Our speaker last week was a guy from England called Richard. He spoke on the importance of accountability and resisting temptation. It was really powerful how he unpacked this through his teaching on how Jesus lived his life. He was a very funny speaker and it was good to hear some good ol' British humour for a change. He had quite a testimony himself and was very open about sharing it. This week learned about relationships with our teacher from America, Lindsey. It was refreshing to hear her talk about the tough issues that the church often avoids. She was open and held no holds barred discussions on sex, friendships and dating. There was a lot of wisdom in what she had to say, even for us married folk!
Getting more involved
Every Wednesday afternoon we make the 30 minute walk to the nearest township to us. There we meet with anyone and everyone who's around. It's a time for us to love the people and listen to them and find out what their hopes or fears, problems or dreams are and we pray with them and for them. Sometimes our group holds Bible studies, sometimes we play with the kids and just hang out. We invite them to an evening event in the township that some of the other YWAM guys run each week.
Thursdays are very busy days for Becky. After class she helps out with a Bible study / group therapy called S-CAPE (run by Justice ACTs) for homeless people, most of whom are, or were, drug addicts or sex workers. This is very rewarding and Becky feels like she's getting to know some of them. They're such lovely people - so intelligent with fascinating stories! Straight after this, she gives an English language lesson to some Brazilian YWAMers... and at night goes out with Justice ACTs (in small teams) to meet the working ladies of this area and chat and pray with them. Most are quite open about their lives, they seem to enjoy chatting to people who care and appreciate the prayers. Our aim is to ultimately help them off the street. One lady has already accepted a volunteer job (supported financially by YWAM) which will give her a skill and employment experience and a good reference. Our hope is that she will one day be able to do a DTS and be the first of many like her. Becky has been invited to join Justice ACTs full time after our DTS. We are praying about this move, but it looks like an exciting opportunity!
Meanwhile, Peter has been getting closer to the work with AfriCom - YWAM Africa's communication team. He's been meeting the team and getting to know the set up with a plan to hopefully work with them on return from outreach. He has really enjoyed spending his Thursdays getting his teeth stuck into the core of what it means to be YWAM in Africa and hopefully spreading the news about what this organisation does, both inside Africa and around the world using his marketing and fundraising skills.
We've also been helping out occasionally babysitting for a YWAM couple who live in a nearby town. Perhaps this is practice of what the future holds...? It feels like we haven't taken five minutes to take a breath!
Tomorrow we're off to Cape Town to meet Pete's brother, Mark. This should be a great outing and refreshment from the hard work we've been doing over the past few weeks.
Again, please keep us in your prayers. We still need at least £700 for us to complete our fundraising to go on outreach and the official deadline is today (Saturday). Please also pray for the exchange rate to be a bit more favourable for when we transfer the money. If the pound keeps on losing it's value against the Rand as it has been, we may need to fundraise £200-300 more to make up the shortfall!
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