Feb 11-14

We made it to South Africa!  I never doubted we would but it was definitely an adventure from the very start.  We thought we had plenty of time to make our plan in San Francisco but it turned out we barely made it. Then in Washington DC Mike Snyder was called up to the gate agent and told he could not board because South Africa would not allow him into the country without a blank page passport page for them to stamp.   That was a shock and really bazaar as we had no idea of this regulation prior to this trip.   We knew we had to continue without him.  On the next leg of our journey we stopped in Dakar, Senegal to refuel and some sort of mechanical ground equipment malfunction caused us to be late in taking back off.  There was no way we could make our flight in Johannesburg to Durban.  Also we had one bag turn up missing and spent some time at the baggage service desk to see if they could track it down for us.  We barely made the next flight which as the last flight of the day.  Our luggage however did not make the flight with us.   Thankfully Erlo and Eugene were there to meet us even if it was much later than they had first expected us.  Bless them.  We found we had no luggage and the earliest flight was not until the next morning so we had to leave it and get to Estcourt and some much needed sleep.  We had been traveling for 33 hours, on the run most of the time and finally got into bed around 1:30AM.  We had again talked to the South African Airways baggage service agent and after much talk were assured they would be bringing out baggage to us the next day (Sunday)  which they did.  We went to church Sunday morning in the same clothing we had been traveling in (God says to come as you are right ?).  We did just that.  But…..we were very happy when the luggage showed up a few hours later. We are off to a high school to share tomorrow morning and then some hut to hut ministry the rest of the day.  Thank you for all your prayers.  They did help.  We trusted God and he did not fail us.  There were so many things that could have happened that did not.  We don’t have our fearless leader for a day or two but we will persevere and follow where he leads us.

Sunday -   Even though we didn't get to bed until early this morning we all got up and went to church and I'm glad we did.  It is energizing to worship and we did all need some energy.  We got a chance to relax the rest of the day and have a good team meeting about our schedule as well as put the gift bags together.  Our luggage arrived!!  We were so happy to see it come as we were getting a bit sick of our same clothes.  We were able to shower  and put on clean clothing which was a blessing.  There was a great movie shown at the church at 6pm and we all went to it.  It led to some tears so you know it had to be good. I think I can speak for the team that we all slept well with a nice rain coming down.

Monday - The high school we were scheduled to visit this morning didn't confirm so we didn't go there as we had planned.  This worked out ok as we had some time for Bevvie to teach us how to help blind people as a sighted person.  We get the rest of that training tonight.  Most of today was going hut to hut in two different teams.  It ended up being an emotional day with some terrible stories of abuse in some families.  Both teams got to experience leading people to the Lord.  Halleluja!!  That alone makes it worth coming here.    Keep the prayers coming.  We feel them and are encouraged.  We are blessed to bless and it more apparent every day that Gateway is a fantastic church with it's mission mindedness.     We will try to put some pictures in the blog sometime in the next couple of days. 

Tuesday - We had a visit to a different high school this morning but.....again that fell through so we had more time to get prepared to have a meeting with the home based care (HBC) workers at Ntaba.  We ministered to them on forgiveness and Bevie was able to talk about the cane mobility training and the Proclaimers she brought with her.  These are cool devices that are talking bibles and a different chip can be put in them for whatever language is needed.  It is charged with either solar, a crank on the side or with 240v power.  They were presented with one and asked to share it with their community.  Several of the ladies expressed their gratitude to us for brining this message to them and revealed that there was some hurts and anger that had been held inside until they heard this message and decided it was time to release it.  Wow!  There is nothing more powerful than to have an effective message that reaches people.  We were blessed.  We served the lunch to all of them before serving ourselves.  We then went up on "Erlo's Hill" overlooking all of the communities in the Estcourt area to pray.  Erlo gave us his heart for these people and how he is learning more and more that he has to just stay out of the way and let the Lord do the work.  He explained how hard this is for him because of his take charge personality.  He teared up telling how much it means to him and Deli that Gateway teams have partnered with them over the years.  We were all very emotional about what he said and very proud to be part of a church that sends out missionaries to work with local ministries.  What an amazing day and what a blessing to have been a part of it.