Retreat/Faith

Nearly two weeks ago my team and I had gone over to a Staff Retreat for the Durban CCC Staff! It appeared more of a combination of individuals from a high school, a cocktail of juniors with seniors and the executive staff of the school. Certainly, my team was the youngest 'new kids around the block' however it didn't feel like that. We were ushered into the Durban team that had been made of Jon and Marie-Jean Templehoff, Gary and Cheryl Price, Sarie, Pastor Goba, Mpumi and Anele (and Mel who had not been with us due to an operation that took her out a bit). Some of the key points which encircled our retreat was the characteristics of a great team and this was surely a great opportunity to reconnect with God after an entire 2 months of holidays. Indeed it was great getting to know Sarie who grew up in a farm just outside Johannesburg and loves biltong, or Marie-Jean who can spend the entire day cooking or reading a good book, or  Gary an avid golfer and biggest Isidingo fan, Anele who never eats his vegetables and fish. Highlights of the retreat, there was alooooot of candy - I am not a big fan of chocolate (well because my doctor said it messes with my braces...thanx a milliion doc) but that weekend . . . oh man - we were covered in chocolate . . .  for a second I felt like the running tap water is chocolate water : fudge, caramel, coconut coated chocolate, nutty chocolate - YOU NAME IT!

On a different note, this week I have been learning quite much about faith! I love faith! I enjoy seeing what the bible teaches us about faith! What really strikes me about faith in the bible is when Luke writes about Zechariah the Priest in Chapter 1. To read that chapter in context - I am confounded on the amount of faith Zech had. Not in faith that God will bless them with a child but faith in that God's character remains the same. If he lacked faith....would he still have continued to intercede for the people at the temple, serving as one who keeps the incense burning on the alter....would he have bothered? Indeed, though the Lord had not answered his prayers, he still had conducted his priestly duties. The principle for me here is so amazing more especially when doing ministry work. Just because I am still waiting on the Lord for that blue house, does that have to limit me on how I express  Him or reduce the prayer I say over a sick primary school boy in Ntuzuma? Grilling that into my head for the past 5 months, faith is what will keep you intact.

Friday is our students are having a Leadership Meeting at Westville Baptist Church so thats gonna be fun and eager in seeing them all then this Saturday will be heading to Pretoria, Campus Crusade Head Offices for MPD and Intern training. Will also get to meet some of the new interns/stinters in South Africa in different parts of the country and on different campuses and university!

Bafana

Update

There hasn't been any great news this week - though the Lord has been very faithful with the support that has already come in, its very interesting to see how the next support that would come in would do so. I am in Durban currently with family for a week long vacation - just what the Dr' ordered.

Last blog I mentioned that may you please be praying for how the support from my friends in the State was to come in -  finally there is light and it might not be as much of a predicament as it would of come out as to be initially. Penny, the Director of Ukukhanya said she would help out in getting the money into S.A. more especially with minimal bank charges.

I was watching CampRock - The Movie yesterday and there was just this influx of memories of our own Ukukhanya Camp. I really cant wait for next year - its just gonna be so so so super awesome and amazingly satisfying beyond comprehension. I haven't spoken with my team mates the last couple of few days but I am pretty sure that they just as and just awaiting to see the Lord's work when 2012 comes.

Bafana

Guest Blogger - Mpumelelo Kunene

This is a blog entry just in from my MOTT, Mpumelelo 'Lelo' Kunene. He is a final year student just as I am but majored in Computer Studies. He has been over the past few years appropriately dubbed 'Radical Evangelist'. He plays the guitar, pretty awesome at it, loves ingaging in intellectual conversation and as he puts it "...with the aim of saving some." Here goes - this is the MOT from Lelo's lens:

For His Suffering - My First Missionary Journey (Botswana)

"That The Lamb of God might receive the full reward for His Suffering!" 

 The story is told of two Moravian young men who when they heard that a slave owner on a distant island had banned all missionaries from coming to his island that has three thousand slaves sold themselves to him so they can become undercover missionaries to these slaves. Not just a normal selling, they had sold themselves for life. When the ship came to take them, and as it pulled off the dock with them on board, looking at their families weeping, knowing that they'll never see them again and questioning the wisdom of it, they cried out:

" That the Lamb Of God might receive the full reward for His suffering!!"

 Those were the last words that were ever heard of from those men. This became the Moravian call for missions. God's Glory at the center. As I journey into Botswana for my first ever (well, technically not, we went to Maritzburg Campus a couple o' months ago to plant CRU) missionary escapade, I feel this burning in my heart. We will be going for ten days, first scheduled to preach at the University over there for about 5 days then the community for the remainder. The Lord has been faithful in providing for me and my teammates, we've all gotten the monies needed through Him speaking to His children for us. Honestly I must say, Kevin and Chad approached me with the Gospel in 2009 April, I never thought this is what I'll become.O, how He can change a life! To Him be the Glory for ever and ever!! We leave tonight, 10PM, from Durban to PTA, then from PTA to Botswana at 2PM on Monday (tomorrow). We come back on December fifth. Pray for us brethren, that the Lord uses these feeble bones and mouths of ours to proclaim the truth of His salvation, His mercy, to wrath deserving sinners. That He might save them, that Christ might gain for Himself a Bride that is beautiful and unstained, to the Glory of Him who is everlasting in mercy. Amen. However I have not been honest thus far in this post. You see, friend, I have a fear. A deep fear. I know that He can do whatever He wants on this trip, but it is afterward that I fear what He'll do. I fear that my time to leave my plans, school and work and ambition, might have finally come. I wonder if I am ready to be used of God in a more explicit way. This whole semester I've been feeling like a lamb being prepared for slaughter, with all this doctrinal study and the call to pray, its like I've been going through training. The essence of my fear is also a foundation for excitement: What will He do? What if He says I must stay in Botswana? What if He tells me, more vividly than ever before, to take up my cross, forget my life, and follow Him? He is a mysterious God, and in Proverbs two days ago I leaned that it is His glory to conceal a matter (Prov 25:2). Will I obey? I have no choice, I have been bought. He, only He, has the words of eternal life.

