Accounts from Table View

Well I must apologies to all of you guys for being silent for so long. Life just moves so fast over here and its hard to get down time just to catch up on a blog or even an email to my mom and family. SO since the last report much has happened way to much to really explain exactly in detail but I will try my best to keep everything in line.

Time with Dale and Marvin here in Cape Town went fast and as Dale liked to say the Gravy Train was leaving when they left and it did. The week that they were here with us was more like a vacation than a mission trip. Though we were involved with getting connected to many people over here we were doing so many cool things it was quite unreal feeling. One place that we did get to visit that was pretty significant was Robin Island. The island was used for many things but is mostly remembered for the prison during the partied here in South Africa between the Dutch Africans and Black Africans much like what we had with the Civil War. The experience was very different than what I thought it was going to be. It was not like an experience like I had with the concentration camp in Europe. I expected to be sobered by the whole place but in reality I think I was so disconnected to the whole thing it really did not hit home. The history of the whole story I was just learning that day and it never came on me as hard. The lesson thought that I did bring away from it all was that humans are cruel beings and we are always going to be cruel to each other. Some people have fallen under Satins rule and he will punish the world through them like puppets. That is something that we are going to have to live with until God comes down and saves us from our bondage of this broken world. Praise the Lord that we have that to look forward to. I do not want you to think that I was a cold hearted fool that walked through the prison with a hard eye without pity for the people that went through unjust punishment and cruel times. I did feel for those people, it was just hard for me to connect completely with the story of it all.

So that was Robin Island, on with the trip. Dale and Marvin left on the 26th and it was time to work. Roger had many things for us to do but also knew that we also had plans of our own. That weekend after Dale and Marvin left was a settling weekend. Kent and I needed some rebooting sleep. SO we took a couple mornings to sleep in. After that weekend I got the pleasure of going and staying with a missionary family that is living in town, there names are Craig and Candy Stevens. So that Monday and Tuesday I got to basically become part of there family. I got to go with Craig to a couple of meetings with brothers that he had been teaching and is teaching currently. Monday morning we went and met with a group and just discussed the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. It was refreshing to be able to learn from a completely new angle and perspective from the men living so far from my home. During the day we came back home and had lunch with the family and I got to teach their daughter how to do her Math homework. I mowed their lawn which was a crazy experience because the mower was completely electric. That night was the crazy part of the day because Craig and I went into Dunoon which is a very dangerous part of Cape Town. It is one of the villages in the Cape Flats where all the poor people and immigrants come and live. It is almost like a squatters village. And we were going during the night. Though I knew the Lord was going to protect us with everything that we were going to be doing it was to easy to keep looking over my shoulder while we were there. I also kept my hands in my pockets just about the whole time to keep all my possessions extra safe. We went into a small building to teach a few men more on how to study the Bible a little bit differently, trying to see things in stories of the Bible that we normally would not see if we just glanced over them. Really breaking them down and seeing what they are trying to say to us in our time now. So Craig and I did that and made it safely back home that night by the Lords grace. The next day was Tuesday and the work at Rogers began. I strated stamping CDs that day while Kent did a ton of homework. Im going to skip a few days not to bore you with just junk.

Last weekend Kent and I got to go on a camping trip with some of the families that we have been connected to. It was a great time to be with them and get to know all of them a little better and on a different level. I was sick kinda the first day of the camping so I was a pooper and had to watch as the kids and Kent got to swim in the ocean. The first night of the camp out we had a traditional potjie which is cooking a lot of food together in a pot over a fire. It was DELICIOUS let me tell you what, these South Africans know how to cook. SO the next day of the campout I was feeling a lot better and I got to take a morning swim with the kids and played cricket with the families after lunch on the beach. We had a lot of fun and I got to teach some of them how to play American football after they taught me cricket. Well lets just say that night was great, we had a braai which is a Bar-B-Q in their terms, really nothing different. But the bummer of that day was, I got burnt to a crisp and I am still feeling it to this day almost 5 days later. I did not feel sick from the sun but my skin felt terrible, the sun here in SA is a lot more intense because the Ozone layer here is thinner and I did not know that. Even though I put on sun screan 6 times, mom, I still burnt. So on with the week. In the proccess of it all I have been able to be apart of shipping and packing over 4000 Bibles in the little time that I have been working in the print shop. I only tell you this not to brag or show what we have accomplished but what God has physically allowed us to do and be apart of because each one of those Bibles will statistacly be read by 7 people front to back just because of how valuable literature is here in SA. So praise be to God that we are able to do that. We have also been able to video a lot of stuff while we are meeting with the house churches which has been a blast to do.

So I really want to comment on what happened last night that shows how awesome our God is. We met a couple at a Rugby game because we started only to ask them to help us with the rules so that we could understand a little better what was going on. We began to talk with them and eventually we told them that why we were here and that was to work with house churches. The women whos name is Andriette picked up on that and asked about what that was all about. By the end of the converstation we had agreed to take them to a house church and they invited us to their house for a Braai. So the Braai happened last night and Kent and I before all this happened had no idea what to expect so we really went to the Lord to help us out with this meeting because we really had no idea what these people were goint to be like at home. We got to there home last night and it was a very neat well kept cute house and for South Africa thats rare. And within a few moments of the converstation of remeeting we all figure out that we are Christians!! Even their friends who were coming over just a little later. We had no idea either sides what this night was all about. So we spent the next few hours fellowshiping with these people just living it up and encouraging one another in life and all that we were doing. Kent and I were blown away by their encouragement that they gave us and the blessings that they pored on us. The husband of Andriette who is Ian verbaly stopped the converstation to give us a blessing. I could not believe my ears at what they were hearing. I expected that night to have to really be a strong Christian and teach people and start them on a new path but no the Lord had other plans for Kent and I to actually be the listeners that evening. Of course we had our blessings to give to because they were new at the idea of house churches and really wanted to learn all about them and Kent and I really got to feed them with what they needed. So last night we got to plant a house church and be encouraged by some really awesome people who we just happened to sit by at a random Rugby Game... and to find out they had the wrong tickets and sat in the wrong seats, so by no coincidence did this happen. God knew that we were supposed to be connected to these people. We all walked away completely shocked and amazed. Its one of those experiences where words really cant describe what you feel about that.

Well thats all for now hopefully it will be sooner next time. Thanks for reading love you guys.