Updates

Hey all I just wanted to send out a flurry of updates. I am sorry I haven't been able to respond to emails/facebook pics up/ blog etc for a while, but I promise it was for good cause!

I had an excellent time at the TLC Christmas party and met some great people. The smiles on some of these kids faces can't be removed from my mind. You must see pictures of this, though it says far too little! Oh man what a great time that was. Thank you again to Dwight Wyse for his family's generous donation.

I have also started the soccer program and connected with several kids of various ages in the neighborhood. I'm really enjoying that and have talked to some about drug use. There is someone else in the neighborhood that used to do it and Ursula would like to look at starting some sort of rehab in the area. We'll see what happens with this.

This week a young man named Themagosa (tim-ah-goose) that comes by Ursula's house and washes her car or does random projects with came to church with us. He only speaks Afrikaans, understands some English, I've been working on teaching him to read English, but it is an uphill battle. We also feed him when he comes.

We had started to get to know him better and invited him to church. He accepted the Lord on Sunday at church and we spend the day with him. We went from church to visit a sick man and pray for him, he may be in his last days. Themagosa broke down in tears and shared later that his mother passed away in Sept. He doesn't know his father and his brother left him alone to go live with his girlfriend. So this 16 year old is left at the house to take care of himself. We came to visit his place with him and it was spotless. Doubtless he tried to keep it as his mother had. We went home and Byron, my friend wanted to watch Passion of the Christ with Themagosa.

The Church's Pastor pulled me aside this week after service and wanted to talk to me. He wants to talk to the church board and get me more involved officially in the church. He had heard about the soccer program and the connections within the youth that I had made and wanted to see both of those grow next year. He said community outreach and youth are his two main focuses for 2009, I just grinned :)....we'll see what happens