P.S. Botswana Bound RadEvang

Mission Outreach Trip Team (MOTT)

Meet my team. These are the warriors which are being sent to Botswana for the (MOTT) (okay I have been blogging about it for quite some time now and if you have no clue what I am talking about, you out to subscribe to get them delivered to your inbox lol)

This is the team in the forefront but there are much much much much more other guys who are driving this boat - people who have really stayed up and planned everything to the tee, our support structure the 2011|Interns (Erica, Kate, Lauren, Anele - sadly enough they won't be going us because the three ladies are setting back to their homeland (States) after a year of service and internship with CRU|UKZN and Anele is gearing and in preparation for staff next year - awesome champion right there!). Driving this team mostly with their prayers is the leadership team from the different campuses - they have been awesome with that. Office work has been done mostly but a part-time staff member of CRU - she has been taking care of our finances and has been doing a great job at it...love it! These 12 people have a trail of supporters who have been praying and giving towards the outreach project, just to humbly acknowledge them.

With exactly 7 days before our departure, we are in awe with the provisions that have been coming in mostly me I have to say - I'm pretty sure all these guys have stories to share on how from trusting the Lord for support to having to crunch their exams so they do not get supplementaries, they have just been given the strength to surface through it all!

{click on the image to enlarge it}

Lets review these two weeks

The past two weeks have been quite a joy ride and opportunity granted, would do them over again and again and again and again ...well you get the picture. Apart from tests which have been back to back as the varsity calendar comes to an end in preparation for the exams, let me bring you up to speed on how my past weeks have been:

• Our weekly meetings on campus with CRU and our students have been nothing but greatly awesome, a platform where we have learnt, been encouraged, rebuked, revived, affirmed, disciple with nothing short of spiritual growth – we just finished off a semester long series on 2 Timothy aptly titled: ‘Last Words’ which are basically the last words of Paul to his assistant Timothy.

• With that insight, getting our 2^nd Annual End of The Year Social (sending-off party for all the interns) organised. Ah man, this has been the most gruelling event I helped in organising – there was so much hardship endured by the organising team on this project (I could just base my whole blog entry on this) ...but I won’t – the Lords provision were all sufficient. The social was a great success and big ups to the Social’s team and everyone who is not part of the organising team that help in bringing it together. The food was awesome, the programme was fantastic, I totally enjoyed myself. Though some students couldn’t make it due to other commitments, those who did come made the social what it was. In anticipation for the coming year, there is so much I feel there is to be revealed to students, to interns, and to staff and those who are to join us. On the side, the new teams on most of our campuses are in place and they are what we call ‘Jesus Freaks!’
• Attended the 24^th Annual SASM (South African Society for Microbiology) Conference with my friend Tom– this being a day before the social event! This revived both our love for research in microbiology specifically looking into using this field in impact communities in a more sustainable fashion. There was a lot learnt on our parts with the presentations strikingly intriguing – obviously UKZN Microbiology rocked the presentations taking 1^st, 2^nd, ad 3^rd position amongst competitors including DUT and MUT. We down like that. The slogan stands –

Love-peace-MICROBIOLOGY

• Straight after that was an all-night pulled with Alyssa in getting the social video done. Man, was that a long one but the finished product was top notch. The video is attached at the end of the blog entry. That same morning FYI had to go grocery shopping with Johan for the social (like I said, I could base the whole entry on the social).

Still in preparation for the Mission Outreach Trip to Botswana, Gaborone at the end of our exams – just a heads up, some students and I including some of the interns from CRU will be heading up to Botswana from the 21^st Nov for a 10-day outreach in that community. Last month was reading a small devotion from ‘The Utmost for His Highest’ by Chambers and what caught my sight was the explanation of what the purpose of missions are and basically for me, what service to the Lord is all about:

“Personal attachment and point of view is one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary enterprise the great danger is that God’s call is effaced (removed) by the needs of the people until human sympathy absolutely overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, the conditions so perplexing, that every power of mind falters and fails. We forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary enterprise is not first the elevation of the people, nor the education of the people, nor their needs; but first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ – “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.”

This couldn’t have come at a better time where I am learning off the character of a servant, how to serve, what the Lord desire is from me with what He has honoured as well as blessed me with both for my personal ministry (which I’m still coming to understand), my fellowship with Him and others. These coming few weeks are going to be challenging as most prayer will be directed to the following year.

B's desk

... grains of life maliciously taken away!

Some few weeks ago went with Tom and Richaad, two good friends of mine, to the beach just North of Durban for just a break away from the bussle of campus assignments, test's and lectures - call it a mini-retreat. As I sat down on the shore as the boys went rolling in the deep, I came across a very small shell that was washed off by the salty current just a few minutes ago. In its subtle form there was no words which it would evoke for the next few minutes. There really was nothing for me to say it. I was absolutely confounded to why this beautifully designed lifeless shell remained amongst overwhelming grains of sand, left me expressionless! Given it the opportunity to say some few words, surely it would relay the experiences it had encountered prior to it being washed off the crisp shore. Its contours speak for themselves as there remains faint lyrics embracing the songs it sang from life given to life taken. Its arrest in feeding infallibly was of no great joy to its fickle tissues yet it had to succumb to the what would begin yo manifest greatly the more adventurous it decided to go. Its strong calcium construction was not enough to triumphant against the malicious oceanic world, contrary it had its grains of life maliciously taken away!

B's desk