If home is where the heart is, than I want to go back home. My heart is in Africa and I am ready to go back. I am here now and will try to make the best of this situation, but I am planning and counting the days till we get to go back.
So todays post we will answer a few questions. 1. What's the plan. 2. What was the trip about 3. What will you be doing there? First let me start by thanking all of you for following along and keeping Jesse and I in your prayers. There were definitely times that we could feel and know that God was going before us and opening doors. Please continue to keep us in prayer over these next couple of months as we begin to walk out what we feel is the direction that God has set before us. It won't be easy, and I am expecting some big attacks from the enemy. I will update the blog periodically as things happen, but probably not daily. Stay tuned over the next couple weeks as I will begin to upload more pictures now that we are home and have better bandwith. We also have someone working with us to put together a video that will include a lot of footage from our trip, but also answer the questions above. So hopefully that will be ready in a couple of weeks as that will be one of our primary tools for raising money.
So back to questions. 1. What's the plan. The plan is for us to go back to Africa, this time with our families. The ideal time frame would be sometime around the first of September. There is another trip to Lesotho in the works around that time that we would love to be a part of and also there is a Calvary Chapel Africa Pastors conference in October that we want to be at. We would travel with the Strauss family to Cape Town where the conference is. It would give us a great opportunity to meet other Calvary Pastors working in Africa and share our vision and ideas for what God is doing in Durban. So the plan is to start selling everything, start raising support, and start packing and preparing.
2. What was the trip all about? I have felt called to Africa. We started putting out feelers to see where and what part we wanted to go to. This opportunity in Durban, South Africa came up. It felt like a great fit for what our heart was and what are giftings are. So before I even left I felt like this was where we were supposed to go, but before I moved my whole family there sight unseen (I have done this before with very negative consequences) it seemed wise to make a trip over to spy out the land. So in my mind I was looking for red flags. We planned our trip around the churches mission trip to Lesotho to give us a chance to build some relationships with people in the church, but also see how we worked and got along with Pastor Shaun. As Pastor Shaun says, "we either had to bond or break, and we bonded." We got along great with the Strauss family. Got a chance to be a part of 3 Sunday morning services. We met and hung out with others from the church. Got a chance to spy out the land as far as the skatepark goes. Please continue to pray about that, we are waiting word from the local school as to whether or not we can use their tennis courts. So the trip was an opportunity for us to do some mission work while spying out the land and looking for red flags, which I found none.
3. So what we will be doing there? Our ministry objective will be threefold. First, the orphanage. This is where we will be spending most of our day to day time. There is a lot of work to be done here. From administration, to day to day running, to helping coordinate a possible building project to help meet the space requirements. Ma, who runs the place is currently taking care of 32 orphan children and 4 of her own. They currently get help from the state for 4 children. The state has told her she only has the space and staff to take care of 16, so they are constantly threatening to shut her down so that they can bully her into taking more kids off of their hands and not having to pay here. Some of her kids are not custody of the state at all, but are simply orphan children in her neighborhood that she has taken off the street. So first area of ministry will be the orphanage. Second, youth ministry. We will be helping with the Jr. and Sr. high youth areas in the church. This will include outreach programs consisting of the skate park, coffee house & music venue as well as the regular youth events. The long term goal would be a "rocket-town" type place where the skateboarding, music venue, coffee shop would all be under one roof, but the immediate goal is to find a free or cheap outdoor location for the skatepark and begin using the current church building for a youth center which would have some music shows and a place where youth can hang out. Final area of ministry - Mashai, Lesotho. It is a place that people are hungry for the Gospel. The church feels led to begin helping build a church there so that we can make disciples and use it as a launching pad down the road to reach other tribes and villages. So long term goal would be to build a church there and raise up the church leadership. Short term goal is to raise enough money to take them a tent hopefully in Sept. that they can begin using for Sunday mornings. Right now they are meeting in house that can seat about 15 people, and during our trip there were at least a hundred people who came forward to give the lives to God. So the huge need for them right now is a place where they can all meet together. Also right now we want to pour into Daniel who is the pastor there right now and try to raise enough money to support him so that he can minister full time. Right now he has to leave 2 weeks at time to go and work in another village. Jesse and I went to Lesotho for the purpose of meeting Shaun and building relationships with a few of the people from church, but left with a heart for the Lesotho people and excited about what the Lord was doing there.
So, Orphanage, youth ministry, and Lesotho. That will be our primary ministry and focus. So the task before us now is to raise support so that we can make it over there. As US citizens we are not allowed to work over there and getting a work visa for South Africa is much more difficult than getting a "missionary" visa. We will also be raising money to help build the skatepark, and the tent for Lesotho. I will keep you posted on our fundraising endeavors and as thinks happen or we get news from our friends in South Africa I will let you know.
Thanks again for your prayers and support.
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