Mahal Kita...

It's hard to believe we've already been here for three weeks and our time is almost over. The majority of our ministry has been the same week to week. Many of the people here hold on to religion (mainly Catholicism) as a piece of their identity without really knowing what they believe in or why they believe it. Between this blind faith and the close-mindedness to other denominations, there is a lot of division over religion. We've spent a lot of time working with people who already hold some type of faith, discussing the need for unity between churches and the pursuit of the truth of God over being "religious." We've worked with college students in a campus ministry affiliated with InterVarsity, spoken in churches from week to week and done various open-air ministry. A couple weeks ago, we organized a training workshop for young people from local Batangas churches and they joined us the following week in an open-air program in a small farming community. Last week, Brian preached a 45 minute sermon on loving God is about action. We also spent a few days on a small vacation at a beach house in Lubo. It was gorgeous, relaxing and a good way to spend time together as a team.

It's been such an adventure so far - and we've probably grown more as a couple and as individuals than we have done anything huge to change the world (as is typical YWAM DTS fashion, or so I'm learning). Since we got here, we've been looking for ways we could give to the base. We have really caught a hold of their vision, love what they're doing and believe in their success. When we arrived, we learned the base director used to be a graphic designer who had always been Mac-loyal until his powerbook was stolen last year. It seemed obvious that I was to leave my laptop here when we return to South Africa. He was working on an old PC with an old version of PhotoShop and Illustrator and my macbook has CS2 and Dreamweaver - programs I can barely use myself. I told Brian I felt like I should give my laptop away and we agreed we would do it when we left. But then the base PC broke down. I passed up a chance to impulsively give it up when I found out, but halfheartedly said to God that maybe the PC would break again and, if so, I would give it to Erik immediately. The next morning, the computer was broken. I knew that I was supposed to give him my computer right away, so Brian and I left for the mall to get a flash drive for all of our files.

I (Brian now) had been talking about wanting to buy a guitar - whether for myself or the base - since we arrived. Buying a flash drive big enough for all of our files was going to cost almost as much as a guitar, so I gave up the idea. We went to the mall and bought a 32 gig flash drive (amazing how big they are now right?) and then go watch the move Sherlock Holmes because movie tickets here are less than 3 USD. We met some of our friends outside the theater and right before we went into the movie our friend from Switzerland gave me a brand new guitar. He said that he felt he was supposed to do it, so he did.

When we got home, I (Kati again) took Erik and Josie aside and told them that I felt like God wanted them to have my laptop. Erik later told us that ever since his Powerbook was stolen, he had been holding out for another Mac - despite having so little money in a country where Apple products are so expensive. A man who really believes that God cares about each one of our specific needs, he told us that he had prayed for a "white Macbook with the new magnetic latch." Even that morning, his wife said it was time to buy a new computer  - they couldn't put all their trust in the old base PC when Erik was supposed to be designing literature for YWAM's 50th anniversary and the base's yearly financial report was due to YWAM International soon. Erik said no, God's going to give me a Mac, and that night, he did - the exact computer he had prayed for with all of the Adobe products he uses for graphic design and software to maintain his own website.

We have been so excited to be part of the little - but so big - things that God is doing. Brian loves his new guitar and has even been teaching me how to play. Check out our new pictures in the Philippines album to the left.

Thank you all for supporting us and being interested in the things God has set up for us to do. We love you all and miss you heaps. 

Magandang Gabi from Batangas

(That means "good evening" in Tagalog) We’re in the Philippines! We flew into Manila on January 14th and are staying on a newly pioneered YWAM base outside Batangas City. Right away, we were thrown into the Filipino culture, hopping Jeepney’s and eating the Filipino delicacy, Balut, which is a hard boiled duck egg containing an 18-day old fetus (check out the pictures).

Since it was once colonized by Spain, the Philippines are rich in Spanish and Oriental culture and traditions. The primary language in Batangas is Tagalog, which sounds like other Asian languages, but uses several Spanish words. The people here are warm, hospitable and affectionate (they thew me an amazing birthday party). Everyone here wants to know where you are going and where you are from - and strangers are always stopping us on the street to ask us. Anytime they come across an American, they call him “Joe.”

The base is lead by Erik Gumarang and his wife Josie. Erik is a former graphic designer for a big advertising agency in Manila that does work for Honda Civic and also for YWAM – his wife worked for the base that was one of his clients, and years after they were married, he felt God telling him to leave his job for missions. He pioneered the base in Batangas in 2007 and they have been working ever since to build ministry in the area and bring in students and staff.

We’ve really developed a heart for the people - despite only being here a little over the week - and we love the ministry so far. We’ve been doing sport ministry, open-air evangelism and youth and college ministry. We also took one morning to climb a mountain in Alitagtag and prayed over the city from the top. We will give more info about the ministry another time as it will be mostly the same type of work throughout the month.

