We have just completed what was probably the busiest solid month of the year for us. Our new trainees joined us on the farm on January 10th. I’ll (Miah) introduce some of the guys in the pictures section if you want to take a look there.
Over the past week we had our “J-Life Africa Summit” with our country leaders and other guests joining us on the farm as well. We took all the delegates to a local golf course and played a round of mashie (3 par) golf. For most of the guys it was their first experience with golf. I was shocked, not only that they seemed to enjoy it so much, but that they played pretty well. I was beaten by a Swazi playing for the first time! It was kinda fun to watch a bunch of African missionaries enjoy the game of the rich and famous.
Tarisayi shared about the changes which have happened in Zimbabwe over the past year. It hasn’t taken a whole lot of political reform to improve their situation in Zim quite radically and to make Tarisayi much more optimistic about the future. Government control has really eased up and allowed significant ministry to start happening there.
Zambia’s training center is now 90% complete which should really open up some great opportunities in Central Africa. Florence, the Cameroon country leader who Michelle and I visited in 2008, has been passionate about providing quality J-Life training for French-speaking African countries. The organization she started called “I Care” has been offered land just 15 kilometers from Yaounde for a very reasonable price. J-Life may redirect funds earmarked for a building project in South Africa to make that happen in Cameroon. Florence is doing such great work there in Cameroon.
Another exciting development is that Christian, a trainee from Nairobi, Kenya, is heading home to work with J-Life after spending more than a year here in South Africa with us. He’s one of the coolest guys ever, but he will need prayer support as he is filling the shoes of Yallo, who passed away in a bus accident last year.
J-Life will also be starting to do some work in Liberia (a country coming out of civil war) and Zanzibar (our first predominately Muslim country) this year.
So, with all the excitement of what’s happening around the continent (and that’s just the start of it), its time to refocus on what’s happening here in South Africa. Michelle has been working on her counseling studies. It’s amazing to see how focused and dedicated she is with it. I don’t know what happened to the scattered, high pressure University of Texas student that I met 6 years ago! She also ran her first half marathon a couple weekends ago. “It was easy,” was her response to me afterwards. I’m also keeping up with my running. The Comrades Marathon (55 miler!) is a mere 3 months away now.
South Africa in general is pretty focused on the World Cup. It’s kind of a big deal here. A common joke is that if anyone talks about plans for 2011 or 2012 someone will say “What? I thought the world was ending in 2010.” So yeah, South Africa is definitely the place to be in 2010. We’re dying to introduce some of you all to this beautiful continent. So why not come see us? Pray about it.
Miah
Posted by miah at 11:46 AM. Filed under:
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