising our hands in defeat. Everyone was like “Don't worry guys, you tried your best...” which really only made things worse – felt bad tipping a whole tray's worth (and this is no ordinarily-sized tray!) in the bin. Oh well, we ordered pizza in the end which quite frankly tasted better than any macaroni ever could. All's well that ends well.
Today we went to two high schools – our first visit to schools since they've only just gone back after the holidays so none of us really knew what to expect. Reminded me quite a bit of Monkton actually – these were posh school with team-photos lining the corridors and green blazers being sported by all. Their cricket pitch – which consisted of a few tufts of straw-like grass – couldn't really compare to Longmead though. I was due to share a message at the first school's assembly (you have no idea how much I was wetting myself at the prospect of talking for 15 minutes to about 600 boys and girls not much younger than me. I actually felt physically sick beforehand and wasn't entirely sure whether it was just 'cause of the nerves of whether I was actually ill. Not going to lie – I was hoping with all of my heart it was the latter!) – but when we got there we found someone else setting up their projector in the hall! What a shame, we'd been double-booked! Thought we'd have to just go back home but then an opportunity arose to speak to the CU – a group of about twenty 16-17 year olds. Much more manageable, the only problem being I had a prepared a message aimed at non-Christians. Raymond told me to just change my message. What?! It's enough of a challenge for me to prepare and share, but attempting to change my message 25 minutes beforehand! I prayed and yet again God just took over – he laid on my heart another message to share, he calmed my nerves and when it came to doing the actual sharing God just came through in a way I hadn't even hoped! All the kids were engaged and attentive and they laughed at all the right moments which always helps. I shared with confidence I didn't know I had! PTL! I think I definitely prefer the smaller, class-room type of situation where you can interact with the guys a little more than just standing and preaching to a big audience. Safe. The guys there were all really cool as well – got chatting to about seven of the lads outside afterwards. In a way I want to stay here and disciple them properly. It takes time but discipleship is way more important than any preaching ever will be. I've just got to trust that I've planted a seed and that someone else is going to come along and water it. I was getting discouraged about that when we first came on outreach actually – I was thinking that we don't stay long enough in any one place to properly make an impact – but then I read something in 1 Corinthians were Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered but God gave the growth”. Both are needed – people who plant seeds and people who water them – and I just need to rest assured that this season of my life is one where I'm planting seeds in people's lives. I need to trust that other people are going to come behind and water that seed but most of all I need to trust and pray that God's going to give the growth because ultimately it's him that does the work. Amen!
Chocolate Fudge Brownies, Mozza Rolls and Jason Gillespie
Hello! Sorry it's been a while again, internet isn't quite so available these days. It's exactly midday on Monday 20th July as I type but I'm writing on a friend's laptop and not entirely sure when I'll be able to put it up. Soon hopefully.
Something I didn't have time to mention in my last blog – the night of Sunday 4th July. So we were staying in a boarding school, we were the only ones there so I'm sure you can imagine at nights it can get pretty scary (for some, obvs I was fine); long dark corridors, windows rattling etc. Well this one particular night we were all having problems sleeping, and then, close to midnight (we are all normally in bed by half ten) the payphone, right at the end of the dark corridor, started to ring. We left it the first time but by the third time we couldn't ignore it any longer and so Sandrine and I ventured down to see what on earth was going on. We picked up the phone only to find a dead tone – no one was there. Weird. That didn't stop the phone from ringing though – it rang several times more and each time we picked up, no one was there. By this time Sandrine was thoroughly freaked out and so a prayer meeting was called in the early hours of the morning. We walked up and down those corridors and around the school just praying for peace and against this spirit of Satan that was causing the phone to ring anonymously. Eventually – I think it was gone 1 – we decided we had prayed long enough, the phone had stopped ringing and the girls were generally feeling a little better. We headed to bed. Two days later I gave Beej a ring. “Mate, why didn't you ring me back the other night. I rang so many times!” were some of the first words he said. AH, GOSH. I couldn't believe it – so it was Beej who'd been the spirit of evil that we'd spent so long rebuking! Top stuff Benjamin.
So. We spent all of last week in Outdstroom; biggest town in South Africa apparently but still most definitely smaller than Bath. It's redic though – apparently there's over 300 churches! Crazy. How many churches are in Bath do you reckon? Can't be much more than a hundred surely? I couldn't believe it when the Pastor told us. Although he also said he could count the good ones on his fingers – that's the big problem; there's loads of churches not 'cause there's loads of Christians but because there's a few Christians all going their own way and disagreeing with each other. And there's a huge amount of religion in this place – everyone belongs to some church or other but for many of them it's about the one service a week and not about relationship with God. Speaking of the Pastor though, this guy was a serious lad. We arrived at his house last Sunday and still two hours after meeting him I was still wondering where on earth the Pastor was – I didn't think that the young banterful guy that we'd been introduced to was actually the Pastor who was due to host us! Turns out he wasn't that young – 38 – but he was still very youthful. When we first met him we were all sitting down in the living room and he came in and said with all seriousness, “Shall we pray” and none of us even questioned it but then he burst out laughing and said, “only joking” as if it was a rediculous idea that we should pray! Ha, I think you had to be there but still – I took an instant liking to this guy. Reminds me of that time I was in the Junior School, we were having assembly and Mr Stafford was talking about the arrangements for Sport's Day. He rounded it up by saying in an off-hand kind of way, “Now all we need to do is pray for good weather...” at which point the whole auditorium bowed forwards, as one used to do when saying prayers at the Junior School. He didn't mean it literally poor guy! Unfortunately I think you had to be there to really appreciate that one too – hopefully some of you were but if not my most profuse apologies!
Outdstroom as a town is okay, take it or leave it, but I did really fall in love with the township in which we were actually staying and in fact spent most of our time. Everyone was just so friendly (I think it's potentially 'cause I'm white but still) – I often enjoyed just taking a stroll along the streets, meeting kids playing their games and smiling at the mums as they looked on from their homes. I took a liking to one particular group of kids that I met on one of our door-to-door sessions. I started talking to a couple of young guys and soon we were joined by about ten of them, all interested in what we were doing. It soon materialised that by far their favourite past-time (maybe bar football) was dancing and they were all keen to show me their Michael Jackson moves! It's almost unbelieveable – ask any kid out here to dance and they will immediately imitate MJ, normally quite well too. How do they even know what they're doing though – these kids all live in tiny houses, no internet and often without a TV, how on earth have they even ever heard of Michael Jackson, let alone know exactly how he used to dance?! Baffling. It was soon my turn to show them some moves from the Northern Hemisphere though and, lacking any other inspiration, I plumped for the Macarina – always a safe bet! This was anything but safe though, the kids were all over it – carnage - they just couldn't get enough and didn't seem to even consider that us old folk just don't have the energy to keep going forever! Even as we were dancing more kids came up and joined us and people smiled as they walked past – must've been quite a sight, just dancing on the street in what was a previously relatively peaceful little street. Those kids were great though – those ten soon became my favourites and if I had time off in the afternoon I would slip out of the house by myself (standard rule is that you're supposed to roam in pairs) and head down-town to meet up with them. There'd always be at least one just chilling on the street and as soon as we met up the rest would not be long in coming, all pleading for more of my dance moves! On Friday we ran a children's meeting and all of my new-found friends were only too-keen to come! It was brilliant – we had about forty kids there, twice the amount we were expecting so we had to cancel one of the games we'd planned for the smaller group! We did one of our “funny” dramas which the kids all loved and then I just explained it and gave a short, simple message. Really good meeting. The next day I went back to the kids to say goodbye (They didn't seem to grasp the whole concept fully – “when will you be coming back?!”) and we were just chatting when one of them said something about our drama yesterday and before I knew what was happening they were all fighting over what part they wanted to play. There we were, on the street, spontaneously acting out the drama we'd done the previous day, me playing my part and all of the kids filling in the other roles! Was such a priceless moment – just wish I could have it on camera. I think you get the picture though – these kids were cool. Enough said.
So, I was on one of my strolls around the community, and I must have looked slightly confused because one lady called out, “Are you lost?” We got talking and when she found out I was from England a smile passed over her face and she exclaimed, “Ooo, I know someone who's in Germany!” Ha, what do you say to that?! “How wonderful, same continent!” It was cute though. I carried on walking but it wasn't long before a group of people, adults and teens, shouted from outside their house, “Oi MJ!”, “Yeah Michael Jackson, how's it?” Not entirely sure but I think it was 'cause of my slightly MJ-resembembling hat. I smiled and carried on walking but then decided to stop, hold the rim of my hat, tilt it down and thrust my waist a couple of times, like all the kids round here like to do! Got the best reaction ever - “Wooooo, we like the way you move!” I smiled again then turned and carried on walking. For a split second I actually thought I was just a little bit cool. Didn't last long though! Love that about this place – I could never get away with doing anything like that back home! Simple pleasures. Something else that you just never get back home – spontanes worship times. They're the best – we were just all chilling in the living room the other day and before I knew it someone had grabbed the guitar and people were dancing and singing and just altogether making one joyous noise. Sweet times.
I was walking (again!) the other day but I hadn't gone very far before I rounded a corner to be greeted by five girls, two of which shouted “Matttt!” and ran up to me for a hug! 'Awww' I thought, it taking me a couple of moments to realise that I actually did recognise these kids – think I'd chatted to them the other day. It's so lovely how kids express emotions so freely though – felt way more appreciated by all of them than I ever do by the rest of my team, which may be because that is in fact the case, or it may just be because us adults don't like to show our emotions quite so readily. Not really cool is it.
Friday evening was insanely cool though – we had a youth meeting which a whole host of people came to and during the response time at the end about ten people seemed to genuinely give their life to the Lord, or at least make a recommitment. Was so exciting – the atmosphere was incredible and we were all just singing and dancing. I've always internally-rubbished it when people say the biggest miracle they've ever seen is someone give their life to the Lord – I've always taken it to mean that they've never actually seen a “proper” miracle but now I know what they mean – it's genuinely awesome. Like with the lady who was healed a couple of weeks back, the healing was exciting but her recommiting her life to God as a result was even better in a way! At the end of this meeting we were all taking loads of photos and this girl who I'd said hello to earlier came and put her arm round me, intending for Sam to take a photo of us but he, quite oblivious to us, was looking through his photos. She refused to let go however, so were just standing there like lemons, arms round each other, waiting for someone to notice and take a photo of us so I could escape! Awkward turtle.
So last week we got back to the house we're staying at one evening and I was just chilling in the living room when the lady of the house came in , clearly a little frustrated and said in a stern voice, “Matthew, pick up that toy!” Now I was slightly taken aback considering I hadn't long been introduced to this lady (I was surprised that she even remembered my name!) and yet here she was bossing me around the house! I assumed it must be a cultural thing and sheepishly bent town to pick up the toy in question before realising that just behind my left shoulder sat her 10 year old boy who also goes by the name Matthew! Ahhh. All made sense!
Sunday saw us take a 8 hour minibus ride across the South African outback. The roads were amazing – completely straight for as far as the eye could see with barren waste-land either side, never seen anything like it. Huge expanses of land that don't seem to have been trodden on for decades. Was cool though, felt like we were on some mass road-trip. Which I guess we kinda are.
Okay. Timecheck? 7:11pm Wednesday 21st December. Just going to keep writing this one til I find internet. We're in Kimberely now for two weeks – a city (famous for diamond mining apparently!) in northern South Africa. This place has impressively large shopping centres – allowed me to go bible shopping the other day. Found the nicest bible ever, leather bound and all, 40 pounds down to 15. Bargain! Took it to the till and they only charged me 9 for it! Isn't that just the best feeling ever? Thought as much.
I know what you're thinking... 'Don't you have anything more interesting to talk about than bible-shopping?' Aha, glad you asked, in fact I do! The place we're staying in this week is self-catering, giving us all a chance to demonstrate our wonderful culinary abilities. Jess and I were in charge of preparing supper yesterday – macaroni cheese. Simple enough. Or so you'd think but somehow we both managed to screw things up big-time. I don't know what it is with me and kitchens but I seem to jynx every one that I step foot into. I just seem incapable of making a good meal. It's all a learning curve though, isn't it?! I think our most costly error involved the addition of the cornflour to the sauce. I'm told cornflour is used to thicken and so I kept adding until the sauce got thick. Fair enough, right? Next thing I knew I was scraping the bottom of the box and the sauce still wasn't thick! And then we didn't even think to taste the sauce before pouring it all over the macaroni. Error. Big error. We didn't give up on it though – we laid on hands and said a quick prayer before going to put it in the oven only to find the oven wasn't in fully functioning order. Not functioning at all in fact. We thought it could be a blessing in disguise though – we'd have to cancel supper, blame it on the oven and no one would ever know that the food was actually inedible anyway! It was the perfect plan until Raymond (now our leader) told us to just whack it all in a pan and put it on the hob instead. Nooo. We did what he said but after rinsing it through with milk and then water and still having it taste like pure gloopy cornflour, we decided to call it a day, raising our hands in defeat. Everyone was like “Don't worry guys, you tried your best...” which really only made things worse – felt bad tipping a whole tray's worth (and this is no ordinarily-sized tray!) in the bin. Oh well, we ordered pizza in the end which quite frankly tasted better than any macaroni ever could. All's well that ends well.
