2009!

Sorry for the delay I was away from the computer lab for quite a while because Ursula was off work. I attended a few other Christmas parties for farm children and orphanages. The kids had such a good time, but it was sad to hear that a lot of the projects get a lot at Christmas, but very little the rest of the year. Some of them have even had to close down at times of the year. A nice project in Ottery actually closed down and two women that used to work there still work with the kids for free. I'm hoping to help them get some funding in 2009.

Ursula's family came to visit for Christmas and we had a fun time. We had many volunteers and some of the youth over to hang out for Ursula's bday and for Christmas. We played lots of games and were up to all hours. They all had lots of laughs and enjoyed their time here. I had Christmas lunch at Ursula's brother's house and dinner with some of the volunteers. Chritmas dinner was quite a new experience with Chicken, peanuts and raisons, chocolate and pie. I'm not sure it'll make a tradition, but we had fun with our Charlie Brown Christmas.

New Years we had a wonderful service at church and afterward went to one of the youth's house. We had a braii at 3am and played dominoes until well after sunrise. I was too tired on an hour's sleep to go visit Ursula's friend in the country for the day. They were disappointed as they had been watching TV to practice their English for my visit. I will be out there another time for sure!

A pastor from Durban came to visit Ursula and has stayed with us for a week. She has shown a lot of nice pictures of what she is doing in Durban. I may go there and stay with her for a while and help at the church there. She had a DVD of a pastor that came to speak at her church about the Joy of being a Christian. It was a moving message and one I'd like to share with a lot of people. Something I have definitely taken to heart.

I started a small group of youth from the church. We meet weekly in the evenings and have grown together as group visiting the beach and playing soccer and other time together. I'm hoping we move to being a more active group in the community.

The work with the kids in the neighborhood has really grown this week. They all know me quite well and we talk about a lot of things. They all ask about America and which rappers or actors have I seen. Lately the topic has gotten deeper and I've learned about their families and their plans for the future. This week we've talked about Heaven and Jesus which has been awesome. I hope some of them will come visit the church with me soon. One little boy sat down next to me that I hadn't seen before and took my arm and put it around him. It is so sad to see so many kids so desperately needing love and not enough people to fill that need.

It has really been an eye opener to talk with some of them. Many believe there is nothing else to do besides drugs because there is nothing organized in their community. They literally have nothing close to a positive influences in their lives. Many of them watch American television and movies and some think it is real life and try to imitate it.

I'm having a few of the youth from church over tomorrow night to talk about what can we do to get something regular setup. I wish you guys all the best for 2009! I am excited for what it has in store.

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

Fishing, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations

It was quite a special week for me. I got to fish in the sea in quite an old school way. It was quite an experience right from the start. We met at 3:15am and drove down the coast. We got on the boat in darkness and headed out to sea. With dolphins, seals and a whale swimming right next to the boat almost with in reach at times it was quite an eye opening start to the day. I don't think I've ever seen such beauty. The sea with the first sparks of sunlight coming on it, if I didn't see it and photograph it myself I wouldn't believe it was real. As the sun rose we picked a few spots to start fishing.

There were about 15 of us in the boat. We cut our own bait even caught some of my own bait; we fished with just a line and a hook. I caught 12 fish which I thought was rather funny, I used two for bait so I ended up taking 10 home.

I celebrated thanksgiving on accident. We were going out to dinner and happened to come to a place that was only serving American style Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, ham veges and even pumpkin pie! It was great. I am so grateful to be here and experience so many new things and be involved in so many great projects.

Ursula, Byron and I had a Bible study this week which was nice and hopefully we'll keep up with it. Byron is excited to get involved with helping other youth recover from drug addiction and wants to get moving on that soon. Perhaps our soccer project can coincide with this. I want to get that moving soon.

The youth leader, 20 years old, has decided to study to become a pastor. He'll be studying at the University for the next two years, so he's not sure how much he'll be able to be involved with the youth. While it is sad to see him leave the group, we're excited for what the future has for him.

I watched the movie The Second Chance this week, twice. It is quite powerful and I strongly suggest any and all to watch it and the special features as well!

I got some excellent gifts from my sister Ann's friend that was in Cape Town this week for a wedding. Thank you for the early Christmas, I love it!

Tonight I'm heading to celebrate TLC's Christmas party which was sponsored by Dwight Wyse (thanks again!). It should be fun, Colleen is quite excited about it. I went to her earlier this week and saw her new office. It is located on a police stations campus. This has been tremendous for her because she's been able to minister to the youth, the police and also restore youth trust and comfort with the policemen that come and play with this kids. All of this has been great and the added security doesn't hurt either. I may help her with her project if I end up staying in CT next year.

Happy belated Thanksgiving and happy early Christmas!

Youth

Tonight at youth was a powerful experience. I tell you I was confident we would be delivered, but I was edgy because I felt so unprepared. When Byron told me two weeks ago he was teaching a program and wanted me to work with him on it I was excited again. Byron said he wanted his program to be on “Our Purpose” and I was immediately deflated. I had so many ideas and things I had lined up in my mind of what I wanted to talk about and none of them had to do with our purpose. I didn’t even know what that meant really and he tried to explain but I couldn’t seem to connect with it.

A week passed and I’ll be honest I had been busy and hadn’t put a ton of thought into it. We met and discussed and while we stuck to the topic we couldn’t come up with anything to surround it. I went home and ravaged the Word and couldn’t come up with anything that connected. I thought about the body and how we all work together and have different roles but it wasn’t right. I couldn’t come up with anything after another week had passed and it was the day before we taught. No Scripture, no activity, no music to connect anything.

