Part 1, The Call

Its been far to long since I have written, and for that I am sorry.  I have quite a bit to say and the longer I go between blogs the more difficult it becomes to sit down and write one.  So, in an attempt to dig myself out of a hole I have to decided to break this up into some smaller pieces.  Firstly, it makes it easier for me to tackle the task of bringing you up to date and secondly it does so in smaller pieces which gives me hope that you will stay with me thru to the end.  So, here goes part 1.

The Call

Our 3 year Visas were up this September.  Hard to believe its been that long, but yes we have now been here over 3 years.  Early this year we lost some of our funding as you may remember.  We were not sure how we were going to stay, but we did not feel called to leave at that time and wanted to at least finish out our 3 year commitment.  God came through and made up the difference of what we had lost, enabling us to stay at least until our visas were up or thru the end of the year. 

As we began thinking thru what the next phase for us was praying that God would reconfirm the call to stay or clearly call us back home.  For me a big piece of the puzzle was knowing exactly what we were supposed to be doing and who we would need to partner with to do that. 

I called a friend of mine that I had met on several other occasions when I was researching Ocean View and the need for a safe house.  His name was Johann.  They have a house in Ocean View called the yellow house.  It's called that mainly because the house is yellow.  It sits in one of the worst parts of Ocean View.  It's a ministry of a group called All Nations.  I will speak more about them in another update, but for now just note the name.  The main focus of the yellow house is abused women and children.  I told Johann I had some time available and a heart for Ocean View and he encouraged me to just come and spend a week with them. 

Every morning starts with prayer at the yellow house for an hour.  Then from there everyone goes many different directions into the neighborhood.  When there are no other meetings, we will often just prayer walk around Ocean View.  The team is involved in all three of the schools.  2 primary schools and 1 High School.  There is one branch of the team that just works with babies and pregnant mothers.  Others work with drug addicts, gang bangers, prostitutes, etc.  At the heart of everything that they do is justice for the oppressed and safety for anyone being abused.  You can probably imagine that with a mission like that there is plenty of work to do.  After a week, I knew I was home.  I love being in the community.  I love walking the streets.  I love looking for and helping abused women and children.  I love praying for this township with other like minded people.  We are all volunteers from all parts of the world.  Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, America, Columbia and others.  The team is about 12 members strong, but grows occasionally with teams and short term volunteers.  There are no job contracts or employment papers to sign, just commitments of the heart.  So we committed our hearts to this group; All Nations and the Yellow House.  Committed to the least, last, and lost of Ocean View. 

So with clarity and confirmation of the call, we made our decision to the pursue the process of renewing our visas to stay and continue the work here in South Africa. 

part 2 coming soon.
blessings,
Shelby

Prayer Points
ministry

     Biggest need at the moment are safe houses.  There are too few in Ocean View and often we have no where to house abused women and children on a temporary or long term basis.

     Huge gang problem right now in Ocean View.  They are not hard core like in the states, but nonetheless for here the shootings and crime have escalated quite a bit.  It's affecting students as young as grade 8 in the high school and maybe even younger.

     Drug problem.  Tic, is the local drug of choice.  Its a dirt cheap form of crystal meth and it is completely destroying lives here in Ocean View.

     Drop Outs.  The high school suffers from a very high drop out / expulsion rate.  The statistics for kids who don't finish high school offer very little hope for them.  We need something to help keep the kids in school and something for the ones who have dropped out and been out too long to go back. 

personal
     Finances, continued monthly people to partner with us
    
     Second Car for us

     continued health and safety