Today we went to two high schools – our first visit to schools since they've only just gone back after the holidays so none of us really knew what to expect. Reminded me quite a bit of Monkton actually – these were posh school with team-photos lining the corridors and green blazers being sported by all. Their cricket pitch – which consisted of a few tufts of straw-like grass – couldn't really compare to Longmead though. I was due to share a message at the first school's assembly (you have no idea how much I was wetting myself at the prospect of talking for 15 minutes to about 600 boys and girls not much younger than me. I actually felt physically sick beforehand and wasn't entirely sure whether it was just 'cause of the nerves of whether I was actually ill. Not going to lie – I was hoping with all of my heart it was the latter!) – but when we got there we found someone else setting up their projector in the hall! What a shame, we'd been double-booked! Thought we'd have to just go back home but then an opportunity arose to speak to the CU – a group of about twenty 16-17 year olds. Much more manageable, the only problem being I had a prepared a message aimed at non-Christians. Raymond told me to just change my message. What?! It's enough of a challenge for me to prepare and share, but attempting to change my message 25 minutes beforehand! I prayed and yet again God just took over – he laid on my heart another message to share, he calmed my nerves and when it came to doing the actual sharing God just came through in a way I hadn't even hoped! All the kids were engaged and attentive and they laughed at all the right moments which always helps. I shared with confidence I didn't know I had! PTL! I think I definitely prefer the smaller, class-room type of situation where you can interact with the guys a little more than just standing and preaching to a big audience. Safe. The guys there were all really cool as well – got chatting to about seven of the lads outside afterwards. In a way I want to stay here and disciple them properly. It takes time but discipleship is way more important than any preaching ever will be. I've just got to trust that I've planted a seed and that someone else is going to come along and water it. I was getting discouraged about that when we first came on outreach actually – I was thinking that we don't stay long enough in any one place to properly make an impact – but then I read something in 1 Corinthians were Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered but God gave the growth”. Both are needed – people who plant seeds and people who water them – and I just need to rest assured that this season of my life is one where I'm planting seeds in people's lives. I need to trust that other people are going to come behind and water that seed but most of all I need to trust and pray that God's going to give the growth because ultimately it's him that does the work. Amen!
Something I didn't have time to mention in my last blog – the night of Sunday 4th July. So we were staying in a boarding school, we were the only ones there so I'm sure you can imagine at nights it can get pretty scary (for some, obvs I was fine); long dark corridors, windows rattling etc. Well this one particular night we were all having problems sleeping, and then, close to midnight (we are all normally in bed by half ten) the payphone, right at the end of the dark corridor, started to ring. We left it the first time but by the third time we couldn't ignore it any longer and so Sandrine and I ventured down to see what on earth was going on. We picked up the phone only to find a dead tone – no one was there. Weird. That didn't stop the phone from ringing though – it rang several times more and each time we picked up, no one was there. By this time Sandrine was thoroughly freaked out and so a prayer meeting was called in the early hours of the morning. We walked up and down those corridors and around the school just praying for peace and against this spirit of Satan that was causing the phone to ring anonymously. Eventually – I think it was gone 1 – we decided we had prayed long enough, the phone had stopped ringing and the girls were generally feeling a little better. We headed to bed. Two days later I gave Beej a ring. “Mate, why didn't you ring me back the other night. I rang so many times!” were some of the first words he said. AH, GOSH. I couldn't believe it – so it was Beej who'd been the spirit of evil that we'd spent so long rebuking! Top stuff Benjamin.
So. We spent all of last week in Outdstroom; biggest town in South Africa apparently but still most definitely smaller than Bath. It's redic though – apparently there's over 300 churches! Crazy. How many churches are in Bath do you reckon? Can't be much more than a hundred surely? I couldn't believe it when the Pastor told us. Although he also said he could count the good ones on his fingers – that's the big problem; there's loads of churches not 'cause there's loads of Christians but because there's a few Christians all going their own way and disagreeing with each other. And there's a huge amount of religion in this place – everyone belongs to some church or other but for many of them it's about the one service a week and not about relationship with God. Speaking of the Pastor though, this guy was a serious lad. We arrived at his house last Sunday and still two hours after meeting him I was still wondering where on earth the Pastor was – I didn't think that the young banterful guy that we'd been introduced to was actually the Pastor who was due to host us! Turns out he wasn't that young – 38 – but he was still very youthful. When we first met him we were all sitting down in the living room and he came in and said with all seriousness, “Shall we pray” and none of us even questioned it but then he burst out laughing and said, “only joking” as if it was a rediculous idea that we should pray! Ha, I think you had to be there but still – I took an instant liking to this guy. Reminds me of that time I was in the Junior School, we were having assembly and Mr Stafford was talking about the arrangements for Sport's Day. He rounded it up by saying in an off-hand kind of way, “Now all we need to do is pray for good weather...” at which point the whole auditorium bowed forwards, as one used to do when saying prayers at the Junior School. He didn't mean it literally poor guy! Unfortunately I think you had to be there to really appreciate that one too – hopefully some of you were but if not my most profuse apologies!
Outdstroom as a town is okay, take it or leave it, but I did really fall in love with the township in which we were actually staying and in fact spent most of our time. Everyone was just so friendly (I think it's potentially 'cause I'm white but still) – I often enjoyed just taking a stroll along the streets, meeting kids playing their games and smiling at the mums as they looked on from their homes. I took a liking to one particular group of kids that I met on one of our door-to-door sessions. I started talking to a couple of young guys and soon we were joined by about ten of them, all interested in what we were doing. It soon materialised that by far their favourite past-time (maybe bar football) was dancing and they were all keen to show me their Michael Jackson moves! It's almost unbelieveable – ask any kid out here to dance and they will immediately imitate MJ, normally quite well too. How do they even know what they're doing though – these kids all live in tiny houses, no internet and often without a TV, how on earth have they even ever heard of Michael Jackson, let alone know exactly how he used to dance?! Baffling. It was soon my turn to show them some moves from the Northern Hemisphere though and, lacking any other inspiration, I plumped for the Macarina – always a safe bet! This was anything but safe though, the kids were all over it – carnage - they just couldn't get enough and didn't seem to even consider that us old folk just don't have the energy to keep going forever! Even as we were dancing more kids came up and joined us and people smiled as they walked past – must've been quite a sight, just dancing on the street in what was a previously relatively peaceful little street. Those kids were great though – those ten soon became my favourites and if I had time off in the afternoon I would slip out of the house by myself (standard rule is that you're supposed to roam in pairs) and head down-town to meet up with them. There'd always be at least one just chilling on the street and as soon as we met up the rest would not be long in coming, all pleading for more of my dance moves! On Friday we ran a children's meeting and all of my new-found friends were only too-keen to come! It was brilliant – we had about forty kids there, twice the amount we were expecting so we had to cancel one of the games we'd planned for the smaller group! We did one of our “funny” dramas which the kids all loved and then I just explained it and gave a short, simple message. Really good meeting. The next day I went back to the kids to say goodbye (They didn't seem to grasp the whole concept fully – “when will you be coming back?!”) and we were just chatting when one of them said something about our drama yesterday and before I knew what was happening they were all fighting over what part they wanted to play. There we were, on the street, spontaneously acting out the drama we'd done the previous day, me playing my part and all of the kids filling in the other roles! Was such a priceless moment – just wish I could have it on camera. I think you get the picture though – these kids were cool. Enough said.
So, I was on one of my strolls around the community, and I must have looked slightly confused because one lady called out, “Are you lost?” We got talking and when she found out I was from England a smile passed over her face and she exclaimed, “Ooo, I know someone who's in Germany!” Ha, what do you say to that?! “How wonderful, same continent!” It was cute though. I carried on walking but it wasn't long before a group of people, adults and teens, shouted from outside their house, “Oi MJ!”, “Yeah Michael Jackson, how's it?” Not entirely sure but I think it was 'cause of my slightly MJ-resembembling hat. I smiled and carried on walking but then decided to stop, hold the rim of my hat, tilt it down and thrust my waist a couple of times, like all the kids round here like to do! Got the best reaction ever - “Wooooo, we like the way you move!” I smiled again then turned and carried on walking. For a split second I actually thought I was just a little bit cool. Didn't last long though! Love that about this place – I could never get away with doing anything like that back home! Simple pleasures. Something else that you just never get back home – spontanes worship times. They're the best – we were just all chilling in the living room the other day and before I knew it someone had grabbed the guitar and people were dancing and singing and just altogether making one joyous noise. Sweet times.
I was walking (again!) the other day but I hadn't gone very far before I rounded a corner to be greeted by five girls, two of which shouted “Matttt!” and ran up to me for a hug! 'Awww' I thought, it taking me a couple of moments to realise that I actually did recognise these kids – think I'd chatted to them the other day. It's so lovely how kids express emotions so freely though – felt way more appreciated by all of them than I ever do by the rest of my team, which may be because that is in fact the case, or it may just be because us adults don't like to show our emotions quite so readily. Not really cool is it.
Friday evening was insanely cool though – we had a youth meeting which a whole host of people came to and during the response time at the end about ten people seemed to genuinely give their life to the Lord, or at least make a recommitment. Was so exciting – the atmosphere was incredible and we were all just singing and dancing. I've always internally-rubbished it when people say the biggest miracle they've ever seen is someone give their life to the Lord – I've always taken it to mean that they've never actually seen a “proper” miracle but now I know what they mean – it's genuinely awesome. Like with the lady who was healed a couple of weeks back, the healing was exciting but her recommiting her life to God as a result was even better in a way! At the end of this meeting we were all taking loads of photos and this girl who I'd said hello to earlier came and put her arm round me, intending for Sam to take a photo of us but he, quite oblivious to us, was looking through his photos. She refused to let go however, so were just standing there like lemons, arms round each other, waiting for someone to notice and take a photo of us so I could escape! Awkward turtle.
So last week we got back to the house we're staying at one evening and I was just chilling in the living room when the lady of the house came in , clearly a little frustrated and said in a stern voice, “Matthew, pick up that toy!” Now I was slightly taken aback considering I hadn't long been introduced to this lady (I was surprised that she even remembered my name!) and yet here she was bossing me around the house! I assumed it must be a cultural thing and sheepishly bent town to pick up the toy in question before realising that just behind my left shoulder sat her 10 year old boy who also goes by the name Matthew! Ahhh. All made sense!
Sunday saw us take a 8 hour minibus ride across the South African outback. The roads were amazing – completely straight for as far as the eye could see with barren waste-land either side, never seen anything like it. Huge expanses of land that don't seem to have been trodden on for decades. Was cool though, felt like we were on some mass road-trip. Which I guess we kinda are.
Okay. Timecheck? 7:11pm Wednesday 21st December. Just going to keep writing this one til I find internet. We're in Kimberely now for two weeks – a city (famous for diamond mining apparently!) in northern South Africa. This place has impressively large shopping centres – allowed me to go bible shopping the other day. Found the nicest bible ever, leather bound and all, 40 pounds down to 15. Bargain! Took it to the till and they only charged me 9 for it! Isn't that just the best feeling ever? Thought as much.
I know what you're thinking... 'Don't you have anything more interesting to talk about than bible-shopping?' Aha, glad you asked, in fact I do! The place we're staying in this week is self-catering, giving us all a chance to demonstrate our wonderful culinary abilities. Jess and I were in charge of preparing supper yesterday – macaroni cheese. Simple enough. Or so you'd think but somehow we both managed to screw things up big-time. I don't know what it is with me and kitchens but I seem to jynx every one that I step foot into. I just seem incapable of making a good meal. It's all a learning curve though, isn't it?! I think our most costly error involved the addition of the cornflour to the sauce. I'm told cornflour is used to thicken and so I kept adding until the sauce got thick. Fair enough, right? Next thing I knew I was scraping the bottom of the box and the sauce still wasn't thick! And then we didn't even think to taste the sauce before pouring it all over the macaroni. Error. Big error. We didn't give up on it though – we laid on hands and said a quick prayer before going to put it in the oven only to find the oven wasn't in fully functioning order. Not functioning at all in fact. We thought it could be a blessing in disguise though – we'd have to cancel supper, blame it on the oven and no one would ever know that the food was actually inedible anyway! It was the perfect plan until Raymond (now our leader) told us to just whack it all in a pan and put it on the hob instead. Nooo. We did what he said but after rinsing it through with milk and then water and still having it taste like pure gloopy cornflour, we decided to call it a day, raising our hands in defeat. Everyone was like “Don't worry guys, you tried your best...” which really only made things worse – felt bad tipping a whole tray's worth (and this is no ordinarily-sized tray!) in the bin. Oh well, we ordered pizza in the end which quite frankly tasted better than any macaroni ever could. All's well that ends well.
Today we went to two high schools – our first visit to schools since they've only just gone back after the holidays so none of us really knew what to expect. Reminded me quite a bit of Monkton actually – these were posh school with team-photos lining the corridors and green blazers being sported by all. Their cricket pitch – which consisted of a few tufts of straw-like grass – couldn't really compare to Longmead though. I was due to share a message at the first school's assembly (you have no idea how much I was wetting myself at the prospect of talking for 15 minutes to about 600 boys and girls not much younger than me. I actually felt physically sick beforehand and wasn't entirely sure whether it was just 'cause of the nerves of whether I was actually ill. Not going to lie – I was hoping with all of my heart it was the latter!) – but when we got there we found someone else setting up their projector in the hall! What a shame, we'd been double-booked! Thought we'd have to just go back home but then an opportunity arose to speak to the CU – a group of about twenty 16-17 year olds. Much more manageable, the only problem being I had a prepared a message aimed at non-Christians. Raymond told me to just change my message. What?! It's enough of a challenge for me to prepare and share, but attempting to change my message 25 minutes beforehand! I prayed and yet again God just took over – he laid on my heart another message to share, he calmed my nerves and when it came to doing the actual sharing God just came through in a way I hadn't even hoped! All the kids were engaged and attentive and they laughed at all the right moments which always helps. I shared with confidence I didn't know I had! PTL! I think I definitely prefer the smaller, class-room type of situation where you can interact with the guys a little more than just standing and preaching to a big audience. Safe. The guys there were all really cool as well – got chatting to about seven of the lads outside afterwards. In a way I want to stay here and disciple them properly. It takes time but discipleship is way more important than any preaching ever will be. I've just got to trust that I've planted a seed and that someone else is going to come along and water it. I was getting discouraged about that when we first came on outreach actually – I was thinking that we don't stay long enough in any one place to properly make an impact – but then I read something in 1 Corinthians were Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered but God gave the growth”. Both are needed – people who plant seeds and people who water them – and I just need to rest assured that this season of my life is one where I'm planting seeds in people's lives. I need to trust that other people are going to come behind and water that seed but most of all I need to trust and pray that God's going to give the growth because ultimately it's him that does the work. Amen!
