Just wanted to let you know get a sniff of what has been happening here in the last couple weeks. Our calendars have just begun to fill and we are just thrilled and at the same time we are in need of your prayers as never before.

We are just thrilled that our initial group of young adult disciples are in the process this week of launching two new groups! This is the core of why we are here in the townships; to train, raise up, and facilitate disciple-making disciples. Encouraging to see folks going into their neighborhoods “two by two”, telling the stories of God’s goodness and the good news of Jesus.
Today and tomorrow we will meet with the two new groups. Our role will be to just encourage and to train these new leaders, we will not play a participatory role in the new groups. We sure appreciate your prays for Benele, Noktula, Vicky and Tony.
Last week we went to Vicky’s home to begin to pray walk her neighborhood. The idea is to really begin to pray God’s best over the area in which we are sensing we are to work in. Also, as we walk and greet people, to talk to God about the people before we talk to people about God. Again, Becky and I teach and model, then encourage and step back into a support role. Boy, does Vicky’s area need prayer! Tough, tough town. The young disciples are fascinated that we would begin to “bless” those engaged in theft, muggings, rape, and drunkeness, instead of ‘cursing’ them. We’ll keep working on that! It is just so wonderful to see people who are themselves so abused and broken begin to stand up in their circumstances and become strengthened by the Lord as they reach out to other broken people. Pray for us and pray for them and pray for God’s movement over the “S.K. Bar & Tavern”, a rough ’shebeen’ (unlicensed bar) next door to Vicky’s house.
It’s interesting that this neighborhood is the same one that Vicky and Tony have been ‘ministering’ into for the last months, distributing food items and crops that we have gleaned from the fields of generous farmers.
We’ve had family and friends - especially those from a more “academia-centric” perspective ask if we are not being insensitive to the indigenous culture.
Our response? Every culture has its beauty and its darkness, whether American or African. Every culture is worthy of honor where it shines bright and cultivates the best and most honorable traits of mankind. But we are striving to come from a place of “Kingdom culture”, where we work hard to strip culture out of our message and our actions, so that those following us might find the ‘best’ expression of the True Truths of God and humankinds’ relationship within their own culture. Our central conviction is that a culture is doomed to self-destruction and social ‘cannibalism’ where it devours its weakest, if it does not rediscover and honor cultural mores consistent with its Creator’s nature. More on that in the days ahead, but you might look over the short passage in Exodus 34 on the nature of God. Blessings.