One Last Adventure...

We are home! Well, three of us at least.  Holly, Brette, and I made it home last night from South Africa at about 9:30pm.  We are very grateful to God for our safe flights, smooth transfers, and the time to really mull over what we had learned and been through over these last two weeks (and trust me, there was a lot! just ask any of us- we'll be glad to share).     

We flew back from Johannesburg to Amsterdam, to Detroit, and then to O'Hare.  While at Detroit (see picture above), our plane we were boarding found company with a large swarm of bees, so we waited while they moved our plane a few gates over, but we still made good time and made it back to Peoria by about 9:30-ish (Thank you Mrs. Benedict for driving!!)

We're so thankful for your prayers and support during these last two weeks, and we look forward to sharing with you what we've learned and have experienced!

-Joel Park

We're Baaaack!

May 30th, Evan and I left with Josh Beakley and seven other people from Samaria Mission to help set up the camp. Fifteen minutes into the trip, one of the truck's belt blew. Thankfully, it was not a sign of things to come: the camp set-up and overall week went very well, and we're very grateful to God for that. The rest of the team arrived Sunday afternoon.


Saturday, May 30th
Wild Animal Sightings: 1 Impala
While the rest of the team finished up with the Shepherd's Conference, Evan and I headed to Mozambique with 8 other guys to set up the camp for the next day. We got there at about 6 o'clock, set up enough tents for the 10 of us, had sandwiches, and went to bed.

Sunday, May 31st
Wild Animal Sightings: 1 Scorpion
We finished the camp on Sunday, putting up 14 dome tents, two bigger tents, showers, toilets, and the kitchen tent. Evan, me, and 3 others all went to get water from the nearby Limpopo River, and while we were gone, the rest of the crew killed a small white scorpion. By the time we got all the water, the rest of the BBC team, the fourth-year students from the seminary, and a small team from North Carolina had arrived (Unfortunately, the showers were not completed by then, so we still had about 40 hours-worth of dirt, dust, and sweat when they arrived).

The rest of the team left at 7:30am, much better than the projected 4am departure time. They arrived at Mbuzi at about 3:30, with over a two hour stop at the border: 45 minutes on the South African side, and about one and a half hours at the Mozambique side. At the S.A./Mozambique border, the difference is pretty distinct. It goes from paved roads and shiny metal fences to lots of dirt and wooden poles. Also at the South Africa side: the last normal bathroom. We unpacked, finished up with the kitchen stuff, had dinner, a short meeting, and went to bed to the sounds of roosters crowing, cows mooing, cow bells, and goat herds.

Monday, June 1st
Wild Animal Sightings: none
Domestic Animal Sightings: cattle, goats, dogs, roosters, cattle.
We woke up Monday morning to the sound of roosters crowing. About an hour or two before we had to get up at 6:45 (roosters, although commonly thought to crow only at sunrise, actually crow about 24 hours a day). We ate breakfast, had a devotional about Peter, and then started out on our first day of VBS. We were broken into groups between the hut-to-hut evangelism, men's ministry, women's ministry, and children's ministry. All of the Bethany team was on the children's ministry team, along with Rocky, Bongani, and Sefiri, three fourth-year students. Also during the week, two of the team would usually go on hut-to-hut evangelism in the morning.
The first day of VBS, Pastor Joel did a review all the way from Genesis to about Deutueronomy (note: pictures help!), and our craft was making egg-shakers. Typically, we had two sessions in the morning and afternoon to accomodate the school schedules, but on Monday, there was no school, so we did an impromptu session on the wordless book and made up a quick coloring craft on the spot- a wordless book made of paper with lines on it. :)
That night, we had an evening service right outside the camp, and introduced the team to the village. Timba, a fourth-year student, gave a sermon on Psalms 13, on turning suffering into praise. A lot of kids brought their egg-shakers. We then had a short de-briefing session, and went to bed.

A Typical Day in Mozambique...
6:30am - Wake Up/Hot Drinks
Hot drinks (tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and biscotti) are needed when it's about 35 degrees outside. This low temperature also makes it quite difficult to get out of bed, unless you were cold the night before anyway. Most of us found that socks, coats, and hats made the night a bit warmer. During the night, there are a number of sounds from the local animals, howling dogs, and roosters. Many roosters.

7:00am - Devotions
After most everyone's up, we started off the days with devotions. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were taught by Pastor William, who worked at the mission. William talked about the life and ministry of Peter, and how he was on mission with God, being used by God and being obedient to Him.
On Thursday and Friday, Joseph led the devotions. On Thursday, he talked about the cost of discipleship (Luke 9:57-62), and on Friday, he talked about trusting God. He talked about the life of King Asa in 2 Chronicles 14 and 15, and how it's possible for us to start well and end poorly

.
8:00am - Breakfast, Dishes
After devotions, we had breakfast and clean-up, led by Amosse, a seminary student who was with us to help translate.