Monday, 12 July 2010
There's only two type of people in this world...
Three points to the person who can name the song I nabbed that title from. Anyone? Or not so much?
Anyhows. I have precisely nine minutes left online. Not gone well. Shortest blog ever. We've left Ladismith after three emotion-filled weeks and it turns out we had all formed a stronger attachment to the small town than any of us thought! We met some lovely people - the kindness from our host family was particularly striking - making us lunch and dinner daily for three weeks, always greeting us with a smile and never complaining if we ran out in a hurry leaving plenty of dirty plates. Amazing people. We ran a mini YWAM course with about eight of the young people - they faithfully turned up every afternoon for two weeks to hear each of us talking about hearing the voice of God, the bible, relationships etc - allowing us to give them a little of what we learnt during our DTS. It was really encouraging, just how keen they were to learn, getting to know them and forming friendships. And then, on our last night they really stepped up to the plate and led one of the evening services that we had previously been running for the community. Seeing those 17-year olds, who we'd invested a fair bit of time in over the three weeks, sharing their testimonies that evening was really touching, even if it was mainly in Africaans! A tear-filled farewell followed the next day. Now we're in a slightly bigger town (apparently the largest in SA!) called Oudstroom (many struggles pronouncing that one!), just for a week. Had our day off today, found out only too late that there's a golf course just down the road! If only I'd noticed earlier this morning the day could have been slightly more eventful than it has been. Oh well, either way my batteries are now re-charged and I'm ready to face the week!
Alright. Times up. Peace.
Xx.
Anyhows. I have precisely nine minutes left online. Not gone well. Shortest blog ever. We've left Ladismith after three emotion-filled weeks and it turns out we had all formed a stronger attachment to the small town than any of us thought! We met some lovely people - the kindness from our host family was particularly striking - making us lunch and dinner daily for three weeks, always greeting us with a smile and never complaining if we ran out in a hurry leaving plenty of dirty plates. Amazing people. We ran a mini YWAM course with about eight of the young people - they faithfully turned up every afternoon for two weeks to hear each of us talking about hearing the voice of God, the bible, relationships etc - allowing us to give them a little of what we learnt during our DTS. It was really encouraging, just how keen they were to learn, getting to know them and forming friendships. And then, on our last night they really stepped up to the plate and led one of the evening services that we had previously been running for the community. Seeing those 17-year olds, who we'd invested a fair bit of time in over the three weeks, sharing their testimonies that evening was really touching, even if it was mainly in Africaans! A tear-filled farewell followed the next day. Now we're in a slightly bigger town (apparently the largest in SA!) called Oudstroom (many struggles pronouncing that one!), just for a week. Had our day off today, found out only too late that there's a golf course just down the road! If only I'd noticed earlier this morning the day could have been slightly more eventful than it has been. Oh well, either way my batteries are now re-charged and I'm ready to face the week!
Alright. Times up. Peace.
Xx.
Monday, 5 July 2010
I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want...
Yes. Good week. God is good.
Almost everyday this week we've done door-to-door evangelism in the local community, which has been our focus for the week. As you can imagine (or might have read about in a previous blog), door-to-door isn't exactly my cup of tea but this week has actually changed my perspective on it quite considerably. Most of our visits this week happened to be to Christian homes so instead of awkward and pressurised conversations we had many wonderfully edifying ones and words of mutual respect and encouragement for the different work that we're doing. And then one of the few times we got invited into a non-Christian home, we were met with the most honest and open lady that you're ever going to meet. She was only in her early twentys but she started pouring out her heart, how she longed for direction and passion in life, shedding a tear here in there. Was really powerful, and now she's coming along to these mini-discipleship classes were running in the afternoons so that's awesome! Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be teaching a two hour lesson on the Word of God tomorrow! Feel totally unqualified but thankfully it wont be on my own strength... prayers greatly appreciated thank you!
We had an open-air meeting on Saturday morning, same as last week, and at the end we just opened it up for a time of prayer. One lady who was prayed for found it very difficult to walk - she had problems with her back and was fighting against having to use a wheel-chair but God just came and completely healed her there and then! You should've seen the smile on her face - she was so happy! She grabbed the mic and told everyone what had happened there and then but she said she wouldn't be shutting up about this for a little while! Was so cool to see God come through so powerfully. Before Saturday I had been thinking, "We've been praying for people but they haven't been healed, what's going on?" The day after I had these questions my quiet time notes lead me to read about Shadrach, Meshach and Adednego - when they were going to be chucked into the furnace for not worshipping false idols they said "Our God can save us from the fire but even if he doesn't, we will still worship him. And that really struck a chord - God's a God who can heal, who is all powerful but even if he doesn't then I still need to be giving him all the glory 'cause he's got everything under control! Mmm, sho (which is what you say if you agree with something in a sermon over here by the way - you make a really loud "mm" grunt and then follow it up with a "sure", pronounced "sho". Not sure I'll be bringing that one back to HTCD though!).
Something else that I've been thinking about recently - a sermon someone preached a while back talked about how Jesus visioned big but built small; He used twelve men to change the course of world history. He had a big vision. He may not have seen the world 'changed' during his time on earth but he invested so much in those twelve disciples. If we truly impact people, go beneath the surface and help to instigate change, our influence will be greater then we could ever imagine - they will impact others who will impact others and so on. Build small, vision big and impact knowing that you're impacting people you don't know in generations you're not a part of. That's the plan at least! Hmmm. Potench.
It's decided - I want to be a lawyer. That's the latest idea anyhows.
Dances continue to provide much cause for amusement - the stage was extremely slippery at our service on Friday evening and I was wearing shoes with less grip than the stage itself. Recipe for disaster - I was slipping and sliding all over the shop, much to everyone's amusement. Not gone well. Had to dance solo on Friday morning in front of about seventy kids as well - that was err, an interesting experience! I'm slowly learning that there's worse things in life than making a fool out of yourself!
Alright. I need to go prepare for class tomorrow (have been waiting a long time to be able to say something like that!). Sorry this blog was far too serious! Enjoy your weeks....
X
Almost everyday this week we've done door-to-door evangelism in the local community, which has been our focus for the week. As you can imagine (or might have read about in a previous blog), door-to-door isn't exactly my cup of tea but this week has actually changed my perspective on it quite considerably. Most of our visits this week happened to be to Christian homes so instead of awkward and pressurised conversations we had many wonderfully edifying ones and words of mutual respect and encouragement for the different work that we're doing. And then one of the few times we got invited into a non-Christian home, we were met with the most honest and open lady that you're ever going to meet. She was only in her early twentys but she started pouring out her heart, how she longed for direction and passion in life, shedding a tear here in there. Was really powerful, and now she's coming along to these mini-discipleship classes were running in the afternoons so that's awesome! Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be teaching a two hour lesson on the Word of God tomorrow! Feel totally unqualified but thankfully it wont be on my own strength... prayers greatly appreciated thank you!
We had an open-air meeting on Saturday morning, same as last week, and at the end we just opened it up for a time of prayer. One lady who was prayed for found it very difficult to walk - she had problems with her back and was fighting against having to use a wheel-chair but God just came and completely healed her there and then! You should've seen the smile on her face - she was so happy! She grabbed the mic and told everyone what had happened there and then but she said she wouldn't be shutting up about this for a little while! Was so cool to see God come through so powerfully. Before Saturday I had been thinking, "We've been praying for people but they haven't been healed, what's going on?" The day after I had these questions my quiet time notes lead me to read about Shadrach, Meshach and Adednego - when they were going to be chucked into the furnace for not worshipping false idols they said "Our God can save us from the fire but even if he doesn't, we will still worship him. And that really struck a chord - God's a God who can heal, who is all powerful but even if he doesn't then I still need to be giving him all the glory 'cause he's got everything under control! Mmm, sho (which is what you say if you agree with something in a sermon over here by the way - you make a really loud "mm" grunt and then follow it up with a "sure", pronounced "sho". Not sure I'll be bringing that one back to HTCD though!).
Something else that I've been thinking about recently - a sermon someone preached a while back talked about how Jesus visioned big but built small; He used twelve men to change the course of world history. He had a big vision. He may not have seen the world 'changed' during his time on earth but he invested so much in those twelve disciples. If we truly impact people, go beneath the surface and help to instigate change, our influence will be greater then we could ever imagine - they will impact others who will impact others and so on. Build small, vision big and impact knowing that you're impacting people you don't know in generations you're not a part of. That's the plan at least! Hmmm. Potench.
It's decided - I want to be a lawyer. That's the latest idea anyhows.
Dances continue to provide much cause for amusement - the stage was extremely slippery at our service on Friday evening and I was wearing shoes with less grip than the stage itself. Recipe for disaster - I was slipping and sliding all over the shop, much to everyone's amusement. Not gone well. Had to dance solo on Friday morning in front of about seventy kids as well - that was err, an interesting experience! I'm slowly learning that there's worse things in life than making a fool out of yourself!
Alright. I need to go prepare for class tomorrow (have been waiting a long time to be able to say something like that!). Sorry this blog was far too serious! Enjoy your weeks....
X
Monday, 28 June 2010
One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war...
So, havent't written for over three weeks now - apologies to all of those who check this thing reguarly (thanks Mum) - to be honest there wasn't much to write about for a while and now I'm on outreach finding internet has proved somewhat problematic. I'm here now though, tapping away in an internet cafe in Ladismith
(http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ladismith,+south+africa&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.716225,56.162109&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=South,+Ladismith,+Western+Cape,+South+Africa&ll=-34.461277,20.742188&spn=3.85846,7.020264&z=7)
Where to start then? We finished off lectures with the 'Relationships' topic followed by 'Spiritual Warfare' for the last week. 'Relationships' was a top week - far less intense than some of the others have been and really rather amusing. A couple led it so we got the male and female perspective on things and overall the week provided some good laughs. As we drew closer and closer to outreach however, it became evident that some guys in the team were not going to be able to pay for outreach. They just didn't have sufficient funds, for a variety or reasons, so after much huffing and puffing about what to do we decided to split the team - half of us are continuing on the original planned outreach and the other half are doing a cheaper, locally-based outreach. It was kinda weird to say goodbye to half of the team at such short notice but I think it was a good move, there are seven of us here, including two leaders - anymore and things would just get way too stressful!
On Monday we went to a small village called Patensie, just for one night, for some team-building and dance-learning activities. Joyous. Was good though - we were accomodated by a lady there who treated us very well - she moved out of her room so that Andy, Janeal and I could sleep in her double bed! She lived in a wooden house with a corrugated tin roof, couldn't have been bigger than about 6m by 8m total, split into four rooms. There was no running water and the toilet was an extremely smelly, nappy-filled long-drop outside. I needed the loo at one point so i opened the front door in search of it only to rip the woodent thing off its hinge! Not gone well at all! It was really good though - the more poverty I experience and not just see the better I think, in terms of eye-opening and heart-softening.
On Tuesday we travelled over to Ladismith, a small town a few hours north east of Cape Town. We're staying in a boarding school here for three weeks and doing various things around the town. So far we've visited the prison, the hopsital, the OAP home, led an open-air service on the high-street, and held a youth-service. We go to these places, do a drama, have some worship, someone shares a testimony, someone preaches and then we pray for people. Cool beans! The OAP-home was a particularly interesting experience. We started off one of our dance routines, in front of about forty of these old-biddys, and I don't think I've ever felt like such a spoon in all my days! The expression on most of their faces was really rather off-putting - each of them looked as if the person on their left had just passed the most awful wind. Maybe that was the case, you never know with these old people's bowel control, but short of that it seemed they were just really rather bemused as to what on earth we were doing up the front. They genuinely were all scowling at us (with the exception of one lady at the front who seemed to be enjoying herself) - I do wonder why we do these dances. Do they add anything? Does anyone enjoy them (apart from that one lady)? Nope and nope... didn't think so. Hmmm. I stopped myself during the dance (not literally) and just thought to myself, 'Wow - three months ago if you'd told me I'd soon been dancing in front of some old folk I woulda told ya to get on ya bike'. Somehow though, this is what I'm doing. We finished up our programme and were readying ourselves to go and mingle with them all before one of them put up her hand and requested a time of testimony sharing. Really? Wasn't really feeling it myself but that didn't seem to come into consideration! We all shared our testimonys with them, I came up with something but mine was slightly shorter than everyone else's - everyone tells me to stop being ridiculous but I still feel like I don't really have a testimony to share. Everyone else goes forward and tells of how they were addicted to drugs, with an abusive father, having attempted suicide on numerous occasions before Jesus appeared to them in a vision with bright lights and a booming voice and immediately they were set free from all their problems! Okay well not quite, but it sometimes feels that way in comparison to my, "I grew up in a Christian family..." story.
