
Monday, 15 November 2010
Baby coming

Sunday, 1 August 2010
A new perspective on mission
I have had the privilege of spending the past two weeks travelling with Ismael (pictured) through Angola. I have a great admiration for Ismael. He is a hard working man who has a passion for mission work in Angola.
He is a Brazilian whose job it is to oversee the work of YWAM mission in Angola. This vast country has several bases and many ministries in extremely remote locations. Travel around the country is not easy, but he manages it with enthusiasm and an everlasting smile.
He once went to a village for a pastoral visit where a team was working. As a gesture, he took with him a blanket, because it was approaching winter and he knew it was something that they would value.
The blanket was very well received. So much so, in fact, that the chief decided to bless Ismael with a live pig. Ismael tried to refuse. He said: “I can’t take this, it’s far too valuable for you to just give away.”
The chief responded with: “It’s ok, sir, I am rich. Please take it.”
To which, Ismael said: “Please, I cannot take it. You need it more than me.”
“I am richer than you, so I must insist that you take it.”
Ismael was taken aback by this comment. Ismael had turned up in fine clothes and drove a new car. Here he was in a dusty village where the people lived in mud huts and valued the donation of a blanket. ‘How can they think that they’re richer than me’, thought Ismael. So he asked: “How come you think that you’re richer than me?”
“How many cows do you have, sir” asked the chief.
“Five.” Ismael responded, positively, knowing that he’d just taken over a farm and inherited five cattle.
“I have 30. How many goats do you have?”
“Eight.” Replied Ismael, wondering where this was going.
“I have 75.” Said the chief.
“But I have a new Toyota Hilux. It’s very valuable.”
“Can it reproduce?” said the chief, inquisitively.
“Well....”
Angola is a rich and beautiful country. Wealth is so much more than where you live, what you drive or how much you have in the bank.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Our work in Africa
In reality, our work has only really just begun. For Becky, the Justice ACTs team are continuing their anti-trafficking work (more on this later) and Peter is busy in the process of communicating the work of YWAM in Africa.

Peter is currently heading up on a three-day drive towards Angola on a three week trip with AfriCom. As the communications team for Africa, AfriCom staff need to keep in regular communication with the ministries of YWAM – and sometimes that means physically going there to see what is happening and update the international office on the activities.
This particular trip will be an opportunity for AfriCom to put together some video footage of the work in several of the bases across the country. We will be interviewing people and gathering information on some of the ground-breaking work done by these teams. It's a really exciting time for Peter as he ventures out on some of his first 'mission' work since studying the DTS.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
World Cup fever

Warm greetings from South Africa. It's actually quite chilly here at night, but daytime temperatures are comfortable (16 deg). The world cup fever is still alive, despite England and South Africa's performance! It is awesome to be here at this time with all the excitement and sound of the vuvuzelas. We feel blessed and priveledged.
However, we're not here to watch the 'soccer' as they call it here. We're working with YWAM charities based here in Cape Town. Becky is busy with Justice ACTs (Alliance of Christians Against Trafficking) to raise awareness of Human Trafficking in and around the World Cup.
Becky and colleagues have been handing out beer mats & fliers and having conversations with lots of football fans to warn them about trafficking in South Africa and asking them to report anything suspicious to the helpline number. Lots of training has been done with 'at risk' communities on how to protect themselves from being trafficked, and this training (and the drama that goes with it) has been passed on to others, to reach as many schools, churches and communities as possible, especially before the World Cup. We heard recently that over 40 girls have been rescued from traffickers in South Africa! Justice ACTs is working hard to get funding to start a safe house for those that are rescued. We hope this will start very soon and Becky is hoping to get involved. We regularly attend a 24 hour prayer room (boiler room) in Cape Town which has been set up to pray for the World Cup, especially about trafficking. We are very impressed with what the local churches have been doing and their hard work and concern.
Meantime, Pete is working with AfriCom, YWAM's communication team for Africa. He's worked with them for a week now and is really enjoying making new contacts and being part of a Africa-wide team. He'll be travelling to Angola in July to help with the development of a educational video, sharing what God is doing through YWAM in Angola.
Both of us will be back in the UK from August to October to see friends and family and share what we've been doing in person. We'd love to come and visit you and we're busy creating a diary to make sure that we can see as many friends as possible. Please let me know if we can come and see you and when it would be suitable. You can email us - peterclem@googlemail.com or send us a message on facebook!
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
My first night in Chiang Mai's red light district
Seeing her father kill her mother at the age of 3, then sold into slavery by her grandparents at the age of 6, Emmi herself has faced some tough situations. Thankfully, she was rescued before anything bad could happen to her, but her best friend who was sold at the same time, wasn't so fortunate.
“It's only by the grace of God that I was rescued,” Emmi told us. “I was too young at the time to do anything about helping my best friend”. Eventually, however, Emmi managed to track her friend down; she had contracted HIV which had developed to AIDS and she was in the final stages of her young life. Emmi's heart went out to her friend as she sat by her bedside. She shared her testimony – about how God rescued her – and her friend gave her life to Jesus. Within a month, Emmi's friend was gone.
Emmi's own story has moulded her. “God planted this ministry in my heart”, she said. She took us to one of the red light districts of Chiang Mai. On the surface, the area seems a friendly, welcoming and open. It's warm cultured, with everyone saying 'Sawadeekaa' to you as you pass by and smiling. Thailand is, after all, the nation of smiles.