Ministry Starts
9:00am -Soccer and Games for little kids
Every morning, we had some time to play soccer with the older kids, and created entertainment for the younger kids. By the end of the week, three of our six soccer balls had holes in them from the poky bushes surrounding the dirt field, and the other half of the dirt field was in our shoes and socks. This time was good for just being with the kids, and they would always be ready to play when we came out of camp in the morning.

10:00...ish - Lesson
Monday- overview of Genesis to Deuteronomy, by Pastor Joel
Tuesday- Bongani talked about Joshua
Wednesday- Holly talked about David and Solomon and building the temple
Thursday- Sefiri talked about Jonah
Friday- Rocky talked about the prophets

11:00...ish - Craft
Monday- egg shakers (and unplanned worldess book craft)
We discovered that a lot of the students hadn't heard of the wordless book before, but by the end of the week, everyone (including the kids) had it down pat.
Tuesday- decorating cloth bags for the egg shakers
Wednesday- visors with wordless book colors
Thursday- woven paper cross
Friday- decorating T-shirts

If there's enough time - Game or more soccer

12:00-2:00pm - Lunch Break
Accompanied by lots of water and sunscreen reapplication... By now it's pretty hot and sunny outside, probably around 80 degrees.

Second Round of Children's Ministry
Since the school in Mbuzi has a half day schedule with two separate groups, we did VBS twice during the day. Monday was a little bit different because there wasn't any school, so we did an impromptu afternoon session on the wordless book.

2:00pm - Soccer (note the theme...)

3:00...ish - Lesson

4:00...ish - Craft

4:30...ish - Soccer, Showers, Down time

5:45...ish - Supper

6:30...ish - Evening Session, Students Preach
At about 6:30, we began the evening sessions. There were songs with dancing (we'll have to put up a video when we return- it's amazing), and then one or two testimonies from the students, and then a student would preach a sermon.

8:00 - Hot Drinks, Debriefing Meeting
After we came back in camp, we had coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to warm up, and had a short meeting with the entire team with reports on how well the different ministries went during the day.

10:00 - Lights Out/Generator Off

Saturday, June 6th
We woke up at 6:00, packed up as much as we could, had a short breakfast, and headed back. During the packing, we had a run-in with a mouse (the Americans actually handled that fiasco better...:), but thankfully nothing else. On our way back through Kruger, we saw crocodiles, elephants, monkeys, and LOTS of impala. We arrived back at the Beakley hotel at 4-ish.

Saturday - Conference Conclusion

This week at the conference, we have had the opportunity to serve our brothers and sisters here in Polokwane at the Shepherd's Conference for the students at Christ Seminary and members of Christ Baptist Church. The primary goal is to assist in equipping pastors to futher meet the needs of their congregations and to continue the biblical training of these seminary students.
As we have served Christ by serving our brothers and sisters this week in humillity and out of gratitude to Christ, God has been glorfied. Carol's desire was that our service to the Lord would serve as an example to our brothers and sisters here in Polokwane so that they in turn would learn to serve one another in the same manner. These students are then in the field serving the Lord in villages and cities all over Africa.
To give you a bit of a background for the week, there is tension between the Afrikaaners and Africans and with specific key individuals. In addition, the conference has not had assistance in the past so the church members had to do all the tasks related to the conference, thus many pastor's wives did not get to attend the conference with their husbands.
What seemed like simple service done in humility as to the Lord to serve our brothers and sisters with the love of Christ, this attitude of service did not go unnoticed and for this many were very grateful. Simply preparing meals and teas, shining shoes and expressing interest in the ministry of the students has brought glory to God by providing a biblical example of service, alleviating the practical needs of the conference and thus allowing others to be fed by God's Word, and reducing the stress of those involved in the conference. In addition, service together as a team was fun!
It was exciting to hear the students talk with great excitement and passion about learning God's truth from his Word as well as sound doctrine in order to minister to their congregations with the Truth found in God's word.
Today (Saturday), it was a privilege to participate in serving the women through sessions designed for women by assisting in the tea service. It was a joy to serve the women and make them feel special as they were fed from God's Word about learning to trust the Lord in different arenas of life (ministry, worries, marriage, spiritual depression, and in the storms of life).

This morning Evan and Joel P departed early for Mozambique to set up camp. This camp will be used all summer to house the teams who will be ministering to the people in this village, Mbuzi.

Tomorrow, we are off early for Mozambique. To give you an idea of the travel, once we reach the border and cross into Mozambique, Mbuzi is I think about 5 kilometers away but it will take us 1 hour to reach the village from the border crossing. In addition, we will pass through Kruger Park with no way to know how long this segment will take due to the animals (elephants, lions, etc), who are free to roam.