Okay, my internet time's running low so I better wrap up here. Apologies. I did preach my first sermon two days ago though - that was exciting! Wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought I'd be - God really did give me strength. After Sports Dinner last year I decided to carry a note-book in my hand as opposed to just sheets of paper - I find it's not nearly as obvious when you're shaking like a dog out of nervousness!
Alright. Will try to write again soon. Peace.
X
(http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ladismith,+south+africa&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.716225,56.162109&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=South,+Ladismith,+Western+Cape,+South+Africa&ll=-34.461277,20.742188&spn=3.85846,7.020264&z=7)
Where to start then? We finished off lectures with the 'Relationships' topic followed by 'Spiritual Warfare' for the last week. 'Relationships' was a top week - far less intense than some of the others have been and really rather amusing. A couple led it so we got the male and female perspective on things and overall the week provided some good laughs. As we drew closer and closer to outreach however, it became evident that some guys in the team were not going to be able to pay for outreach. They just didn't have sufficient funds, for a variety or reasons, so after much huffing and puffing about what to do we decided to split the team - half of us are continuing on the original planned outreach and the other half are doing a cheaper, locally-based outreach. It was kinda weird to say goodbye to half of the team at such short notice but I think it was a good move, there are seven of us here, including two leaders - anymore and things would just get way too stressful!
On Monday we went to a small village called Patensie, just for one night, for some team-building and dance-learning activities. Joyous. Was good though - we were accomodated by a lady there who treated us very well - she moved out of her room so that Andy, Janeal and I could sleep in her double bed! She lived in a wooden house with a corrugated tin roof, couldn't have been bigger than about 6m by 8m total, split into four rooms. There was no running water and the toilet was an extremely smelly, nappy-filled long-drop outside. I needed the loo at one point so i opened the front door in search of it only to rip the woodent thing off its hinge! Not gone well at all! It was really good though - the more poverty I experience and not just see the better I think, in terms of eye-opening and heart-softening.
On Tuesday we travelled over to Ladismith, a small town a few hours north east of Cape Town. We're staying in a boarding school here for three weeks and doing various things around the town. So far we've visited the prison, the hopsital, the OAP home, led an open-air service on the high-street, and held a youth-service. We go to these places, do a drama, have some worship, someone shares a testimony, someone preaches and then we pray for people. Cool beans! The OAP-home was a particularly interesting experience. We started off one of our dance routines, in front of about forty of these old-biddys, and I don't think I've ever felt like such a spoon in all my days! The expression on most of their faces was really rather off-putting - each of them looked as if the person on their left had just passed the most awful wind. Maybe that was the case, you never know with these old people's bowel control, but short of that it seemed they were just really rather bemused as to what on earth we were doing up the front. They genuinely were all scowling at us (with the exception of one lady at the front who seemed to be enjoying herself) - I do wonder why we do these dances. Do they add anything? Does anyone enjoy them (apart from that one lady)? Nope and nope... didn't think so. Hmmm. I stopped myself during the dance (not literally) and just thought to myself, 'Wow - three months ago if you'd told me I'd soon been dancing in front of some old folk I woulda told ya to get on ya bike'. Somehow though, this is what I'm doing. We finished up our programme and were readying ourselves to go and mingle with them all before one of them put up her hand and requested a time of testimony sharing. Really? Wasn't really feeling it myself but that didn't seem to come into consideration! We all shared our testimonys with them, I came up with something but mine was slightly shorter than everyone else's - everyone tells me to stop being ridiculous but I still feel like I don't really have a testimony to share. Everyone else goes forward and tells of how they were addicted to drugs, with an abusive father, having attempted suicide on numerous occasions before Jesus appeared to them in a vision with bright lights and a booming voice and immediately they were set free from all their problems! Okay well not quite, but it sometimes feels that way in comparison to my, "I grew up in a Christian family..." story.
Okay, my internet time's running low so I better wrap up here. Apologies. I did preach my first sermon two days ago though - that was exciting! Wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought I'd be - God really did give me strength. After Sports Dinner last year I decided to carry a note-book in my hand as opposed to just sheets of paper - I find it's not nearly as obvious when you're shaking like a dog out of nervousness!
Alright. Will try to write again soon. Peace.
X
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Let's Get Ready to Rumble
In less than three weeks I will be stuffed in the back of an African minivan weaving my way up through South Africa on a three-month mission trip. It's crazy, it's come around quickly but then again it does seem like several years ago I was saying goodbye to friends and family at Gatwick airport. We are still fairly clueless as to what the three months will involve but I know we will be visiting various schools and churches along the way. I've got the feeling there'll be loads more dances and dramas to learn in the coming days so there's always that to look forward to.
Things have gotten way better since I wrote about scales and dinosaurs. Being a Christian's awesome - nothing in the world is better in fact. Ha, I knew this already but sometimes it doesn't quite seem as true as it is.
So I was sitting on the beach a couple of mornings ago doing my quiet time (as you do. I could get used to this...) when I looked up and saw something black poking out of the water. 'SHARKK...' was my immediate thought but then I looked again and saw lots of little fins coming out of the water, really close to the shore as well. Dolphins! Was so lovely - there must have been about ten of them chill-caking in the water, just a matter of metres away from the beach. They were so close, I really wanted to swim with them but I didn't have any of my stuff. It wasn't going to stop me though - I stripped down to my boxers and waded into the water. However, I had a traumatic experience a couple of weeks back where i got completely white-washed by this wave - I tried to swim underneath a break and the wave just took hold of me and pressed me against the sea floor. Was only for a couple of seconds but seemed like forever as I just couldn't move at all! And so yesterday I desperately wanted to go and swim with the dolphins but unfortunately for me they were just the other side of the flebbing swell breaking and I couldn't pluck up the courage to swim through it again. Bad times. Overall though it was a success story - the dolphins were so cool and my wallet, phone and camera were still in a pile on the sand when I got out. Bonzer.
So we've had our long-weekend just now - had Saturday through Wednesday off and its been really nice to just relax a little before the intensity that outreach will no doubt bring. I was going to go on a road-trip with Sandrine and Jess but I just felt I shouldn't be going and when I told our leader Sam his face lit up with excitement! Apparently he'd been praying and got the feeling I shouldn't be going but then he felt God say that He would speak to me Himself and that he should leave it. And God did speak - I got a really strong sense that I shouldn't be going, so I guess that was pretty cool, even if I did miss out on a fun-filled weekend. My batteries are now some-what recharged and ready to go though.
It's really rather interesting sharing a dorm, never actually had the pleasure of it before on a regular basis and it's proved an altogether enlightening experience. Every so often I wake in the morning to the sound of laughter as five lads eagerly wait to tell me what I was saying in the early hours of the morning! Turns out I sleep-talk more than I realised. The guys' favourite is something I said a couple of weeks ago - "Before you go, tell Chelsey she's worthy". Chelsey's a girl here so naturally they found that one quite amusing. What I can't work out is how they all hear it though - do they just not sleep? Thankfully I seem to have shaken off the other noise I used to make in my sleep (you may or may not know, it usually sounds like I'm constantly trying to eat something throughout the night) so at least that's one thing that's gone well.
Okay, supper calls. I may well think of something I've missed out in which I'll be back. Next week's talks are on relationships - could be interesting! Love...
P.S - Can't believe I'm missing BGT (Britain's Got Talent for the older generation)! Seriously bad times.
Things have gotten way better since I wrote about scales and dinosaurs. Being a Christian's awesome - nothing in the world is better in fact. Ha, I knew this already but sometimes it doesn't quite seem as true as it is.
So I was sitting on the beach a couple of mornings ago doing my quiet time (as you do. I could get used to this...) when I looked up and saw something black poking out of the water. 'SHARKK...' was my immediate thought but then I looked again and saw lots of little fins coming out of the water, really close to the shore as well. Dolphins! Was so lovely - there must have been about ten of them chill-caking in the water, just a matter of metres away from the beach. They were so close, I really wanted to swim with them but I didn't have any of my stuff. It wasn't going to stop me though - I stripped down to my boxers and waded into the water. However, I had a traumatic experience a couple of weeks back where i got completely white-washed by this wave - I tried to swim underneath a break and the wave just took hold of me and pressed me against the sea floor. Was only for a couple of seconds but seemed like forever as I just couldn't move at all! And so yesterday I desperately wanted to go and swim with the dolphins but unfortunately for me they were just the other side of the flebbing swell breaking and I couldn't pluck up the courage to swim through it again. Bad times. Overall though it was a success story - the dolphins were so cool and my wallet, phone and camera were still in a pile on the sand when I got out. Bonzer.
So we've had our long-weekend just now - had Saturday through Wednesday off and its been really nice to just relax a little before the intensity that outreach will no doubt bring. I was going to go on a road-trip with Sandrine and Jess but I just felt I shouldn't be going and when I told our leader Sam his face lit up with excitement! Apparently he'd been praying and got the feeling I shouldn't be going but then he felt God say that He would speak to me Himself and that he should leave it. And God did speak - I got a really strong sense that I shouldn't be going, so I guess that was pretty cool, even if I did miss out on a fun-filled weekend. My batteries are now some-what recharged and ready to go though.
It's really rather interesting sharing a dorm, never actually had the pleasure of it before on a regular basis and it's proved an altogether enlightening experience. Every so often I wake in the morning to the sound of laughter as five lads eagerly wait to tell me what I was saying in the early hours of the morning! Turns out I sleep-talk more than I realised. The guys' favourite is something I said a couple of weeks ago - "Before you go, tell Chelsey she's worthy". Chelsey's a girl here so naturally they found that one quite amusing. What I can't work out is how they all hear it though - do they just not sleep? Thankfully I seem to have shaken off the other noise I used to make in my sleep (you may or may not know, it usually sounds like I'm constantly trying to eat something throughout the night) so at least that's one thing that's gone well.
Okay, supper calls. I may well think of something I've missed out in which I'll be back. Next week's talks are on relationships - could be interesting! Love...
P.S - Can't believe I'm missing BGT (Britain's Got Talent for the older generation)! Seriously bad times.
Monday, 24 May 2010
On a scale of one to dinosaur
So, normally everything's jolly - I think I've barely written a bad word about this place and the stuff that's been going on since I arrived and that's mainly because it honestly has been great but there are times when it's not so fantas and I want to be honest about that too. Being a Christian is real hard sometimes - you have to lay down everything for the sake of Him. Take up your cross and follow him - what a statement. It's tough but we have to perservere which is what I intend to do - it really is the only way to live. Something I'm learning is that what we often refer to as 'sacrafice' for the sake of Jesus is really no sacrafice at all - if God's asking you to lay something down it's because he's got better plans for you. Wonderfully tough.
We practised a dance for outreach this evening. Not gone well at all - on a scale of one to my cup of tea, it was someone else's glass of orange juice. Spoon. Dancing never will be my thing but we all gotta do it so I'm just trying to enter into the spirit of it!
We were told off for singing a non-Christian song (Halo - Beyonce - actually a personal favourite of mine) this evening. Apparently it doesn't glorify God. Flip - people here have strong views on certain things, not always easy to deal with but I'm trying to be open-minded.
Alright. Bed time again. Love y'all.
X
We practised a dance for outreach this evening. Not gone well at all - on a scale of one to my cup of tea, it was someone else's glass of orange juice. Spoon. Dancing never will be my thing but we all gotta do it so I'm just trying to enter into the spirit of it!
We were told off for singing a non-Christian song (Halo - Beyonce - actually a personal favourite of mine) this evening. Apparently it doesn't glorify God. Flip - people here have strong views on certain things, not always easy to deal with but I'm trying to be open-minded.
Alright. Bed time again. Love y'all.
X
Sunday, 23 May 2010
It's all about the chase
So. Haven't written for a while so I guess I should write a cheeky update quickly. Where was I then? An Audience with God almost a couple of weeks ago now was an evening where everyone was supposed to bring a talent to offer before God - you could dance, sing, write a poem or something. Everyone was watching but it was done for God. I wasn't exactly delighted when the news reached me that this is what we were doing - my talents are unfortunately rather limited; I can't sing, dance or draw so overall, it's not gone well. I did decide however, that I could write a poem so this is what I did - it rhymed and all was all rather lovely, but then I prayed and felt God saying he actually would rather I sang for him. No, please no, Lord?! That can't be right - have you even heard me sing God?! I just felt that the poem was alright but at the end of the day I cared more about whether it rhymed or not rather than what I was saying. I felt God wanted to strip me bare and just be honest with him. So that's what I did. I sat in front of everyone, guitar in my hand, and just sung "Jesus, Son of God, I believe in you..." strumming at seemingly random intervals. It was awful, really shockingly bad - I had my eyes shut so I couldn't see what my hand was doing on the fret-board (you have to feel sorry for all those present) but at the same time it was awesome. Ensured I really was just doing it for God and no one in the room. I don't think God minds too much that I can't sing or play guitar, so that's cool.