There is a darkness over this place that is hard to describe. Each bar hard one or two men older white men sitting alone, drinking. Meanwhile, ladies, dressed provocatively smile and joke in groups. Some tables had one or two women chatting to the man (who was often in his 40s or 50s).
While we were standing on the corner, a guy on a motorbike dropped off a few kids who couldn't be much older than six or seven years old. He spoke to them in Thai: “Go sell these flowers. You'd better sell them all if you want to sleep or eat tonight”. Trying to help, we bought them some small snack food. Becky handed them the food and, with the help of Emmi translating, told them that we bought it because Jesus loves him. He took the food and walked across the street to a dark corner and handed them to a man who was waiting for him. Once he'd handed the food over to the man, the kid continued trying to sell the flowers.
Emmi, having compassion, then bought some flowers off the kid, realising that he really wasn't going to eat if he didn't sell them all. I watched this in amazement. Everything inside me wanted to take the snacks from the man and give them back to the children. From several strategic locations these traffickers sit, watching their 'workers' do the dirty work, whilst they collect the 'reward'. They watch the women; they watch the children; and they were watching us. My view went from the warm fuzzy feeling when people smile and say 'welcome' – which Thai's are famous for – to the sick feeling you get in your stomach when you know that something is most definitely wrong.

I honestly felt sick walking down that street. I asked God to take away my anger and frustration as I was helpless to do anything to help these people trapped in the circus of trafficking.
Shame and honour is a huge part of Thai identity. I cannot think of anything more shameful than putting innocent men, women and children through this nightmare life, where most live a short and very unfulfilled, unhappy life. I pray that God restores true honour to these people: brings reconcilliation between him and the traffickers and him and those trafficked. That repentence and healing is brought and truth prevails.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Adventures in China


We also visited other schools where we taught English and performed South African dances. Many Chinese have never actually met a foreigner, so this was a very big deal for these children and gave the schools a more privileged status in the community. As thankyou's we were given traditional minority ethnic paintings.
We spent a lot of time visiting various universities, English corners where students come to practice their English. We were told many times that we were the first foreigners that they'd ever met and they wanted to build a friendship and keep in touch.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Arrival in Hong Kong

Our favourite was a youth service attended by numerous young Chinese people which was all in Cantonese (but luckily we had an interpreter!). It was great to sing along in Chinese! We had the opportunity to teach them some South African songs (including Bambalela).

After a few days in Hong Kong, we prepared ourselves for our long journey into mainland China. We wanted to stay longer, but we had to leave for financial reasons (HK is quite expensive). It took us two days, including a 27-hour train journey to get to our destination in Yunnan province, southern China.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Blessings and challenges
God has led us to be generous to others in the group who still have a long way to go, so any extra donations we receive (with your permission) may go to help other team members who deserve to go just as much as we do.
This week in short:
We have been really blessed over the past week with some amazing teachers. Last week we had a guy called Ron and his wife, Judy teaching us. They talked about faith and finances and submission to authority. It was very refreshing and the teaching gave us some really good principles on how to manage our money and belongings effectively. We also had some very good teaching on Godly leadership, after which we forgave those who had abused positions of leadership in our lives.
The second part of the week was spent looking at the importance of reading the Bible. Ron did an activity which supernatually affected Pete! He asked us to talk to each other about our favourite food, which Pete talked about lamb (secretly in his heart Pete loves Mars bars more, though lamb is good!). So, when we'd finished chatting among ourselves, Ron asked us to pray out loud "Lord please give me a hunger for reading the Bible more than XX food". Pete, for some reason at this point said "Mars bars" and from that moment on, Pete could not put down his Bible. He read through the whole of 1 Kings, chatting about it to everyone about what he was learning about, from Solomon to Elija! He's now onto 2 Kings.
Did you know it is possible to read through the whole Bible in 79 hours? ... theoretically ...
Please pray that this hunger continues, because Pete has been so frustrated about his lack of passion for reading the Bible for a while. This is great stuff!
A challenging evening:
Tonight has been a testing time for our group. Last Wednesday (10th March) was D-Day for the finances to come in (for the flights at least). We've been praying and seeking God for His provision for the entire group.
Our leader, Virmz, announced that some members of the group will not be able to join us, as they do not have the funding in place to go. Most of those staying will be working here in the local township and at the orphanage Pete currently helps at. We struggled with this concept and many have been wondering why. However, we all trust Him and His ways, knowing He knows best. Our team (Asia outreach) is now smaller, but we are pressing on nonetheless. God has called us to serve Him in specific locations and we are being obedient to His call. Please continue to pray for us.
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Finding our place

Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Action stations

Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Getting into the Word
Saturday, 6 February 2010
A week in Worcester (updated)

Becky has begun work with Justice ACTs – once a week to start with – on the investigation team doing research into trafficking and prostitution in Cape Town. We can't put too much on here but please do email us for more information. Needless to say, Becky's loving it.
Since our last update, we spent a week in Worcester – a town about 2 hours north east of Cape Town (though it was a 4-hour train ride!). In Worcester we learned about the Holy Spirit. The week was challenging for most of us and we are still processing what we heard. It was strange, too, to be at a much bigger base, where there were many different teams and a different 'culture'. All in all, we were all grateful to return back home to Muizenberg and 'back to normal'.
Worship last Sunday was awesome. The whole group became much much closer and there was a real feeling of unity among the group. People opened up and shared deep and personal things.
This past week we've had an amazing man of God speaking to us about the cost of discipleship. It was really sobering and powerful stuff. Please pray that we can be obedient to God. He's been speaking to us about being generous with our belongings and has sometimes called us to give things away. We are learning to be obedient with the right attitude (which is sometimes difficult).
Meantime, we're still planning our outreach to Asia. We need to raise 18,000 ZAR (1,500 pounds) each. So please also pray for that. We'll keep you posted as things develop.
Thank you for your prayers.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Baptisms in the sea
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
No turning back now
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and supporting us. We're here now and this is our first proper update since the course started (yesterday). Last week was orientation, explanation of assignments, learning our chores, house rules and administration.
We've had a tour of Muizenberg. It's a lovely little coastal settlement, just south of the city and Table Mountain. The weather is really windy here, so you don't really feel the heat, which is nice, as there is no air conditioning. Although the downside is you don't notice the strength of the sun, so us brits tend to look a bit like lobsters! The prices here (probably due to the weak pound) are really expensive. Most things are just as expensive as in the UK and some things even more so. Let's hope the pound strengthens, so we can last a bit longer on what we've funraised.
Please pray for guidance. This week we need to put forward our choices for outreach and we've been asked to seek the Lord on where we should go. If you feel God is leading you, please email us – peterclem@googlemail.com
So far this week we've been learning about the complex nature of the trinity. There was a specific focus on the nature and person of the Holy Spirit. This was very interesting and helped unpack something that we knew already, but in a way that we can demonstrate to others (also, we hadn't really thought about it in that much depth). We've had a very enthusiastic speaker who has been very hands-on with visual demonstrations and lots of useful diagrams! It's very biblically sound.
The training that we're doing at the moment is mainly to help us have a theological foundation and knowledge for outreach and further ministry. There are many people from all sorts of denominations here, but as the speaker asked probing questions on where our churches stood on certain theological issues (such as is it possible to lose one's salvation) many didn't know. This is key to when we might be asked or challenged by non-Christians or people interested in becoming a Christian.
It has also been a great opportunity so far to have some 'time out' to reflect. We hope that God will guide us as we learn of His plan for our lives.
We're staying in a former hotel. Advantage: en-suit bathroom. Disadvantage: it's a large building (in some disrepair) and we are responsible for all the cleaning!! There are 20 other people on the course and it's fascinating to live in community. Because of the nature of this course: people are far from home and the security aspect of having to lock yourself in the building and only leave the building in groups of three or more, we end up spending many hours here, so breakfast, lunch and dinner + lectures + socialising is all done with the same group. There are other groups here, but we're definitely finding a very close bond within the DTS group.
There are 100 staff who work here. They run several schools, plus accept people staying here while they are doing outreach to Muizenberg from other locations around the world. Currently there are groups from Carlisle, Switzerland and Hawaii. So, all in all, it's a pretty busy place. You can always here someone playing a tune on a guitar somewhere!
Meantime, for us: our stomachs are still acclimatising to the diet (institution food).
We'll keep you posted regularly
P&B xx
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Here at last
We begin our DTS on Wednesday, so we're going to spend today and tomorrow recovering from the journey and getting aclimatised.
We'll update the blog soon with pics of where we're staying and what the course entails.
Until then.... thanks again for your prayers and support.
Blessings,
Peter.