Soli deo Gloria!
Holly

Yesterday, (Thursday), was our first day serving at the Shepherd's Conference at Christ Baptist Church. At a few points during the day, I was working at the shoe-shining station, which turned out to be a good place to talk with some of those attending the conference. Two stood out.
The first one, David, was a seminary student from Botswana. He grew up in a charismatic church, and always had that background following him. He went to one or two Bible schools before he came to the seminary at Christ Baptist. He told me he had always gone through his life looking for the power of charismatic theology. His first one or two schools had also taught this idea of charismatic power, and yet he told me he still always felt unfulfilled by it all. He then came to the seminary here and was taught just directly from the Bible, and he said the first year he was pretty cynical because it wasn't what the power he was necessarily looking for. When he talked about it, he had a big smile on his face. He talked about how it was so fulfilling just to be taught from the Word of God, and it was so neat to see how God had really changed his life just through studying the Bible as is, and the joy he had in God's Word.
Also, I met Andrew, a pastor at another church in South Africa. He was pastoring a new church in his town. There had been a church that switched to speaking officially in Afrikaans (like Dutch), and he had started a new church in two languages, Zulu and another one. He told me he prepares his sermons in English, and then depending on who was there on any given day, he would deliver his sermon or lesson in either of those languages.
It was really cool meeting these people who share a passion for God and the Bible, and yet are from totally different backgrounds. Our God is great.

-Joel

So... Where to begin?

How about where we left off?

On Monday, the team headed off with Mrs. Beakley and Jessie (a friend of Jordan's) to Entabeni Game Park. We stayed in "tents," (we'll have to put some pics up so you can see the irony in that statement), took a few game drives, and enjoyed some time for chilling out before we got going at the Shepherd's Conference. We didn't see any lions, but just before we headed back to camp for the last time, our guide, Nick, spotted a group of zebras (pronounced "ZEH-bruhs"). And they were all staring in the same direction. We drove closer, and Kirsten spotted a two cheetahs skulking under a tree. They had a staring contest for a while, but nothing happened. Again, we'll have plenty of pictures to share.

Tuesday, we stopped by the Protea Hotel, and The Ranch. We saw some lions, held some lion cubs, and did NOT get attacked by ostriches (I will admit, out of all the dangerous animals we saw, the ostriches made me the most uneasy- those things are creepy). We headed back to the Beakley house and chilled out for the rest of the time. Then some of us all watched a movie about psychotic killer lions. Then we took our malaria medicine that can cause hallucinations. No insanely realistic dreams of psychotic killer lions have been reported.

Today (as of now, it's 11:52pm), we woke up ready to go help set up the church for the Shepherd's Conference, but we weren't needed. So we spent the morning hanging out again (Phil took Evan, Jessie, Holly, and I out driving on the "wrong" side of the road- I learned how to drive stick for the first time!). After lunch, we headed out to the Shepherd's Cup, an annual soccer game at Christ Baptist Seminary between the four years (the fourth year team won). We brought oranges, cut them up, and served them to the players and spectators. Kirsten even got to play goalie for a team (that's pretty cool because today she's missing her team play in the super-sectionals). We then headed over to Christ Baptist Church, had some pup (will explain later- I think) for dinner with the students and players from the soccer game.

South Africa has been pretty good so far, by God's grace. We've been blessed with what has been really a smooth time so far, and we are very thankful. If you would, please pray for continued good health (some have been a bit under the weather), and for the Shepherd's Conference tomorrow as we serve these pastors by shining shoes, doing dishes, and other things. Please pray that God would be glorified in our serving, that we would be joyful and have the right heart attitude, and that our team would be unified in its purpose and encouraging towards one another.

-Joel

p.s. We know these last two have been kind of news-ish, but hopefully this next one won't have so much to report so we can fit in some thoughts, too :)

Hitting the ground in South Africa

Today is Friday: May 22: We gathered at church around 9:00. After Joey led us in prayer, we were seen off by some of the church. Ken & Amy Parks drove us to O’Hare. We got there in good time, and our flight departed on time. KLM really fed us well on the flight.

Saturday, May 23: After a lay over in Amsterdam, we took off for an 11-12 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. The second plane even had individual TVs for each seat. The flight actually seemed shorter than the first leg because it was roomier. We got into SA and found all our luggage. Then we looked for the Beakleys. Where were the Beakleys? After borrowing a phone, we found out that their Combi’s engine had blown up on the way to the airport. Friends of theirs, Tim & Michelle Cantrell, put us up for the night.

Sunday, May 24: We ended up going to the Cantrell’s church Sunday morning. He is the pastor of a church in Johannesburg. They also had us for lunch. We took off for Polokwane around 4:00, after stuffing all of our luggage and ourselves into a borrowed vehicle. We’re going to upload pictures showing us as sardines in the Combi. Tomorrow we will head out to Entabani Game Park and stay overnight there. Then, we come back and begin serving in the preparations for the Shepherds Conference.