Outreach in Mountain View

Tonight we had the privilege of being a part of a community outreach with one of our International Teams from Tennessee, US. The team partnered with one of our local church partners to reach out to the community of Mountain View. All week they’ve been doing door-to-door and children’s ministry which all culminated into a Testing day and what was the Outreach tonight. At the testing day people could get free HIV, TB, Blood Pressure and Blood Sugar tests. Then at the Outreach, people within the community were invited to the event that started off with some worship, the children performing to their parents the songs and Bible verses they learned this past week and then a message from the Pastor. Everyone had a great time and just seeing how people were moved was extremely powerful! This is why we are here and so cool to start of our time with Living Hope this way!

Friendly Welcome

We were welcomed this morning by a sweet retired couple from the UK who arrived a few days ago and will be staying here to volunteer full-time for the next two months. Mike will be assisting the chaplain’s office and June will be ministering to patients in the health care center on campus. We can tell they will be a breath of fresh air not only for our clients, but also our staff. We thank God for their commitment to come and serve with us!

Hitting the ground running..

We shouldn’t have, but our flight arrived in Cape Town at mid-day today – and we still went into the office for our “first day”. Happy to see us, our manager still told us to go home and come back fresh tomorrow, but we were too excited to miss it, even if we came in for a few hours. There are lots of volunteer inquiry emails received since the beginning of the month and are awaiting response – here we go! We kept on working and working – till it felt so late even though the clock only said 3:45 pm. Little did we know that it was already 6:15pm and that the clock decided to stop working today! Go figure!

Returning "Home"

The bride and groom with our deck-out Landy!

The groom and his best men!

What a whirlwind past couple of weeks! We are going back to South Africa after a quality (albeit short) visit with friends and family in the US & UK. My brother Jim’s wedding, was nothing short of perfect: flip flops and khakis, and the entire family together for the first time since 2008. It was so special to be there and see everyone even though we had long ago written off the idea that we would be able to do so this year. We also had the chance to share with friends in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and London how God was calling us to serve in full-time missions – and how we drove through Africa to get there! We would have loved to stay longer and see more people, but not so this time. We are determined, though, to stay in better contact with everyone abroad, since we know that we can’t do this without the prayerful support of friends and family.