That night before I came across one Scripture Romans 9:17, Byron also recalled a Pastor that had some stuff that might help us so he got that earlier today for tonight. He had also gone on a youth leadership camp over the weekend and it had reaffirmed the topic of our purpose. That was a focal point of the camp and while Byron tried to think of other topics he couldn’t get away from this one. I had given him a CD the week before (for two weeks I forgot but I happened to remember before he left for camp). The music from that CD was used all weekend as part of the camp and it was perfect for our program as well.

For our last presentation I had the whole discussion, questions and possible scenarios ready (if this happened then A if this then B), activities, purchased the props, etc. all together two weeks ahead of time. I had a typed up step by step of how it would run.

This time we reviewed about an hour before we taught and shared the one page he brought for his lesson. He said he wanted to just read from the paper and ask questions and see where it led. I tell you the truth - up until the moment we started I had no doubt it was going to go well even though I felt SO under prepared. Once it started though Byron read a few things and asked some questions. It was not going very well – we got one answer per question and honestly very generic and flat answers and no one seemed interested. We were moving through the paper quickly and it seemed we’d be done before 10 minutes had passed.

Then suddenly the mood changed, I can’t say why but we asked a question. What gets in your way between you and God? Some very “they” “we” “many youth” responses came back. We said again no, no, not what gets in some person’s or some youths - what gets in your way. And suddenly it was a very different night. Tears flowed and hearts were broken down. Occasionally there are prayer requests, tonight they didn’t stop. We went as a group to the chapel and prayed on our own but together in the room. We went over the time by an hour and not a single person left or complained or even looked at the clock.

Powerful stuff!

I came home still on fire and when Ursula poured her heart out about her hurt I finally had the words I’ve been waiting patiently (at times) for. I hope it helped. I know her words helped me with a lot of situations that are going through my family and friends lives right now.

And then...

This week's been a busy one. The meeting with UWC (University of Western Cape) went well. We have a plan to start in January with getting students together with a local multi-faith leadership group that Reverend Patrick is a part of. The students will help the faith groups attain national funding that is available, but difficult to apply for (or even figure out how to apply for).

Thank you Dwight Wyse for you and your family's generosity. Dwight told me that him and his family can sponsor TLC's Christmas party for the 50 children. That will on December 4th and they are elated to have sponsorship from America for it. Dwight also donated a website for the regional Nazarene church.

Today I helped setup and run a meal for about 70 seniors from the neighborhood. It was just a way for the Aloe Community Nutrition Center to say thank you to the community for support. We had a nice meal and gave away a few prizes. It was a fun time!

This week I also helped work on Mendiza's house in Mufalani. Mendiza is Ursula's cleaning lady (she treats her as a daughter) We were putting up curtains for her and we're getting some flooring for her as well. I also got to hang out at Masi again with the kids. Once Mendiza's house is finished I may stay there a night or two per week to help at Masi. I'd like to help get them some regular funding.

Reverend Patrick wants to talk to Thuli and not let me leave Cape Town :). There was a flood that displaced 1000+ families last week in Durban so I'll keep an eye on that situation and we'll see if it closes the door. We'll see what happens.

Updates

Hey just some quick updates -

I have been traveling around a bit and working on a number of things. People have been very generous here and from the US and I'm very grateful!

I visited Ursula's education center and we purchased 4 tables and 16 chairs so that the students could get off the floor of their pod. They have only some cheap plastic flooring and we'll hopefully be able to purchase a mat (rug) for them as well. Thank you Mike O'Malley (aka "Dad") for the contribution to purchase all of the above. Pictures on facebook soon!

I also visited a project I call Massy because I haven't quite conquered the X-cosa language enough to say the full name (that X is a click sound). This is an orphanage and the director there said I can come and work there any time. I might do that on Tuesday. Ursula's friends lives nearby and we're helping her finish her house that the Irish donated. BTW the Irish built some of the first few houses in SA which embarrassed the government at the time into doing some building of them own for those in need. Go Irish!

I got some scrap wood from a nieghbor and I'm going to build some goals and hopefully start a Sunday afternoon game for the youth in the neighborhood. There are regular drug busts and I'd like to get some of the kids that just wonder the streets doing something and have someone to talk with. Hopefully some of the youth at the church can help.

I got an excellent treat yesterday as I was invited to a wedding by one of Ursula's friends and then her brother for a gathering. Yesterday was the first day of Crayfish (Lobster) season so we had some excellent fresh lobster. The guys all had a good laugh asking about Obama and teaching me Afrikans. One of the fellas was very intrigued to meet an "American-American" and as he put it someone that brought the Bible to life. He was really moved that I was here without any personal tie to SA.

Byronand I'll be teaching again next Monday so please keep us in prayer!

Love and miss you guys!

Doubts?

Today's message at church was on doubt. We went to Genesis and talked about Eve's doubt and how it opened the door to failure. He talked about how often people try to put just the slightest doubt in our mind and how wide that opening swings into all sorts of things. Try this drug, try this drink, try this X - what is it for you?

I've been weighing the coversation about why bad things happen for a few days and I appreciate all the comments and the discussion I've been having with friends and family over email. The only thing that hasn't come up in my mind is doubt that there is a solution. Whether everyone accepts it or not I can't say, but for me I am content with "trusting God" as the answer. I have enjoyed having that peace while I worked through thoughts with different people.

Thank you all for praying for my sister and her child. Ronan Christopher Ames was born today!

It is looking more like I'll be staying in Cape Town until January. I'm going to a few projects this week and I think using the bus (about $2 round trip) I can go out 3 days per week to work at one of the orphanages.

Love and miss you guys.