Jam and jamming...

This past weekend was really really good and profound. Friday night I attended worship leader training with the speaker being the lead elder of another FMI church in Johannesburg. It was really good. Saturday morning we had another session. He really put a lot of good stuff into us.

Tess, meanwhile, was doing someting she has been wanting to do for a long time....learning how to make jam!!...strawberry jam this time! She also went to a farewell lunch for a work colleague and a ladies tea where a missionary from Uzbekistan was the speaker. So Tess was pretty exhausted by the end of the day and we had an early night.

Sunday morning we went quite a bit out of our way to pick up Jack, a guy Tess works with and has been sharing the gospel with. He has been keen to come to church but for the second week in a row he did not make it. This time he was not home and was still at a wedding. Our strong sense is Eph6:12.

Anyway our meeting was one of the most encouraging and profound I have been to the whole year. It was the last teaching in the revelation series. The worship time was deep. The response by the people was great. At the end of the meeting Gavin felt that all of the elders plus their wives should lay hands on and bless every family and household there that morning so the whole church formed a queue and one by one families stood in the middle of the circle of elders and they layed hands and prayed GOD's blessing on us. It was powerful...they were sending it and prophesying....the worship was going, people were crying and GOD was doing HIS stuff in our hearts......

What a weekend.....

Relaxing in EL..

Well not much to report back with regards to this weekend. We had no plans and no real plans developed. I went to sleep at 8:30pm on Friday night and woke up feeling rather fresh after almost 12 hrs of sleep at 8:15am on Saturday morning. I headed off with Andrew Marshall to pick up a pair of new football boots after my favorite white ones disintegrated 2 weeks ago! Then I fetched Tess from the transport section of the hospital. She had been away for 2 nights on a government training thing. We relaxed at home before going to the Marshalls for supper.

Sunday was a day of wonderfully warm weather. We also had a crackin' 3.5hr long church meeting before going to a braai at the Strauss's place. We had probably the best boerewors I have ever tasted straight from Bloemfontein!!

After that Tess went home for an afternoon snooze while I went to catch the 2nd half of our church playing soccer against Christian Centre. I could not play as I had a couple of moles cut out of my leg and chest last week and I have a couple of stitches in both places. I was not too upset at missing the game as we gave it to them nicely...5-0.

Pancakes at the Thompsons on Sunday evening as we do almost every Sunday evening! Now we are launched into a fresh week!!

A visit to PE

Tess went off on a bus to PE on thursday evening to join her mom, who had flown in from CT, at her grandparents place. I drove through after work on friday...actually managed to get off a bit early and drove out of EL at 3pm!

I have realised that I am definately adjusting to a small town feel when, as I drove into PE, I found myself thinking what a busy place this is with far more cars, people and general movement and atmosphere than I am used to in East London!
We spent the weekend driving around PE, checking out Schoonies (See pictures of seaside place!), chatting, sleeping, playing boggle, visiting Andrew Pearce's church and basically having a good time.

Sunday we left as late as possible which turned out to be at around 5pm only arriving back in East London after 9pm due to roadworks and general darkness.
Family are a huge blessing and it was good for me to get to know my new grandparents a little better and for Tess to see and spend time with her family.

Step by step we're moving forward...

Our church along with 4 others co-hosted Llewellyn Roberts, an evangelist from Durban, this past weekend. There were a number of meetings held including outreach and equipping of the saints. It was a blast. I got to play in the worship team and crank my electric...something I have not done for 8 months!!! That is the longest break I have ever had since starting to play guitar!

It was so good to be part of the whole thing. We saw over 100 people come into the kingdom. Then we also saw many people being set free from bondages and others being physically healed! The joy in the place after seeing GOD display HIS goodness to HIS people was huge! A real party!

Llewellyn was a real character. He used to be involved in some heavy stuff. My favorite story of his is when he tells of the time he was sitting in his dad's church where he used to visit just to show face. He was wearing his leathers and had his gun in his jacket. His dad was leading an altar call when he said why don't you turn to the person next to you and ask them if they would like to give their life to Jesus. Llewellyn said there was a teenage kid sitting next to him and he was thinking "Dont ask me kid...you really don't want to ask me..." Anyway the kid plucked up the courage, turned to him and said "Would you like to give your life to Jesus?". Llewellyn pulled his gun stuck it in the kids mouth and said "Do you want to see Jesus?"...the kid said no.

There were lots of other stories and his testimony is really fantastic!

So we spent most of the weekend going from meeting to meeting and having a really good time!

Hitting the clubs

This past weekend was very interesting as a group of us from Highway Community headed out at around 11:30pm to a variety of clubs in the East London area. The point was to share about our faith and relationship with GOD and then invite them to an outreach that is happening this coming weekend where a radical speaker from Durb's will be sharing his testimony about being saved out of a heavy drug scene.

We met at HCC and prayed before driving into town. There were 16 of us loaded with bottled water and flyers to hand out.

The group I was part of chose to go to a club called Bucaneers. It was pumping and full of people. The process that I went through was quite interesting. I started off feeling like I was from another planet and was wondering how on earth I was even going start a conversation. So I sat on a rock near the entrance where people were milling about and I observed and listened.

The masses were all around the age of 20...so I fitted right in! Anyway a group of darkly dressed people came and sat next to me and started fighting over their drugs. I was actually quite enjoying the show when my friend Dennis said to me that he had a crazy idea and that he was going to do it. Before I could get any further info from him he broke into the centre of the squabblers and said "Who here is sick of the drug scene in East London?". Well the point of contention swung to the topic of "Is dagga really a drug?". Anyway that sparked a long debate and by the end the whole group had heard the gospel (and argued about it!) with one guy showing particular interest in coming to church.

That kind of broke the ice and I got to chat to a couple of other guys. It is actually quite amazing how open people are and willing to chat. At about 2am my older age was kicking in so I headed home for some sleep.

It was a really profound evening with seemingly more effect on me than on the guys we spoke to! I have realised that all you need is boldness and a strategy to share the gospel and then allow the Holy Spirit to direct you, give you the words to speak and soften the hearts of the hearers.

Our next potential plan is to hit the matric rage at Morgans Bay where a large portion of the EL guys head for the post-exam party. We plan to use video camera's as a means to "interview" them and ask some tough questions! What a great opportunity to ask a young person "What hope do you have for your life?"....or "Where to from here?"

Saturday night we planned to head out again but my darling wife had been sick in bed since Friday so I decided to stay in with her.

Sunday morning we had a great meeting, Sunday evening we did pancakes at the Thompsons....