We love and miss you all - Feel free to drop us a line on any of our emails as we are much better connected here in the Philippines and will have regular access to e-mail!

We also finally put up some pictures of Jo'Burg - pictures from the AIDS village and the other ministry we did can be found here.

Johannesburg and beyond...

Hey all,
The past week we have been in this nations largest city. We were hosted by an organization called "Making a Difference". Kati and I stayed with a Zulu woman and her grandchild and the rest of our team was split up between other houses. This week has been a little frustrating because our hosts had not arranged very much for us to do. We did get a chance to participate in some great ministries and had some time to debrief as a team before our long trip to Asia. We helped out with a children's feeding program in a Zulu township. It can be really hard to see small children living in such devastating poverty. We served them an afternoon meal and distributed Christmas presents to the children while we spent time with them. We also had the opportunity to visit a place called Sparrow Ministries Aids Village. It is literally a medical village built for aids patients and their children. They take in aids patients who are on their death beds, only a CD4 count of 200 or less are admitted, and nurse them back to physical health and back in to society. Most of the ministry's efforts are spent on aids orphans. They house over 285 orphans, most of whom are HIV positive. These children are cared for on the campus and schooled until the age of 18, then Sparrow finds them work opportunity and a place to stay in the community. We will post some pictures of our time there sometime soon. Kati and I spent our day off that week at the Official Apartheid Museum in Jo'burg. If you haven't taken time to learn about the Apartheid I would recommend reading about it on the internet, I realized how little I knew about the country I was living in while walking through that museum.

Kati and I arrived safely in Manila, Philippines on Thursday evening after an entire 24 hour day of travel. We are now sitting at an internet cafe in Batangas, Philippines. We will write another update in the next week or two about our work here in the Philippines.

We love you all, como esta ka?

Christmas in Mossel Bay

We arrived in Mossel Bay a few days before Christmas, and stayed for two weeks in Brandwag, a hillside community located a few kilometers outside the city. We stayed with the in-laws of our school leader, who opened their home to the nine of us to use as a hub for ministry and a place to stay for the holidays. “Auntie Julie” was a great host, feeding us more than we could eat and, like any good mother would, going through our rooms to collect and clean our dirty laundry.

Since most of the churches here are closed during the Christmas season, we didn’t really have a solid partner for ministry. One local church allowed us to use their sound equipment and helped us lead a few open-air programs, but most of our ministry was in visiting homes in the community and running children’s programs. We also spent time in a nearby community called Sonskyn doing similar ministry.

More than 80 kids attended the Christmas program, where Father Christmas himself showed up all the way from Switzerland to hand out goodie bags filled with South African candies and “cool drink.” We spent Christmas Day together as a team, opening small gifts we bought for one another and enjoying traditional South African fare.

Because of the drought, fires are sweeping over the Eastern Cape. We witnessed a brush fire that started in the hills and literally came within inches of Sonskyn, charring the edges of homes along the back perimeter. We recently heard of more fires in other coastal towns, like Plettenburg Bay, that are actually reaching communities and destroying homes. 

We left Mossel Bay on Tuesday morning, and after fifteen hours of driving and one blown tire, we arrived in Johannesburg. we’ll be staying  here until Wednesday when we leave for the Philippines. We have new pictures up and a Christmas video - check them out. 

