Foundations Week

Rafting Competition: We Won =)

Build our Raft

Some of the delicious Braae Food

Well, the first week at CPx is coming to a close; I can’t believe how fast it came and went.  We began the week with a welcome Braae for all the CPx students and staff, which is similar to a bar-b-que, get together.  It was the first time where all the staff and students met and spent time together. We played games and icebreakers then ate delicious food, and began to get a feel for how the next couple of months are going to be. It was really exciting to get to meet everyone.  After the Braae, my cleaning group got the privilege to clean up the kitchen and I have to say I have never had so much fun cleaning. My group Mama D, Katrina, Shakeil, and I had more fun “cleaning” aka dancing, that the time just flew by.  It is so interesting how something as simple as dancing can bring people together. On Monday we began foundations week. Foundations week consists of learning about the different organizations within All Nations like child of promise, baby safe, and into Africa. Child of promise is geared towards the children in the different communities we go and reach out to. They encourage the children to follow the Lord and to help change their community from within as they grow up. Baby Safe is a group of ladies who reach out to the women in the poor communities who want to either have an abortion or are considering abandoning their newborns in gutters or sewers. Finally, Into Africa is a group who travels throughout Africa basically scouting out different areas to see any unreached people groups and seeing if it is a place All Nations can come and plant a church. In addition to hearing about the other organizations, the class got to give their testimonies and share how they came to All Nations. Hearing all the background stories on how they found Christ and came to All Nations was interesting. Each person had such a different background. The group has people from all over the world from ages 18-60 and it was so cool to see how we were all brought together. On Tuesday, we began visiting the different outreach places CPx is currently active in.  We started in Sunvalley, which is the area where All Nations is located. We all participated in a prayer walk, where we went around the community and prayed for the people and talked to some of the locals. The people here are extremely friendly and if you speak to them, they are quite open and ready to talk. So the conversations were many and the prayers were numerous.  As the week continued we visited two other outreach areas, which were Ocean View and Masipumelele or Masi. Both areas are some of the poorest communities in Capetown. Being in these areas makes you really realize how much we have and are blessed with. The first community we visited was Ocean View. We were put into different groups and again asked to walk around and pray for the community with the encouragement to talk to the people. We again walked around the community and prayed with a couple different people. The thing that really stood out to me was when we spoke with one of the elders of the Rastafarian community. In Ocean view, there is a group called Rastafarians, who are extremely “spiritual” and influential in the community. They believe in God, but don’t believe that Christ came to die for our sins. They also believe in “spiritual experiences” where the village gets together and smokes weed to gain more wisdom and get close to God. I have to say it was kind of interesting to see weed plants just growing all over the place and in people’s homes. The smell was slightly overwhelming. However, we were able to talk to one of the elders and are hoping to establish a relationship with them, to be able to talk to them and hopefully one day will be able to share Christ. I ask that you please pray that the group who visits there on a regular basis will be able to establish a relationship and that the people will open their hearts to Christ. The next community we visited was Masipumelele. This was one of the hardest places I have ever seen. It is hard for me to explain how these people live but the poverty is extreme. One of the leaders led us through and showed us the community. We got to again pray and talk to some of the people. My favorite part of Masi was the children. I was the whitest person in my group and as we walked around, I would have two or three kids just run up to me and jump on me and hang on as tight as they could, because they wanted a white friend. They were the most beautiful and loving kids I had ever experienced. Every time they came up to me my heart broke.  I realized so much that day about the love of children and being loved by these kids filled me with so much joy and excitement, I couldn’t help but to hope that I will get the opportunity to see them again. Literally, the most precious things I have ever experienced. These people have so little and yet they are so beautiful and welcoming. They have little to nothing, and they seem to be happier than some people who have everything. It makes you really appreciate all that we have. I ask that you might pray for their hearts as well to open to the gospel and for the people, drugs and gangs are extremely big in this community. Please pray for the people and that opportunities to get to know them will open.  We also did some group training and fun activities throughout the week. A group of us went to the circus, got to see some awesome animals and acrobats. On Thursday the entire group went to a camp called Back to Basics, where we began learning how to work together and got to get to know more about each other. We built rafts, played strategy games, and a monkey game. It was interesting to see all the different personalities and we learned how to work together, which was more difficult than we thought. It was really fun to get to know people’s personalities. Finally a small group of us we went to Fishoek, Capetown, which is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to. We spent the day in the sun and swam in the ocean and played games on the beach. Capetown is so beautiful, I know I have said that multiple times, but I don’t think I can say it enough. Thank you so much for the prayers, I can’t wait to share with ya’ll everything that the Lord is going to do!