Day 1 in South Africa

We arrived at our hotel this morning around 12:30a.m. My body was completely confused. Started our day with a wonderful English Breakfast made by Francois, the manager of our B&B. We got to spend a very brief time with the Pinelake team that has been here for a week. They headed to the airport this morning. First up this morning was training with Ithemba ministry for a camp we will be helping lead Mon.-Wed. Ithemba does incredible work in the sweetwaters area to help build community involvement, to improve the creches,(pre-schools). To learn more about them click here. Definitely worth checking out. I'm amazed by this ministry. The training was around three hours. It was so fun it didn't feel like training. We played games, sang some zulu songs. I don't know what I was saying, but at one point we were walking, sitting, sleeping, jumping. Something about Jesus being better than anything. It was AWESOME. The guitar player for the camp fell through, so Curt gets to play guitar for the zulu worship songs. There will be a South African leading this, but he still gets to play which he's so excited about. After the training, we grabbed lunch and then headed into the community of Sweetwaters with some members of the Ithemba ministry to see a piece of land they were given. I have to tell the story of this land. It's so neat.

Ok, so in Sweetwaters, you can't just go buy land. The area is still considered tribal land and their is still a current "chief" of the tribe that you must go to and ask for a small piece of land to build a house. It usually costs quite a bit of money. One of the ministries of Ithemba is leading a bible club each week in a local school. They had been using the facility with no problem, when one day they went to have bible club and the school said they could no longer meet there. With no reason given. They went back to their office feeling a bit confused and Stu said, "i think we just need to pray that God will give us our own space." So they prayed. Anyway, sometime after that they were contacted by what is kind of a "deputy" under the chief that he wanted a meeting with them. They didn't really know what it was about, but he met with them and said he felt it was time for them to have some land of their own to use for the community. So, without asking for any money he gave them a huge area of land that they are going to build a school, a community center, basketball courts, and garden on. It's unheard of here. Sam really felt God was telling her this land was to be used as a school, but didn't mention that to the deputy in the meeting. When he met with her the next time, he said, I meant to tell you this land is zoned for a school. Sam shared that when she was 13 years old she was going on Holiday with her family who were both educators. She never really wanted to be an educator, but that day God gave her a vision that one day she would be part of a school on a hill. The land the chief gave them sits on the side of a beautiful mountain...on a hill. It is so neat to see God pouring out provision on this ministry. We prayed over the site where this community center will be built. Oh, and the next day the school called and said, I don't know what the problem was, you are welcome to have bible club here anytime. Sam said she felt God was just waiting for them to ask for Him to pour out His blessing He had prepared for them.

So after we left there we got to spend some time at Tabitha ministries in their orphanage. Talk about some energy. These 30 little ones have plenty of it. We had a blast. We sang songs, Curt juggled, then we just played. These two little twin girls played with my hair for at least 45 minutes. They were so precious. They kept styling it and taking my clip out and putting it back in. It was sweet time. I have pictures, but it seems like our internet connection might not be strong enough to upload them. I'll try later. My eyes are crossing. I've got to go to bed.