Baptism of fire - yes please. So on Friday I went into morning lectures in the fowlest mood - was just not feeling great to be hons - and we were having a 'Holy Spirit Party' - wasn't entirely sure what it was but sounded like the last thing I was up for! Two hours later though my story couldn't have been different - we were all invited up to front to be prayed for impartation of the Spirit and like a month ago I was just nwaysayed by the Holy Thing. It was crazy - my legs went weak so I ended up on the floor again and my hands were shaking and my breathing went all deep again. Really cool stuff - I just lay on the floor soaking it all up and feeling much more at peace with everything! Sweet. Then we were prayed for for various Spiritual gifts so I was prayed over for prophecy and healing. People started speaking in tongues for the first time - awesome. Then when it all came to an end our speaker for the week said he was going to take us all to the beach so that anyone who wanted to could be baptised. Hmmm, baptism is something I've thought about a little bit since I've been here - Jesus did say, "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved..." so who am I to argue with that?! I know I was baptised as a baby but I wanted to make that decision for myself and so I went forward for it - to display my beliefs and make a public declaration that I'm dying to myself and being raised to new life in Christ. So that was awesome - five of us waded knee-deep into the Indian Ocean, dodging the waves that were crashing around us, and made our commitments in front of the rest of the team. Sweet times.
Hmmmm, what else has happened since I last wrote? Last Sunday at church Jess suggested that we go bungee jumping and at first it was a complete joke but just an hour of so later Sandrine, Jess and I bundled in the car, headed for the tallest bungee-bridge in the world! Was insane - I thought it would be cool but nothing can really prepare you for the feeling you get when you just leap off that platform 216m up and plunge head-first into a rocky ravene. Crazy times. You free-fall for five seconds (seems more like five minutes) before hanging upside for ten minutes longer than is ideally preferable, still 60m above the ground below. Am not going to lie - I wasn't exactly keeping my cool. Just for the record - never ask a woman their weight but if you really want to know then just bungee with them - their weight will be scrawled on the back of their hand in big black marker pen and most likely shouted around by various members of staff, just in case you didn't manage to steal a glimpse at their hand. Poor girls - you could tell none of them were best pleased!
Hmmm, so this Tuesday we had a night of giving - everyone prayed and chose one thing that they wanted to give away to someone else. I wasn't really excited about it but it actually turned out to be an awesome night. People were blessing others with money, clothes, Ipods, phones, cameras - it was crazy! Money was given to people who then felt led to pass it onto someone else who in turn continued passing it! Unforts no money made it's way my way (clearly I'm the rich white boy) - shame, would have kept it fo' sho'. Powerful evening in the end - there was a far greater blessing in giving than receiving - felt like New-Testament times!
During work-duties the other day, instead of just cleaning up around the base, I went with a couple of others to help construct a lady's new house - she lives in the most awful community - tin houses just a couple of metres square. That was quite a shock but at least we were doing something to help - we were constructing a new, slightly larger but still single-roomed, wooden house. We soon gathered a small crowd who appreciated my building expertise - we were lacking a cement-mixer so we just chucked a load of water, stones, sand and cement mix on the floor and churned it up that way. Was actually remarkably successful - why do these westerners always have to complicate matters with unneccessary equipment?! There was a few kids running around the place which was all well and good until it led to Gershom (lad from Netherlands) having to swerve with an unsettlingly little amount of warning after one of the little boys whacked his lad out and started urinating right in his desired path. Ha, was hilairs - poor Gershom's feet very almost received a little sprinking (or as the Scot's would say, 'a wee sprinkling'. Ba-dum) Barely anyone even twitched at it either - apparently it's perfectly normal to take a slash in the front yard during a family gathering. Sweet. Anyhows, that was interesting.
Okay. Enough for now. It's getting late (bed-times at 10 remember) and I've still got things to do. Y'all better be keeping it real. Peace.
X
Baptism of fire - yes please. So on Friday I went into morning lectures in the fowlest mood - was just not feeling great to be hons - and we were having a 'Holy Spirit Party' - wasn't entirely sure what it was but sounded like the last thing I was up for! Two hours later though my story couldn't have been different - we were all invited up to front to be prayed for impartation of the Spirit and like a month ago I was just nwaysayed by the Holy Thing. It was crazy - my legs went weak so I ended up on the floor again and my hands were shaking and my breathing went all deep again. Really cool stuff - I just lay on the floor soaking it all up and feeling much more at peace with everything! Sweet. Then we were prayed for for various Spiritual gifts so I was prayed over for prophecy and healing. People started speaking in tongues for the first time - awesome. Then when it all came to an end our speaker for the week said he was going to take us all to the beach so that anyone who wanted to could be baptised. Hmmm, baptism is something I've thought about a little bit since I've been here - Jesus did say, "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved..." so who am I to argue with that?! I know I was baptised as a baby but I wanted to make that decision for myself and so I went forward for it - to display my beliefs and make a public declaration that I'm dying to myself and being raised to new life in Christ. So that was awesome - five of us waded knee-deep into the Indian Ocean, dodging the waves that were crashing around us, and made our commitments in front of the rest of the team. Sweet times.
Hmmmm, what else has happened since I last wrote? Last Sunday at church Jess suggested that we go bungee jumping and at first it was a complete joke but just an hour of so later Sandrine, Jess and I bundled in the car, headed for the tallest bungee-bridge in the world! Was insane - I thought it would be cool but nothing can really prepare you for the feeling you get when you just leap off that platform 216m up and plunge head-first into a rocky ravene. Crazy times. You free-fall for five seconds (seems more like five minutes) before hanging upside for ten minutes longer than is ideally preferable, still 60m above the ground below. Am not going to lie - I wasn't exactly keeping my cool. Just for the record - never ask a woman their weight but if you really want to know then just bungee with them - their weight will be scrawled on the back of their hand in big black marker pen and most likely shouted around by various members of staff, just in case you didn't manage to steal a glimpse at their hand. Poor girls - you could tell none of them were best pleased!
Hmmm, so this Tuesday we had a night of giving - everyone prayed and chose one thing that they wanted to give away to someone else. I wasn't really excited about it but it actually turned out to be an awesome night. People were blessing others with money, clothes, Ipods, phones, cameras - it was crazy! Money was given to people who then felt led to pass it onto someone else who in turn continued passing it! Unforts no money made it's way my way (clearly I'm the rich white boy) - shame, would have kept it fo' sho'. Powerful evening in the end - there was a far greater blessing in giving than receiving - felt like New-Testament times!
During work-duties the other day, instead of just cleaning up around the base, I went with a couple of others to help construct a lady's new house - she lives in the most awful community - tin houses just a couple of metres square. That was quite a shock but at least we were doing something to help - we were constructing a new, slightly larger but still single-roomed, wooden house. We soon gathered a small crowd who appreciated my building expertise - we were lacking a cement-mixer so we just chucked a load of water, stones, sand and cement mix on the floor and churned it up that way. Was actually remarkably successful - why do these westerners always have to complicate matters with unneccessary equipment?! There was a few kids running around the place which was all well and good until it led to Gershom (lad from Netherlands) having to swerve with an unsettlingly little amount of warning after one of the little boys whacked his lad out and started urinating right in his desired path. Ha, was hilairs - poor Gershom's feet very almost received a little sprinking (or as the Scot's would say, 'a wee sprinkling'. Ba-dum) Barely anyone even twitched at it either - apparently it's perfectly normal to take a slash in the front yard during a family gathering. Sweet. Anyhows, that was interesting.
Okay. Enough for now. It's getting late (bed-times at 10 remember) and I've still got things to do. Y'all better be keeping it real. Peace.
X
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Love is a choice not a feeling
Boom ting. As promised I've left it slightly longer before writing again - mainly because things have settled down slightly after the intense week with Rich.
Last week we had another American with us - Kerry Slattery - who came to talk to us on Inner Healing. Was an interesting week - he spoke quite a lot about demons and about how he had spent much of his early life wondering, "What on earth happened to the demons we see Jesus driving out in bible times? Where have they all gone?" This question kept nagging him until he was 32. The secretary in his church was doing her work in the church office while her baby son was crawling around on the floor. The baby crawled off though, out of sight and without anyone realising started choking on a coin he'd found. The first the mum knew about it was when she found her baby dead on the floor. You can't imagine the trauma that must cause - the poor woman was hugely greived and was unconsolable for a year. After about a year of being in this depressed state she walked into church one day and a visiting speaker was just standing at the front talking. As he saw this woman - who he didn't know - enter the church he just stopped, and said to her, "Spirit of grief, come out of her in Jesus' name!" and as soon as he had said that the woman fell to the ground and cried out. Kerry witnessed this all and can testify to how the woman was healed of her depression from this day onwards! Ever since then Kerry has been learning how to identify demons and to rob them of their power in the name of Jesus. Really interesting stuff - something I definitely have zero knowledge on. I was certainly very sceptical about the whole demon-scene beforehand but this week has just really opened my eyes to the reality of the power that the devil can hold over someone's life. Good stuff. Well, obviously not good stuff but you know what I mean.
What else has been going down? On Thursday we went evangelising in the community - a staff-member called Khaya, Jess and myself went out together - and it certainly proved a novel experience! At first we headed to a household that Khaya was already familiar with, but even so, we just rocked into the house uninvited and made ourselves comfortable! It's the African way apparently. After saying a few things to a woman and a young man that were at home, Khaya kindly opened up the floor by saying to Jess and I, "Do you guys want to share?" Do we want to share?! Of course we don't want to flibbing share! What are you wanting us to share anyhows - these two were already Christian! Poor Jess took it upon herself to try and say something but the woman couldn't understand her American accent! Embarrassing times. After that we went to another house where Khaya had a rather long chat in Xhosa with a teenage boy who just sat there, nodding along and saying the odd word. After a fair while Khaya turned to Jess and I and said that boy wanted to accept Jesus into his life. Really?! Now I couldn't understand any of the conversation but from the look on the poor boy's face it looked as if he'd rather be doing anything else than accepting Jesus right now! Now I cant judge his heart - I have no idea what he was thinking - but it did just seem a little pressurised and I wasn't entirely comfortable with that. Khaya then turned to me and asked if I had ever led anyone to Jesus in prayer before. Shabbas - I panicked slightly at this point and although I had led that one street-kid to Jesus supposedly, I wasn't really up for doing it again with the whole household specatating so I just hurriedly shook my head! Whoops - I was really rather glad that Khaya did it instead but I guess that wasn't exactly the whole truth right there. We visited one more house where we had mixed results - I think people really appreciated us coming into the house and offering to pray for them but I'm not sure the actual evangelism went down too well. It was definitely interesting but I think I would take a slightly softer approach if I did it again.
Spurs secured fourth spot! It's pretty dang difficult to follow anything over here but when the news of victory over Man City finally filtered through to me I was so happy! It's just frustrating that the one time I have some football armoury to brag about I'm surrounded by people who aren't all that interested in English football! The cricket on the other hand; I had a very satisfying chat with my pastor (in the quiet, reasonably conservative Church) about Saturday's match!
My hair is in desperate need of a chop but I'm not sure I trust the African salons - surely all they've ever had experience with is braiding hair or completely shaving it - neither of which I'm really up for! Maybe I just need to man up and go for it. Probs.
If anyone feels inspired to send me either Michael McIntyre DVDS or Notting Hill, please feel free - I will be more than happy to give you the address. These guys here have barely heard of either of them and are desperately in need of some English genius!
This weeks lectures are entitled Worship as a Lifestyle and its Pieter McCarthy - our base director - who is speaking to us. The first three days have been really good - it's nice to have something not quite as intense as the last two weeks! Pieter's an amazing guy though - he must be in his forty's now but by the way he dresses you'd think he was still in his twentys! Cool guy, big afro hair, LAD. We did something called "An Audience with God" last night which was awesome.
Oooh, sorry, I gotta go, but thought I might as well post this now. Will explain all about last night another time!
Love ya.
Last week we had another American with us - Kerry Slattery - who came to talk to us on Inner Healing. Was an interesting week - he spoke quite a lot about demons and about how he had spent much of his early life wondering, "What on earth happened to the demons we see Jesus driving out in bible times? Where have they all gone?" This question kept nagging him until he was 32. The secretary in his church was doing her work in the church office while her baby son was crawling around on the floor. The baby crawled off though, out of sight and without anyone realising started choking on a coin he'd found. The first the mum knew about it was when she found her baby dead on the floor. You can't imagine the trauma that must cause - the poor woman was hugely greived and was unconsolable for a year. After about a year of being in this depressed state she walked into church one day and a visiting speaker was just standing at the front talking. As he saw this woman - who he didn't know - enter the church he just stopped, and said to her, "Spirit of grief, come out of her in Jesus' name!" and as soon as he had said that the woman fell to the ground and cried out. Kerry witnessed this all and can testify to how the woman was healed of her depression from this day onwards! Ever since then Kerry has been learning how to identify demons and to rob them of their power in the name of Jesus. Really interesting stuff - something I definitely have zero knowledge on. I was certainly very sceptical about the whole demon-scene beforehand but this week has just really opened my eyes to the reality of the power that the devil can hold over someone's life. Good stuff. Well, obviously not good stuff but you know what I mean.
What else has been going down? On Thursday we went evangelising in the community - a staff-member called Khaya, Jess and myself went out together - and it certainly proved a novel experience! At first we headed to a household that Khaya was already familiar with, but even so, we just rocked into the house uninvited and made ourselves comfortable! It's the African way apparently. After saying a few things to a woman and a young man that were at home, Khaya kindly opened up the floor by saying to Jess and I, "Do you guys want to share?" Do we want to share?! Of course we don't want to flibbing share! What are you wanting us to share anyhows - these two were already Christian! Poor Jess took it upon herself to try and say something but the woman couldn't understand her American accent! Embarrassing times. After that we went to another house where Khaya had a rather long chat in Xhosa with a teenage boy who just sat there, nodding along and saying the odd word. After a fair while Khaya turned to Jess and I and said that boy wanted to accept Jesus into his life. Really?! Now I couldn't understand any of the conversation but from the look on the poor boy's face it looked as if he'd rather be doing anything else than accepting Jesus right now! Now I cant judge his heart - I have no idea what he was thinking - but it did just seem a little pressurised and I wasn't entirely comfortable with that. Khaya then turned to me and asked if I had ever led anyone to Jesus in prayer before. Shabbas - I panicked slightly at this point and although I had led that one street-kid to Jesus supposedly, I wasn't really up for doing it again with the whole household specatating so I just hurriedly shook my head! Whoops - I was really rather glad that Khaya did it instead but I guess that wasn't exactly the whole truth right there. We visited one more house where we had mixed results - I think people really appreciated us coming into the house and offering to pray for them but I'm not sure the actual evangelism went down too well. It was definitely interesting but I think I would take a slightly softer approach if I did it again.
