Drowning in a Sea of Yellow

Firstly, I just have to say that today I met the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. I was in Clau Clau hosting a group of missions students who were interested in doing an outreach with Hands. We went into the community expecting to do home visits and found ourselves drowning in a sea of yellow (yellow Zuma shirts that is). Zuma was coming to visit. Since everyone in the community was there, there was no point of doing home visits. We sat and waited for Zuma. Three hours later, Zuma showed up. He stood on the stage and began his speech. Five minutes into his speech, he noticed the 3 of us white people in the crowd and asked us if we understood. We told him we didn't and he arranged for someone to sit with us and interpret. When the lady sat with us, he told her to summarize so as she summarized, everyone waited and stared at us (including Mr. President). After she finished, I gave Zuma a thumbs up and shouted "Siyabonga (thank you)". Everyone in the crowd laughed (including Mr. President). The above picture is me wearing one of the shirts.

After seeing Zuma, we squeezed in two home visits. The first one was the home of a young man and his young wife. This man, Vusi, had been sick for 7 months and is clearly in his last leg of life... couldn't talk, could barely move... We went in and prayed for him.. the missionary students took the lead and there were tongues being spoken and Jesus' name screamed and crying for healing... and my whole body was full of goosebumps and tears were welling in my eyes. I'm not sure if it's because it was powerful, or if there was pain in my spirit. I didn't feel very comfortable with the situation. I just couldn't imagine how praying for healing would be appropriate. I wanted everyone to leave and I just wanted to sit on his bedside and hold his hand and tell him how beautiful he is and how Jesus loves him and sees him and that he need not fear what is to come. And I wanted to do the same for his wife.

Basically my days now have been filled with the new volunteers that came a week ago. I'm helping out quite a bit with orientation, but will get extremely busy soon as most of the volunteers will start being placed short term in South Africa to get their feet wet. My role is basically to oversee their involvement and mentor and teach them as they go along, equipping them with the knowledge and skills they'll need to be effective in the community. It's really quite neat and I'm excited about it. It's very much up my alley. This year is going to be a good year, I can just sense it. God is already challenging me big time and teaching me a lot. He's really calling me to step up and set a higher standard for myself.

Anyway, love you all! Please e-mail or text or call me.

KD