This past weekend, Alberto and his team of three ex-prisoners headed to De Doorns, a small town in the wine country. As picturesque as the scenery is, the vineyards are staffed with the cheap labor of the township residents who live in fear of their boss. Their poverty and feelings of desperation often lead to alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, and gang-violence. After a gang-related death of a child in school during school hours, inquiries were made for help. Alberto and his team addressed both the elementary school of roughly 600 kids and the high school of 1500 kids, sharing the hope we have in Jesus, while drawing attention to the consequences of crime and the realities of life in prison. The school staff were very welcoming, as were the local police station and town residents. There was an open-air evangelism event where many people gave their lives to the Lord and where there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They also had a peace march and a pastors gathering where Alberto and team encouraged the leaders to be unified in their calling to serve the Lord and to not focus on divisions. The weekend ended with Alberto preaching the Sunday morning sermon! Please pray for the people who cried out to God for His mercy and salvation, that they will experience His healing and presence in their lives and in their challenging work conditions. Please pray for the landowners to be touched by God’s spirit and to pay their workers a living wage.
On a national level, please pray for those whose physical life-line has been cut. USAID has been funding HIV/AIDS and TB prevention programs and anti-viral treatments in South Africa for decades. With the freeze of funding, 8.5 million South Africans with HIV (according to the UN’s website) are in a state of panic. Please pray for all the children, women, and men affected by this virus, that God would meet them in their anguish, and we who are Christian would not turn a blind eye to their need.
On a more positive note, we have just finished the most exciting “Nations 2 Nations” conference at YWAM. The focus, as the title suggests, is how God can use the nations to reach the nations. It was a time to celebrate our diverse heritages and a time to challenge the young audience to consider how God can use them to spread His kingdom.
One of the focal points of the conference was the Oral Mother Tongue initiative, which is a movement to get an oral Bible into every mother tongue. (Check out the website here.) As many cultures value oral traditions, it makes sense to have an oral reading of the Word. We heard remotely from a young man who developed an app for recording and sharing mother tongue Bible translations. In person, we heard from another young man with YWAM who is actively translating the Bible into his mother tongue right here in the Cape Flats. The Cape Flats is an area in Cape Town known for gangs and crime. The language of the Cape Flats has always been considered a bit of a creole in that it is a mix of Afrikaans (itself a mix), the indigenous Khoi language, and Malay. Kaaps, as it is called, has recently gained recognition as a language and is currently receiving translation support from Wycliffe. You can read about the Kaaps language on Wycliffe’s site here. Not only is Kaaps its own unique language, but so is Sabela, a secret language developed in the prisons of South Africa as a way for gang members to communicate with each other and mastermind gang activity outside of the prisons. You can read more about Sabela here. Although we have known about Sabela, we didn’t realize some considered it a language. One of Alberto’s prison ministry friends, who is also involved in YWAM, was able to speak this language as he prayed during the conference. It was a beautiful redemption of a language. Maybe one day there will be an Oral Mother Tongue Bible translation into Sabela!
My new role in staff admissions at YWAM allows me to use my admin skills for the kingdom of God. Not only am I part of a small diverse team within YWAM, I also get to read through applications of people who love Jesus and want to serve him here in Cape Town through YWAM. In a world full of sin, seeing the light of Jesus shine through these applicants is very encouraging. It is a delight to see so many young people seeking after God’s heart. I am also doing a study with a small group of women on Christian disciplines: Practicing the Way, by John Mark Comer. We are on week four of prayer, which has helped us draw into the presence of God.
In terms of family news, Phoebe is doing very well in school with her new aide Nicole. Nicole seems to have endless energy and patience, which are qualities I appreciate!
Margaret started her second year of classes and moved into a nearby apartment with a college friend. Thank you for praying for this provision. We’ve never had a child live relatively close to us, so I am really enjoying the chance to meet her for coffee or welcome her home with her laundry.
Isaac is enjoying his coffee job, the ski season, his cafe group at PSC, and his new church Aletheia. I am grateful he can be with my parents and shovel them out, especially since my mom just had hip replacement surgery.
Ana and Frenchie are well and currently using the new Fire & Fragrance base in Nashville, TN as their home-base. Frenchie is currently preaching in Mexico, as it is Carnaval week, and the harvest is ripe!
Thanksgiving
* Invitation to do the outreach in De Doorns, and for the many lives that were touched with the Gospel.
* An amazing Nations2Nations conference at YWAM.
* Margaret’s start to the new school year and a great apartment.
* Phoebe’s start to her second year at Beautiful Minds Learning Centre and for Nicole!
* I am fully recovered from my accident and my lung nodules are of no concern. (Lung nodules appeared in my x-ray after my fall.)
Prayer Points
* The 8th grader whom Alberto met in De Doorns who is pregnant and doesn’t know how to tell her family.
* A different 8th grader who feels like she is a burden to the extended family she is living with.
* God to work through the injustices of the work conditions on the vineyards: to have mercy on the poor and bring justice to the perpetrators.
* The prisoners Alberto is doing follow-up with from the Restorative Justice conference.
* The ex-prisoners who are struggling to find work.
* A field for soccer. The field the guys have been using for years is currently unavailable.
* A good and safe waitressing job for Margaret.
* HIV/AIDS patients who suddenly are without anti-virals, for a miracle!