Spurs secured fourth spot! It's pretty dang difficult to follow anything over here but when the news of victory over Man City finally filtered through to me I was so happy! It's just frustrating that the one time I have some football armoury to brag about I'm surrounded by people who aren't all that interested in English football! The cricket on the other hand; I had a very satisfying chat with my pastor (in the quiet, reasonably conservative Church) about Saturday's match!
My hair is in desperate need of a chop but I'm not sure I trust the African salons - surely all they've ever had experience with is braiding hair or completely shaving it - neither of which I'm really up for! Maybe I just need to man up and go for it. Probs.
If anyone feels inspired to send me either Michael McIntyre DVDS or Notting Hill, please feel free - I will be more than happy to give you the address. These guys here have barely heard of either of them and are desperately in need of some English genius!
This weeks lectures are entitled Worship as a Lifestyle and its Pieter McCarthy - our base director - who is speaking to us. The first three days have been really good - it's nice to have something not quite as intense as the last two weeks! Pieter's an amazing guy though - he must be in his forty's now but by the way he dresses you'd think he was still in his twentys! Cool guy, big afro hair, LAD. We did something called "An Audience with God" last night which was awesome.
Oooh, sorry, I gotta go, but thought I might as well post this now. Will explain all about last night another time!
Love ya.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
I’m long but trust me, you to want to read me. If nothing else read my story at the end.
Wow. Where do I even begin? What a week it’s been. The speaker this week was just incredible. Really funny chap, must be in his fifties – he started off the week by introducing himself and saying, “I’ve come here to talk to you all about the Father-heart of God. I could tell you about how my Dad left me when I was nine. I could tell you about how I was first arrested for armed robbery when I was thirteen, I could tell you about how I was arrested again when I was fifteen for drug dealing in my school. I could tell you all about how, when I was seventeen, I had too much to drink and drove a van straight into a brick wall, killing seven of my school friends and only just escaping with my life. (At this point we all had our hands over our mouths). I could tell you all of this but none of it would be true!” Ha, that got us all! And then he said the funny thing was that we were all thinking “Wow, this guys going to be good – he’s killed!” Ha, so true!
So that was a good introduction to the week but that was only the beginning – it just kept getting better. The amazing thing about this guy was that he got involved. All the speakers so far have taught us but no more. This guy joined the community. He announced we were all going out for pizza on him Tuesday night, he spent time just chill-caking with us, really took an interest in us. I was amazed – he had so much passion to see us draw closer to each other and God and yet he travels the world speaking at DTS’ – I don’t know how he keeps it up!
I haven’t really talked about the teaching all that much but this week I can’t not talk about it! It was amazingly intense – I came out of almost every meeting feeling emotionally drained but in a good way – so much of what he was saying made so much sense. He talked for the first three days and then on Thursday and Friday he got us to each pray about a new name we felt God was giving us and then to come and up to the front and tell everyone what it was and what you wanted God to do for you. And then everyone else gathered round and prayed for you. And wow – did God get to work! Thursday was intense – people were crying and being set free from stuff all over the shop! I was really reluctant to go forward though, and in fact I never did make that decision – just before lunch on Friday Rich (our speaker) made it for me when said he felt I had something weighing on my heart and that he wanted me to come forward – spot on the money! I told everyone about my two names (I couldn’t decide on one!) – Trusting and Passionate. Trusting because of all the issues I’ve had over the years trusting fully in Jesus. I told them how I’ve struggled believing in everything, and even before coming here I was still struggling – I find it really difficult trusting something I can’t see, hear, touch or smell! And then passionate because I get more passionate about worldly things (mainly girls if I’m honest), than I do about God and I wanted that to change. Everyone gathered round me and started praying for me and it happened slowly but I felt my hands and legs start tingling, and as they carried on praying it got more and more intense until my hands were just kinda burning with the tingling sensation. And then my hands went sorta numb and I couldn’t stretch them out properly – they were just kinda stuck! It’s so difficult to explain but it was amazing – felt so good! My breathing went crazy too – I was just breathing really deeply really quickly – apparently I was in danger of hyper-ventilating! It was unreal though – felt so good – I think that’s what’s called being filled with the Holy Spirit! I remember saying, “Oh my hell” at one point – I think that’s looked upon as swearing round here so probably wasn’t the best move but I had to say something – it was incredible! I’ve really struggled with the evidence for God in the past, I think the evidence for God is pretty strong to be honest but I’ve had difficulties just accepting that. There’s no way yesterday could have happened without God though, I don’t want to hear any arguments about how it was psychological – I know what I felt and it wasn’t natural! Just wish I had it on video. Oh well.
What else has been going on? We had a crazy water fight on Tuesday, Samuel (our crazy leader) got Rich to come out of his accommodation and then three of us just jumped on him with buckets! Poor chap. Rich got his own back yesterday though – after he had finished praying for all of us he said, “I have a word for you Samuel – I think God would like to lead you into fresh pastures, give you new land...” and Samuel was nodding along, all excited as Rich got him to stand outside and put his hands out as he started to pray over him. The rest of us ran round the side of the building, got seven buckets of water and absolutely soaked him mid-prayer! Classic.
Another thing about the speaker that amazed me – we were all praying over Jess on Thursday and then Rich was like, “Jess, I just feel like I need to give you this...” and he took off his wedding ring and put it on her finger! His actual wedding ring! He said he felt as he woke up that morning that he needed to give it away today and then that feeling was confirmed by one of the other leaders so he gave it to her and then announced that he would be the one to marry off Jess and that she could give it back then! Wow – I wonder what his wife said to that! The awful thing was that it didn’t quite fit (obviously was on the large size) and later on that evening Jess suddenly realised that it was no longer on her finger! Ah, I can’t even begin to imagine how awful she must have felt! We sent out the search team to try and recover it and thankfully, after much scouring of the ground, we found it! Phew for that.
Enough? Is that what you’re thinking? Let me just finish with a story that Rich shared during the week. One of the things I love about this place is that all the speakers who come are normal guys and yet they all have amazing stories to tell of how God’s been working in their lives. Not their friends, not some famous Pastor, but in their lives. Rich told of how he went to a conference to speak on hearing God’s voice. One guy came up to him at the end – Andy – and challenged him, saying he doesn’t actually believe that God can speak these days. They discussed it briefly but then soon after they found themselves going to a shopping mall together. Andy turned to Rich as they were entering and said, “So, if God really does speak, ask him to show you someone in here that needs him”. So Rich just prays for God to show him someone and they enter. Before they’ve gone any distance at all Rich sees a young lady working at a card stall, just by the side of the mall, and as soon as he sees her he feels that she’s the one – they need to go speak to her. Rich is horrified – “No Lord, please not now. Too soon, too soon. Later, later” But as they get further through the Mall Rich realises... God’s already shown him the person they need to talk to so he really shouldn’t be expecting anyone else! He explains that they need to turn around and a slightly bemused Andy trails behind Rich as they traipse back through the Mall toward the card lady. They see her standing where she was before and Rich walks straight up and taps her on the shoulder. It’s only as she turns round to him that he has no idea what he’s going to say – he didn’t even give it a thought! He said a quick prayer and then said the first thing that came into his mind – something he’d never said before and has never said since; “I’m a servant of God!” and then he said, “The Lord has seen the tears on your pillow as you sleep and as you wake up. The prayers of your Grandmother have gone before you.” And just like that the young lady before him burst into tears! Andy was standing there gobsmacked as the lady sat there and sobbed for an hour in the Mall! It materialised eventually that she leaves work each evening, picks up her two kids from her mum’s house, takes them home, feeds them and then returns them to her mum before getting changed and walking the streets as a prostitute, just to make ends-meet. When she finally gets home she cries herself to sleep each night and she can still feel the dampness from the tears on her pillow as she wakes up each morning. She also receives a letter from her Grandmother each day, which she always signs off “I remember you in my prayers...” but this particular day she said instead, “I pray the Lord sends you a servant of God...” WOW. Check that out for a testimony on hearing the voice of God. And it’s not been passed from person to person either, this was just a story from Rich’s own life. Needless to say this lady became a Christian and is now happily married to a widowed elder at her local church. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, I thought so too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Andy.
Alright, that’s all. Sorry it was so long this week – maybe I won’t write next week to make up for it; give you all a chance to catch up. Cheers folks.
X
So that was a good introduction to the week but that was only the beginning – it just kept getting better. The amazing thing about this guy was that he got involved. All the speakers so far have taught us but no more. This guy joined the community. He announced we were all going out for pizza on him Tuesday night, he spent time just chill-caking with us, really took an interest in us. I was amazed – he had so much passion to see us draw closer to each other and God and yet he travels the world speaking at DTS’ – I don’t know how he keeps it up!
I haven’t really talked about the teaching all that much but this week I can’t not talk about it! It was amazingly intense – I came out of almost every meeting feeling emotionally drained but in a good way – so much of what he was saying made so much sense. He talked for the first three days and then on Thursday and Friday he got us to each pray about a new name we felt God was giving us and then to come and up to the front and tell everyone what it was and what you wanted God to do for you. And then everyone else gathered round and prayed for you. And wow – did God get to work! Thursday was intense – people were crying and being set free from stuff all over the shop! I was really reluctant to go forward though, and in fact I never did make that decision – just before lunch on Friday Rich (our speaker) made it for me when said he felt I had something weighing on my heart and that he wanted me to come forward – spot on the money! I told everyone about my two names (I couldn’t decide on one!) – Trusting and Passionate. Trusting because of all the issues I’ve had over the years trusting fully in Jesus. I told them how I’ve struggled believing in everything, and even before coming here I was still struggling – I find it really difficult trusting something I can’t see, hear, touch or smell! And then passionate because I get more passionate about worldly things (mainly girls if I’m honest), than I do about God and I wanted that to change. Everyone gathered round me and started praying for me and it happened slowly but I felt my hands and legs start tingling, and as they carried on praying it got more and more intense until my hands were just kinda burning with the tingling sensation. And then my hands went sorta numb and I couldn’t stretch them out properly – they were just kinda stuck! It’s so difficult to explain but it was amazing – felt so good! My breathing went crazy too – I was just breathing really deeply really quickly – apparently I was in danger of hyper-ventilating! It was unreal though – felt so good – I think that’s what’s called being filled with the Holy Spirit! I remember saying, “Oh my hell” at one point – I think that’s looked upon as swearing round here so probably wasn’t the best move but I had to say something – it was incredible! I’ve really struggled with the evidence for God in the past, I think the evidence for God is pretty strong to be honest but I’ve had difficulties just accepting that. There’s no way yesterday could have happened without God though, I don’t want to hear any arguments about how it was psychological – I know what I felt and it wasn’t natural! Just wish I had it on video. Oh well.
What else has been going on? We had a crazy water fight on Tuesday, Samuel (our crazy leader) got Rich to come out of his accommodation and then three of us just jumped on him with buckets! Poor chap. Rich got his own back yesterday though – after he had finished praying for all of us he said, “I have a word for you Samuel – I think God would like to lead you into fresh pastures, give you new land...” and Samuel was nodding along, all excited as Rich got him to stand outside and put his hands out as he started to pray over him. The rest of us ran round the side of the building, got seven buckets of water and absolutely soaked him mid-prayer! Classic.
Another thing about the speaker that amazed me – we were all praying over Jess on Thursday and then Rich was like, “Jess, I just feel like I need to give you this...” and he took off his wedding ring and put it on her finger! His actual wedding ring! He said he felt as he woke up that morning that he needed to give it away today and then that feeling was confirmed by one of the other leaders so he gave it to her and then announced that he would be the one to marry off Jess and that she could give it back then! Wow – I wonder what his wife said to that! The awful thing was that it didn’t quite fit (obviously was on the large size) and later on that evening Jess suddenly realised that it was no longer on her finger! Ah, I can’t even begin to imagine how awful she must have felt! We sent out the search team to try and recover it and thankfully, after much scouring of the ground, we found it! Phew for that.
