We're definitely in another country! - Dave H

What a great day! It wasn't without its challenges, however, but God is teaching us through those. We toured all of Living Hope's facilities in Cape Town this morning and had a wonderful lunch at the beach. After that we split off into our different teams - Marketing, Construction and Care Support.

-The marketing team has an incredible task of helping Living Hope develop a marketing plan. Most of the people on the team do this for a living, so it seemed natural to help in this way (and Living Hope asked for it because of the expertise of the team). What the team found out today is that we are in a very different country and things don't necessarily work the same way they do here as they would in the States. They knew that and had even prepared for that, but today experienced it. Tonight as we shared as a large group, the marketing team was very humble and shared that they feel the task may be impossible, given the time frame. But they also acknowleged that God can do the impossible. So, we are begging you to pray that the Holy Spirit will do a divine work in their meetings over the next week and a half. This may sound discouraging, but we are all actually encouraged knowing that God is the only one who can make it happen!

-The Construction team had a great day of working within the metric system (ha!) and learning all kinds of new terms for equipment and supplies. The person that works at living hope handed Ethan a tube of caulk and Ethan asked him what they called it - he said "sealant." Ethan asked if he had ever heard of caulk and the man looked puzzled and said, "yeah, I've heard that word before, but I'm not sure what it is." So, we have laughed at the differences and are enjoying being able to help construct a new office for an employee who will be with Living Hope very soon. Pray for safety for our team and that we can be efficient in finishing the task!

-The Care Support team went to a township called Red Hill today. It's basically a village of about 1000 "squatters" who live in shanties made of whatever the people could find. Fifty percent of the people in this township are HIV positive, so the environment seems very hopeless. The team was able to help lead a kids club with a local resident, Zolaka, who is so on fire for Jesus. She is loving on these kids and wants to share the love of Christ however she can. She is so proud of a new house she is building and showed the team where it was. The reality is that it's a shanti that still needs a roof, and when she gets the money to buy the roof, she'll finish it. In the meantime she's sharing her own food, which she does not have much of, with people in need to help them. Zolaka is being used by God. In our orientation this morning at Living Hope, we were told about a fire recently in a township called Masi. The fire started quickly, and because the winds are so strong here and the shantis are so close together, it swept into about 100 shantis that housed about 500 people. No one even had time to react. I was thinking about that today as we talked about how dark Red Hill is, and we prayed tonight that the wind of the Holy Spirit would blow on the fire of Zolaka to ingite the entire township.

Thank you for praying. May God be glorified!!!