Uitenhage

Merry Christmas Everyone

It doesn't feel much like Christmas here so you'll all have to enjoy the snow a little bit more this year for us. For the past two weeks we have been on outreach, which is the second half of the Discipleship Training School. Outreach is pretty much just a three month long missions trip that will take us westward in South Africa and then to the Philippines in mid January.
We started in Uitenhage, a city of about 80,000 people just 40 minutes from J'Bay. Our school leader, Daan Abrahams, grew up in Uitenhage. For the past two weeks we have been participating in a number of different ministries with local churches and families. We spent the two weeks in an old cinema that turned into a night club that turned into a church in the center of the city. Kati and I spent our nights down the road from the church in a house with all of the girls, but we had our own room.
A large portion of our time in Uitenhage was spent planning, organizing, and running open air meetings. We would spend time before the meeting started walking throughout the community and telling people about the meeting later than night. The meeting itself would consist of worship songs, testimonies, a gospel presentation and the dramas that we have worked on as a team. We use the dramas to enhance certain topics or messages because there is quite a language barrier here. A lot of people speak English, but when you get into the communities that number goes way down, less than half. The area where we held these open air meetings is called Moeg Gesurkel, which means "tired of suffering" in Afrikaans. Moeg Gesurkel is a hill covered with shanty shacks, it is the largest township in Uitenhage.
We also spend some time in the afternoons helping out with a "soup kitchen" in Moeg Gesurkel. It wasn't a soup kitchen as much as just a few families who used the little money they had to feed homeless or suffering children. The last afternoon that we helped they served soup and bread to over 80 children as old as 12 or 13 and as young as 2 years. It was heartbreaking to see as some of their mothers stood there drunk at 3 in the afternoon and waited to get food after the children were fed.
During one of our open air meetings, Kati met and man named Garrett. He was struggling with alcoholism and asked Kati to pray for him. A lot of people we meet here have responded to gospel presentations before and are quick to respond to anything religious and ask for prayer or try and go through some sort of alter call experience again and again. Kati resonded to Garrett by telling him that she would pray for him, but that he needs to know God for himself, learn to pray for himself, and actually give his life to God rather than just talk about it religiously. Garrett decided to commit his life to Christ, laying down alcoholism in order to follow God. The conversation went onwards from there and Kati eventually prayed for Garrett before he left, specifically praying that he would get a job so that he could lead his family away from the life they had fallen into. We went back to see him a few days later and after being out of work for a year he had found a job. He had been sober since he spoke and prayed with Kati and his wife had even been sober for 3 days. Their shack was no longer covered in beer bottles and urine, the children were clean and and fed. Kati later spoke at an open air and used this story and his testimony to encourage others to break the chain of alcoholism.
Another part of our ministry is street evangelism. The culture here is much different than at home - most people claim to have a religion - whether Christianity or Islam, they typically say they belong to something. On one of our days out, Brian met a man named Muhammed who came here from Senegal to find work. He was working as a street vendor selling knock-off sunglasses and purses. When he found out Brian was a missionary, a long conversation ensued about the differences between Islam and Christianity, who Jesus really is and the Lewis Trilemma. Brian went back day after day to talk with Muhammed (keep in mind that many Muslims are equally as evangelical as Christians) and the two became friends - he actually stopped by the church one night during worship to give Brian a copy of the Koran. One of Brian's gifts in evangelism is in intellectual conversations about the existence of God and around Christ's claim of being God. He was finally able to engage with someone here who doesn't just claim to have religion, but knows what he believes and why.
Now we are in Mossel Bay - we have very limited access to Internet so we might not be on again until we reach the Philippines. We're in good hands here - staying in the community with our school leader's mother-in-law, who loves to cook and care for us.

Go to Picasa and check out our new photos - we only have a few since we have so little Internet access.

We're off

We’ve noticed that more people seem to be following us than we thought, and apologize that over the past few months, we haven’t really posted that much information to follow! The bulk of our time so far has been spent in class, with a little ministry and a little taste of South Africa in between. At some point we’ll post some information about the teaching – we heard from some amazing people from all different walks of life with some really interesting perspectives.


The lecture phase of the DTS came to a close on Wednesday and we leave for outreach this morning. We have a team of nine people from South Africa, Switzerland, Canada and the States. We will start out in Uitenhage, spending two weeks living with local families and doing primarily youth, open-air and prison ministry. Then we will move on to Mossel Bay, another coastal town like J’Bay. We will spend two to three weeks there doing similar work and staying with a local family. Then we’ll drive to Johannesburg and leave for the Philippines in early January, coming back at the end of February. The map below shows our route through South Africa. Pray for Brian - he's driving the Kombi.


While in the Philippines, we’ll be staying on a newly pioneered YWAM base in Batangas, a  city 2 ½ hours from Manila. We’ll also stay in local churches for one week at a time when working away from the base. We’ll be doing similar outreach work including mercy ministries - although we won’t be working in the same area where the recent hurricanes hit, we will likely spend time working with the poor, and perhaps underprivileged children/orphans. 


We hope to post updates more regularly about the work we’re doing on outreach and what’s happening – thanks so much for continuing to pray for our safety and provision!

Belated Schedule

Lately we've been asked quite frequntly about our day to day business down here and we realized that we never shared about the daily base activity. SO here it is.

We are up at 6:00 and walking down to the base for breakfast from 6:30 to 7:00
From 7:00 to 8:00 is a time used for individual study/devotions
At 8:00 we meet as an entire base for either worship or intercession
Lectures for the DTS start around 9:30 and run through until 1:00
Lunch is from 1:00 to 2:00
From 2:00 to 4:00 is either work duties around the base or ministry. The ministries we participate in range from childrens ministry to fixing/cleaning peoples homes (really shacks) in the community.
Supper is at 5:30
Two or three times a week we will meet at 7:00 for ministry or planning meetings depending on the things we have coming up
Weekends are usually free. We use this time to go down to the beach, read for class, check out different places in and around town, church on Sunday mornings (we've been to a bunch of different churches), laundry, cleaning our room etc

We love you all and ask for your prayers as we prepare to leave for outreach next week, we'll keep you udpated on all of our outreach stuff as we go.