Enough? Is that what you’re thinking? Let me just finish with a story that Rich shared during the week. One of the things I love about this place is that all the speakers who come are normal guys and yet they all have amazing stories to tell of how God’s been working in their lives. Not their friends, not some famous Pastor, but in their lives. Rich told of how he went to a conference to speak on hearing God’s voice. One guy came up to him at the end – Andy – and challenged him, saying he doesn’t actually believe that God can speak these days. They discussed it briefly but then soon after they found themselves going to a shopping mall together. Andy turned to Rich as they were entering and said, “So, if God really does speak, ask him to show you someone in here that needs him”. So Rich just prays for God to show him someone and they enter. Before they’ve gone any distance at all Rich sees a young lady working at a card stall, just by the side of the mall, and as soon as he sees her he feels that she’s the one – they need to go speak to her. Rich is horrified – “No Lord, please not now. Too soon, too soon. Later, later” But as they get further through the Mall Rich realises... God’s already shown him the person they need to talk to so he really shouldn’t be expecting anyone else! He explains that they need to turn around and a slightly bemused Andy trails behind Rich as they traipse back through the Mall toward the card lady. They see her standing where she was before and Rich walks straight up and taps her on the shoulder. It’s only as she turns round to him that he has no idea what he’s going to say – he didn’t even give it a thought! He said a quick prayer and then said the first thing that came into his mind – something he’d never said before and has never said since; “I’m a servant of God!” and then he said, “The Lord has seen the tears on your pillow as you sleep and as you wake up. The prayers of your Grandmother have gone before you.” And just like that the young lady before him burst into tears! Andy was standing there gobsmacked as the lady sat there and sobbed for an hour in the Mall! It materialised eventually that she leaves work each evening, picks up her two kids from her mum’s house, takes them home, feeds them and then returns them to her mum before getting changed and walking the streets as a prostitute, just to make ends-meet. When she finally gets home she cries herself to sleep each night and she can still feel the dampness from the tears on her pillow as she wakes up each morning. She also receives a letter from her Grandmother each day, which she always signs off “I remember you in my prayers...” but this particular day she said instead, “I pray the Lord sends you a servant of God...” WOW. Check that out for a testimony on hearing the voice of God. And it’s not been passed from person to person either, this was just a story from Rich’s own life. Needless to say this lady became a Christian and is now happily married to a widowed elder at her local church. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, I thought so too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Andy.
Alright, that’s all. Sorry it was so long this week – maybe I won’t write next week to make up for it; give you all a chance to catch up. Cheers folks.
X
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Be a Channel, not a Barrel.
Three weeks in then and it seems that before I know it Outreach is going to be upon us. That was an excitement for this week – they announced the plans for the second half of the programme – we’re spending some time travelling around northern South Africa and then we’re hitting Botswana for a few weeks also. Quite excited now – we will be going to various schools, staying wherever we find hospitality and doing whatever we can to help. Should be awesome.
This morning I decided to head to the church in The Community – an English service translated into Xhosa - with Samuel – the crazy leader of our DTS. He was like “Have you got a flannel you can bring?” I thought he was joking but he genuinely brought one along – apparently it’s to wipe the sweat away from all the dancing! Was really interesting – there were no words during the worship but, as he said, people were in the aisles and up the front rocking out their African moves. Surprisingly I made the decision to rock out my moves from where I was standing – most definitely for the best of everyone concerned. We got an hour and a half in before a man came up to preach – they appreciate their long services here! The sermon was good but I felt sorry for the poor Xhosa translator – about twenty minutes into the talk, with the Xhosa guy having clicked and nwayed his heart out, the preacher stopped and asked if anyone in the house didn’t understand English. No one put the hand up (even after the translation!) so the Xhosa guy was just told to sit down! Poor chap. At least I appreciated his clicking. The response time after the service was crazy – people screaming and shaking and falling over – they were very much open to the Holy Spirit and God was really at work. I thought I had escaped being embarrassed as the Pastor brought the service to a close but no – right at the very end he asked who was here for the first time! Who does that at the end of a service?! I put my hand up anyway – I can cope with that. But then he asked us to stand up – was that really necessary?! And THEN he asked the three of us newbies to come out the front. Oh come on – why?! I had already decided before that that I probably wasn’t going to come back – I preferred worshipping in the more familiar styled church just down the road – but this move by the Pastor sealed the deal! I went up anyhow and he told us to say who we were, where we came from, and - if you wanted to hear the congregation cheer – that you would be returning next week! Ha – I was left with a dilemma in that I didn’t want to lie but I didn’t want to upset all the people either! I decided to complement all their dancing, softening them up, before sheepishly saying that I’m sure I will see them all again – good diplomacy under pressure? Potench. Either way, was an interesting service but not really my sort of thing.
We’ve all been given a book to read - “Is That Really You God?” by Loren Cunningham, the man who established YWAM. All about listening and deciphering the voice of God; I recommend it to all of you – fantastic book. God is shown time and again speaking to Loren, just an ordinary guy. One of my favourite stories was when he went to a town to find an old friend he needed to speak to urgently but he had no idea where she lived so he just prayed God would guide him towards her. He drove past one junction and then felt he should have taken that turning so he turned round, went down the road and felt the Holy Spirit saying “Stop here” so he got out of the car and approached the house he had stopped outside of. He went up to the front door, knocked and low-and-behold the girl he was looking for answered the door! Wow. And this guy’s no liar – I 100% believe this really happened. Awesome. For more stories of how God’s spoken to him, read the book – it’s really rather good.
Lectures (I hate using that word – makes them sound so boring but I do genuinely look forward to them!) this week have been brilliant – going through the Bible and looking at how to get the most out of it. Really good teaching – we spent quite a while looking at Philemon, all 25 verses of it. There’s loads in there though, we looked at the background and context of everything, the way it was written etc – really interesting. It’s all about doing bible study time properly though – if I had just read it through once by myself I don’t think I would have got anything from it.
What else has been happening? The street kids have been doing well – four of them came along to church two weeks ago (see photo) and one of them has since committed his life to God – awesome stuff. I helped out at Kidzclub on Wednesday as well too – we went into The Community (very poor society that we live on the edge of) and walked around shouting “K-K-K-K-IDZZZZZCLUB!” and just watched as the kids ran out of their houses and down the street to join us! By the time we had got back to base we must have had more than thirty excited kids with us. We sat and watched the most cringe-worthy animation of Jesus I’ve ever seen but still – it was good. I have to admit though, that I was in fact rather tired – I tried my best to stay awake but it wasn’t to be. Wary of not being a bad example for the kids, I put on my sunglasses (despite being in a dimly-lit room) to disguise my slumber but the very fact my head was lolling around on my lap probably gave the game away. Was so lovely seeing all the kids so engaged though – some of the guys really didn’t want to go back home afterwards!
I still haven’t hit the waves yet! I can’t believe it – haven’t even been for a swim. We did go over to see the ‘supertubes’ the other day though, where they hold the Surfing World Championships in July, just along the beach and the waves were savagely high but I think if I do try to learn I may start off with some slightly smaller tubulars. Spent this afternoon lying on the beach with my book – was so lovely. The weather’s been variable since we’ve arrived (I’m bracing myself for another winter; feels like I’m in Narnia – I’m going to go twenty months without a proper summer!) although having said that this weekend’s been at exactly the right temperature for outside book reading and walks along the beach.
I’m sharing a building with ten other Africans, four of whom are in my dorm. It’s quite an experience – I’m embracing other cultures big time! I get called “The White Man of God” which is a title I’m certainly not used to! They were shocked when I laid down to pray the other day too – apparently it’s disrespectful. It’s cool though – we’re all learning to adapt and live with each other.
South Africans don’t know how to cook Chinese. End of.
One of the girls here was like, “I’m all about the abbrevs back home” (okay maybe she didn’t use those exact words) – apparently she always shortens everything though. I was like, “You serious?!” – was classic – had a good conversation about our favourite abbrevs.
Recently the rubbish collectors have been striking in town which is interesting – it causes a huge polava with people lining the streets and chanting. Apparently here when the rubbish collectors strike they not only don’t collect the rubbish, they also pick up the bins and chuck the contents all over the street! Crazy stuff. And then if their demands are met they have to go and pick up all the mess that they’ve just created! Nice.
Finally, apologies if anyone has grimaced their way through my rendition of “A Whole New World” that has somehow been uploaded onto Facebook – it wasn’t supposed to make it that far!
Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Hope you’re all well and licking the lid of life.
This morning I decided to head to the church in The Community – an English service translated into Xhosa - with Samuel – the crazy leader of our DTS. He was like “Have you got a flannel you can bring?” I thought he was joking but he genuinely brought one along – apparently it’s to wipe the sweat away from all the dancing! Was really interesting – there were no words during the worship but, as he said, people were in the aisles and up the front rocking out their African moves. Surprisingly I made the decision to rock out my moves from where I was standing – most definitely for the best of everyone concerned. We got an hour and a half in before a man came up to preach – they appreciate their long services here! The sermon was good but I felt sorry for the poor Xhosa translator – about twenty minutes into the talk, with the Xhosa guy having clicked and nwayed his heart out, the preacher stopped and asked if anyone in the house didn’t understand English. No one put the hand up (even after the translation!) so the Xhosa guy was just told to sit down! Poor chap. At least I appreciated his clicking. The response time after the service was crazy – people screaming and shaking and falling over – they were very much open to the Holy Spirit and God was really at work. I thought I had escaped being embarrassed as the Pastor brought the service to a close but no – right at the very end he asked who was here for the first time! Who does that at the end of a service?! I put my hand up anyway – I can cope with that. But then he asked us to stand up – was that really necessary?! And THEN he asked the three of us newbies to come out the front. Oh come on – why?! I had already decided before that that I probably wasn’t going to come back – I preferred worshipping in the more familiar styled church just down the road – but this move by the Pastor sealed the deal! I went up anyhow and he told us to say who we were, where we came from, and - if you wanted to hear the congregation cheer – that you would be returning next week! Ha – I was left with a dilemma in that I didn’t want to lie but I didn’t want to upset all the people either! I decided to complement all their dancing, softening them up, before sheepishly saying that I’m sure I will see them all again – good diplomacy under pressure? Potench. Either way, was an interesting service but not really my sort of thing.
We’ve all been given a book to read - “Is That Really You God?” by Loren Cunningham, the man who established YWAM. All about listening and deciphering the voice of God; I recommend it to all of you – fantastic book. God is shown time and again speaking to Loren, just an ordinary guy. One of my favourite stories was when he went to a town to find an old friend he needed to speak to urgently but he had no idea where she lived so he just prayed God would guide him towards her. He drove past one junction and then felt he should have taken that turning so he turned round, went down the road and felt the Holy Spirit saying “Stop here” so he got out of the car and approached the house he had stopped outside of. He went up to the front door, knocked and low-and-behold the girl he was looking for answered the door! Wow. And this guy’s no liar – I 100% believe this really happened. Awesome. For more stories of how God’s spoken to him, read the book – it’s really rather good.
Lectures (I hate using that word – makes them sound so boring but I do genuinely look forward to them!) this week have been brilliant – going through the Bible and looking at how to get the most out of it. Really good teaching – we spent quite a while looking at Philemon, all 25 verses of it. There’s loads in there though, we looked at the background and context of everything, the way it was written etc – really interesting. It’s all about doing bible study time properly though – if I had just read it through once by myself I don’t think I would have got anything from it.
What else has been happening? The street kids have been doing well – four of them came along to church two weeks ago (see photo) and one of them has since committed his life to God – awesome stuff. I helped out at Kidzclub on Wednesday as well too – we went into The Community (very poor society that we live on the edge of) and walked around shouting “K-K-K-K-IDZZZZZCLUB!” and just watched as the kids ran out of their houses and down the street to join us! By the time we had got back to base we must have had more than thirty excited kids with us. We sat and watched the most cringe-worthy animation of Jesus I’ve ever seen but still – it was good. I have to admit though, that I was in fact rather tired – I tried my best to stay awake but it wasn’t to be. Wary of not being a bad example for the kids, I put on my sunglasses (despite being in a dimly-lit room) to disguise my slumber but the very fact my head was lolling around on my lap probably gave the game away. Was so lovely seeing all the kids so engaged though – some of the guys really didn’t want to go back home afterwards!
I still haven’t hit the waves yet! I can’t believe it – haven’t even been for a swim. We did go over to see the ‘supertubes’ the other day though, where they hold the Surfing World Championships in July, just along the beach and the waves were savagely high but I think if I do try to learn I may start off with some slightly smaller tubulars. Spent this afternoon lying on the beach with my book – was so lovely. The weather’s been variable since we’ve arrived (I’m bracing myself for another winter; feels like I’m in Narnia – I’m going to go twenty months without a proper summer!) although having said that this weekend’s been at exactly the right temperature for outside book reading and walks along the beach.
I’m sharing a building with ten other Africans, four of whom are in my dorm. It’s quite an experience – I’m embracing other cultures big time! I get called “The White Man of God” which is a title I’m certainly not used to! They were shocked when I laid down to pray the other day too – apparently it’s disrespectful. It’s cool though – we’re all learning to adapt and live with each other.
South Africans don’t know how to cook Chinese. End of.
One of the girls here was like, “I’m all about the abbrevs back home” (okay maybe she didn’t use those exact words) – apparently she always shortens everything though. I was like, “You serious?!” – was classic – had a good conversation about our favourite abbrevs.
Recently the rubbish collectors have been striking in town which is interesting – it causes a huge polava with people lining the streets and chanting. Apparently here when the rubbish collectors strike they not only don’t collect the rubbish, they also pick up the bins and chuck the contents all over the street! Crazy stuff. And then if their demands are met they have to go and pick up all the mess that they’ve just created! Nice.
Finally, apologies if anyone has grimaced their way through my rendition of “A Whole New World” that has somehow been uploaded onto Facebook – it wasn’t supposed to make it that far!
Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Hope you’re all well and licking the lid of life.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Sand in my ears right now
Okay, so it turns out I wasn't able to continue on Sunday - everywhere in town is shut. We've been given the afternoon off now though so that's all well and cool.
So, where was I? Hmmm. Well we had a bit of drama on the base last week when two of the students on our school said that they were leaving us to go and get married! Crazy stories - they've only been going out for a month. Basically, God gave them each a dream three months ago showing them who they were going to marry, before they had even met each other. And then they met each other at church and the girl told him that she thought he was the man she was meant to marry. And instead of the guy being totally freaked out he agreed! How crazy is that. So they started going out a month ago and then came to do their DTS here but after the first week they both felt that actually that wasn't the right decision - they felt God was calling them home to get married and that maybe they could do a DTS further down the line. So they've gone back up to Pretoria to do that! Sad though - they were both awesome guys.
Ive got the opportunity here to get involved with some work with the street kids which has proved interesting to say the least. Five of us went on Friday to go and take some sandwiches to the boys sleeping rough and I knew it was going to be eye-opening but I was still pretty shocked to be honest. The first boys we came across were young - maybe 11 or so. One of them freely handed over the glue that he'd been sniffing in the knowledge that he was going to be fed but the other boy ran off - apparently he'd rather keep his glue and not be fed. So that was the first thing - it seems like all the boys are on drugs and obviously some of them are on a lot worse things than glue. We met 7 or 8 other boys and sat down to eat with them. It was really encouraging - we all said grace together and I just sat and prayed with ony guy of about 20 who said he wanted to accept God into his life. Was awesome. Then it turned sour though when one of the older guys drew a knife out of his back pocket and launched himself at one of the other lads. A mass brawl followed with most people trying to split them up. Thankfully we got the knife off the guy(when I say 'we' I must concede that I wasn't actually involved in the physical confiscation of it) but they were still at it with the fists. Apparently one of the guys gets bullied quite a lot - he's new and a white guy and so gets picked on by the others. I wasn't really in the mood to split them up but I pretended to jostle around a bit before we decided it was probably best to phone the police. Pretty scary stuff. It's positive though - four of them came to church on Sunday and one of them has been round on the base since helping out and stuff. So things are looking positive - would be great if you could pray for that.
Does anyone know who 'Jerry' is btw? This randomer wrote a really strange comment on my first blog. Odd - why would anyone read a blog other someone they don't know?
Missing y'all....
X
So, where was I? Hmmm. Well we had a bit of drama on the base last week when two of the students on our school said that they were leaving us to go and get married! Crazy stories - they've only been going out for a month. Basically, God gave them each a dream three months ago showing them who they were going to marry, before they had even met each other. And then they met each other at church and the girl told him that she thought he was the man she was meant to marry. And instead of the guy being totally freaked out he agreed! How crazy is that. So they started going out a month ago and then came to do their DTS here but after the first week they both felt that actually that wasn't the right decision - they felt God was calling them home to get married and that maybe they could do a DTS further down the line. So they've gone back up to Pretoria to do that! Sad though - they were both awesome guys.
Ive got the opportunity here to get involved with some work with the street kids which has proved interesting to say the least. Five of us went on Friday to go and take some sandwiches to the boys sleeping rough and I knew it was going to be eye-opening but I was still pretty shocked to be honest. The first boys we came across were young - maybe 11 or so. One of them freely handed over the glue that he'd been sniffing in the knowledge that he was going to be fed but the other boy ran off - apparently he'd rather keep his glue and not be fed. So that was the first thing - it seems like all the boys are on drugs and obviously some of them are on a lot worse things than glue. We met 7 or 8 other boys and sat down to eat with them. It was really encouraging - we all said grace together and I just sat and prayed with ony guy of about 20 who said he wanted to accept God into his life. Was awesome. Then it turned sour though when one of the older guys drew a knife out of his back pocket and launched himself at one of the other lads. A mass brawl followed with most people trying to split them up. Thankfully we got the knife off the guy(when I say 'we' I must concede that I wasn't actually involved in the physical confiscation of it) but they were still at it with the fists. Apparently one of the guys gets bullied quite a lot - he's new and a white guy and so gets picked on by the others. I wasn't really in the mood to split them up but I pretended to jostle around a bit before we decided it was probably best to phone the police. Pretty scary stuff. It's positive though - four of them came to church on Sunday and one of them has been round on the base since helping out and stuff. So things are looking positive - would be great if you could pray for that.
Does anyone know who 'Jerry' is btw? This randomer wrote a really strange comment on my first blog. Odd - why would anyone read a blog other someone they don't know?
Missing y'all....
X
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Sun, sea, surf and banana pancakes
Wowsas. A week has passed since I arrived in Jeffray's Baysays and what a week it's been. For those that don't know the details I'm here to do what YWAM call a Discipleship Training Scheme; spending three months 'knowing God' and then two months 'making God known through mission work, which could involve building houses, talking at schools, working with street kids etc. It's all quite exciting but I'm a little nervous as well I guess - I don't think the leaders here have much respect for my comfort zone!
I've learnt lots over my first week but I guess there are just two lessons I want to share now.
1. That video showing how challenged Americans are when it comes to general knowledge, you know that one? Having stubbornly refused to believe that it could possibly be true for several years now I'm afraid I have to now concede that it is not in fact a set up. There are two State-Side girls on the DTS with me and I asked one of them - Jess -to simply point out England on a world map. I couldn't believe my eyes as she pointed slowly to the Ukraine! Unbelievable.
2. Never go running with a Nigerian. I woke up at 6am the other day to go running with him and it was only a matter of minutes later before i sincerely regretted the decision. He pushed me seriously hard - doing this strange sprinting drill, running up sand-dunes etc. Overall, that's not gone well. Serious hats off to his stamina levels - he wasn't phased at all. It's wonderful though - almost every other morning I've woken at 6am and gone for an altogether more pleasant jog with some of the girls along the beach. The waves breaking and the sun rising. Perfection.
Knitwear-Mondays is struggling to make an impact.
Daily routine? Hmmm, well...
6am - Run (compulsory on Tuesdays and Thursdays!)
6:30am - Breakfast
7am - Quiet Time
8am - Mussipumelle (essentially cleaning up the base)
8:30am - Prayer or Worship
9am: Lectures - We've had a visiting speaker this week to talk to us about hearing the voice of God. Amazing stuff - I've really learnt a lot. He had some pretty cool personal experiences - three times now he's felt called by God to go and speak at a conference without the financial means to take the flight so he's just rocked up at the airport and each of the three times God has provided the money for him to fly! Three times, strangers have just given him money, without him even asking! Incred-redonk. So lectures are good - not as boring as they sound!
1pm - Lunch (the food here isn't something to write home about (www.irony.com/imahardnut) but its not bad. If there's porrige on the menu for breakfast though don't be surprised if you're served up a suspiciously oaty soup for lunch.)
2pm - Siesta (greatly appreciated)
3pm - Work Duties. Not so greatly appreciated - they've had me cleaning the floor of the chapel every day so far - it's so dang clean right now you wouldn't believe it! Soon though we should be able to go out into the community and help where it's really needed during this time.
5:30pm - Dinner
7pm - Games night/film night/home groups depending on the evening.
10pm - Lights out (I thought they were joking. Outrageous. It's good though - I find I'm not quite as grumpy as I normally am.)
There we go, that's the day. Weekends are free but it's coming up to 5:30pm now so I need to get back to base for dinner. I can only use the internet in town so that pretty much limits things to weekend use. Should be back tomorrow though to tell you a little more...
Peace.
Disclaimer: If any of you have seen the mutliple beach shots on Facebook and are worried that your sponsorship money which you thought was going to a good cause is actually paying for me to have a holiday, rest assured. Your money will be going towards my mission work, starting in July! Honest...
I've learnt lots over my first week but I guess there are just two lessons I want to share now.
1. That video showing how challenged Americans are when it comes to general knowledge, you know that one? Having stubbornly refused to believe that it could possibly be true for several years now I'm afraid I have to now concede that it is not in fact a set up. There are two State-Side girls on the DTS with me and I asked one of them - Jess -to simply point out England on a world map. I couldn't believe my eyes as she pointed slowly to the Ukraine! Unbelievable.
2. Never go running with a Nigerian. I woke up at 6am the other day to go running with him and it was only a matter of minutes later before i sincerely regretted the decision. He pushed me seriously hard - doing this strange sprinting drill, running up sand-dunes etc. Overall, that's not gone well. Serious hats off to his stamina levels - he wasn't phased at all. It's wonderful though - almost every other morning I've woken at 6am and gone for an altogether more pleasant jog with some of the girls along the beach. The waves breaking and the sun rising. Perfection.
Knitwear-Mondays is struggling to make an impact.
Daily routine? Hmmm, well...
6am - Run (compulsory on Tuesdays and Thursdays!)
6:30am - Breakfast
7am - Quiet Time
8am - Mussipumelle (essentially cleaning up the base)
8:30am - Prayer or Worship
9am: Lectures - We've had a visiting speaker this week to talk to us about hearing the voice of God. Amazing stuff - I've really learnt a lot. He had some pretty cool personal experiences - three times now he's felt called by God to go and speak at a conference without the financial means to take the flight so he's just rocked up at the airport and each of the three times God has provided the money for him to fly! Three times, strangers have just given him money, without him even asking! Incred-redonk. So lectures are good - not as boring as they sound!
1pm - Lunch (the food here isn't something to write home about (www.irony.com/imahardnut) but its not bad. If there's porrige on the menu for breakfast though don't be surprised if you're served up a suspiciously oaty soup for lunch.)
2pm - Siesta (greatly appreciated)
3pm - Work Duties. Not so greatly appreciated - they've had me cleaning the floor of the chapel every day so far - it's so dang clean right now you wouldn't believe it! Soon though we should be able to go out into the community and help where it's really needed during this time.
5:30pm - Dinner
7pm - Games night/film night/home groups depending on the evening.
10pm - Lights out (I thought they were joking. Outrageous. It's good though - I find I'm not quite as grumpy as I normally am.)
There we go, that's the day. Weekends are free but it's coming up to 5:30pm now so I need to get back to base for dinner. I can only use the internet in town so that pretty much limits things to weekend use. Should be back tomorrow though to tell you a little more...
Peace.
Disclaimer: If any of you have seen the mutliple beach shots on Facebook and are worried that your sponsorship money which you thought was going to a good cause is actually paying for me to have a holiday, rest assured. Your money will be going towards my mission work, starting in July! Honest...
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
CapAYS.
Two taxis, two buses, two trains and two planes later and I've arrived in the big Cape, or CapAYS as it's affectionately known by some of the locals. I'm spending a day here before embarking on the epic twelve hour coach journey over to Jeffer's Bay.
My first impressions of South Africa are positive ones - the sun was shining as I stepped off the plane and I briefly had time to admire the shimmering oceans with the mountainous (sp) backdrop before the sun set on my first day here. The hostel I'm staying in has won the highly sought after 'Dingiest Accomodation In Cape Town' accolade for 07, 08 and 09 - it's just hanging in the balance as to whether they can clinch it for the fourth year running. If my opinion's worth anything they've got it in the bag. Nevertheless, it's cheap and it's central and I get to share a room with three rather attractive blondes amongst others so there's to be no complaining really.
The large number of beggars is something that I couldn't help noticing almost as soon as i left the hostel this evening. Although it wasn't so much the large quantity as the begging techniques that surprised me - they pounce on you and refuse to take no for an answer! They just walk with you and don't leave you alone no matter what you say. I did do a clothing analysis and decided that my attire of hat, sunnys, flip-flops and satchell probably didn't help me pull off the I'm-a-poor-African-boy-leave-me-alone look that I should have been going for. Hmmm, that's something to work on me thinks. I was even approached while I was eating my meal in KFC though (I've tucked straight into the local cuisine) and asked for change so that some guy could buy himself a coke! Outrageous... there's just no shame in it for them. The shanty towns (used literally in this instance) were something that shocked me too - obviously I've seen photos before or seen them in films but just to see a huge shanty town village by the side of the road that we were driving down hit home the awful reality of it all. Not nice in the slightest.
The time-difference means it's past my bedtime now. Just note though that Film Of The Plane Journey was awarded to The Blind Side (Sandra Bullock) - very good film and beat such reputable titles as Fantastic Mr Fox and 500 Days of Summer to the award so must be worth a watch. Do it.
Alright, what's goodbye in Africaans? Well whatever it is.... that's what im saying. Ciao.
My first impressions of South Africa are positive ones - the sun was shining as I stepped off the plane and I briefly had time to admire the shimmering oceans with the mountainous (sp) backdrop before the sun set on my first day here. The hostel I'm staying in has won the highly sought after 'Dingiest Accomodation In Cape Town' accolade for 07, 08 and 09 - it's just hanging in the balance as to whether they can clinch it for the fourth year running. If my opinion's worth anything they've got it in the bag. Nevertheless, it's cheap and it's central and I get to share a room with three rather attractive blondes amongst others so there's to be no complaining really.
The large number of beggars is something that I couldn't help noticing almost as soon as i left the hostel this evening. Although it wasn't so much the large quantity as the begging techniques that surprised me - they pounce on you and refuse to take no for an answer! They just walk with you and don't leave you alone no matter what you say. I did do a clothing analysis and decided that my attire of hat, sunnys, flip-flops and satchell probably didn't help me pull off the I'm-a-poor-African-boy-leave-me-alone look that I should have been going for. Hmmm, that's something to work on me thinks. I was even approached while I was eating my meal in KFC though (I've tucked straight into the local cuisine) and asked for change so that some guy could buy himself a coke! Outrageous... there's just no shame in it for them. The shanty towns (used literally in this instance) were something that shocked me too - obviously I've seen photos before or seen them in films but just to see a huge shanty town village by the side of the road that we were driving down hit home the awful reality of it all. Not nice in the slightest.
The time-difference means it's past my bedtime now. Just note though that Film Of The Plane Journey was awarded to The Blind Side (Sandra Bullock) - very good film and beat such reputable titles as Fantastic Mr Fox and 500 Days of Summer to the award so must be worth a watch. Do it.
Alright, what's goodbye in Africaans? Well whatever it is.... that's what im saying. Ciao.
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