I have mentioned the Christensens a few times in my blog, but I just wanted to take a minute to talk a little more about them. Dave and Krysta are the parents of 5 children aged 14 to 5: Jordan, Vienna, Dayne, Judah, and Marley. A year and a half ago they left a comfortable life in Thousand Oaks, CA to pursue a life in missions. Feeling that God was calling them here to Lily first, they left their jobs and sold their house to move here site-unseen. They live in a house at the Community Center and pretty much run all the projects going on there, somehow managing to balance raising 5 kids in a foreign environment as well. How God gives them energy for all that is beyond me.
The Christensens, and specifically Dave, have already been a huge blessing to me in my time here. The family’s focus is truly on following God’s call, not man’s, and nothing will sway them from that. Dave is an awesome man of God that I really respect and has provided me with some great male fellowship, something that I lack somewhat here. He is very supportive and encouraging no matter what he is going through. Some tough life lessons have strengthened his resolve, helped him relate with community here, and just given him a rock solid faith. Along with having to run all the day to day projects here, he is very passionate about winning souls and has taken every chance possible to develop relationships with people in the community, quickly earning their respect.
Among the many hardships they face as missionaries, they have lately only been getting half of their support to live off. Instead of freaking out like I and many others would, they calmly have full trust in the Lord that he will provide. On the first of December the whole family is heading back to Los Angeles for 6 weeks to rest (hopefully) and see their families, but also to share their story and raise much needed support. Please join me in praying for them. If you feel so led, below is the information for sending them financial support.
Here is the process for supporting them through LoVE (Lily of the Valley Endeavors). This could change in January, so I will let you know if it does.
For now:
1. go to http://www.lilyvalleyusa.org/
2. click on "ways to help"
3. click on "donate online using a credit card" (to the right) (note: there is also the option of printing out a form and mailing in support)
4. Click on "give now" (note: you can also choose to create an account on the site, to view payment history, etc.)
5. Fill in Billing Address
6. Scroll down to "categories and funds"
7. Select Christensen / Africa Project and enter amount you wish to donate
8. Scroll to payment options and select if you want the payment to be recurring
9. Enter card info and comments and then click next and follow the remaining steps
If you have any trouble setting this up, please contact Lee Kennedy at: leekennedy@sbcglobal.net and he can assist. From time to time, they have a glitch in the system, so it's good to monitor what's going on. You can always email Lee to make sure that transactions have gone through and that the money is going to their support.
Thanks and God bless.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Vacation… or as they call it here “Holiday”
This past weekend I went to St Lucia with Lauren, Aislinn and Katie (my best friend in the world… no she didn’t pay me to write that). We left Lily Thursday after lunch and drove 3 hours north up the coast to the little tourist town of St Lucia. St Lucia is right on the coast and is blocked in by a little estuary river, making it a great place for hippos and crocodiles and lots of other animals. On Friday morning we all got up at the frightful hour of 3:30 am to drive to Imfolozi-Hluhluwe Park about 45 minutes from St Lucia so that we could get there when the gates opened at 5. The trek started out on a high note as we saw a hippo walking down the street in St Lucia at 4:15am on our way out of town; such a huge animal to be just strolling down a road in the middle of town. Once in the park there was much more excitement as we had a beautiful big female lion strut just 10 feet in front of our car. We didn’t see her coming and it caught us all off guard and got the adrenaline flowing for sure! The adrenaline picked back up a few more times that day when we had some close encounters with the giant creatures that are Elephants. I mean, you don’t really understand how big and scary those things can be until you’ve had to 
pop the car in reverse and back away from one walking straight at you down the road (pictured on the left, no zoom, that thing is only a few feet in front of the car and not happy)… I’m just glad my stick-shift driving skills have improved enough that I didn’t stall at that point. Overall it was a great day driving around the beautiful park and we saw lots of elephant, giraffe, rhino, water buffalo, impala, the one lion and much more. The only bummer was that we didn’t get to see a leopard and therefore fell one animal short of seeing the “Big 5.”
In St Lucia we stayed at a very nice little bed and breakfast where they really took care of us. On Saturday they provided us with beach chairs, towels, snorkel gear and a cooler for a beach day. We drove a short way up the coast to Cape Vidal, a beautiful beach. Unfortunately there were high winds which made it slightly less enjoyable and the swells were too big for snorkeling, but we hung out there and enjoyed the sun for a long time. We then found a picnic spot and stopped at Mission Rocks on the way back to St Lucia. Mission Rocks is a rocky beach with a bunch of tide pools. It too was gorgeous and really made me miss Northern California… big shout out to everyone in the Bay.
Finally, on Sunday, our last day, Lauren and I took a hippo cruise on the river and enjoyed watching some hippos and hanging out on the top deck of the boat. Overall it was a great weekend. It was nice even just relaxing and playing cards at the bed and breakfast. I didn’t really realize how worn out I was by everything at Lily and the vacation was a welcome respite, even if it went by too fast. It is fun though being back with the kids at Lily, and I even got a few of them to admit they missed us while we were gone. Please pray that God gives me the energy, strength and wisdom for the daily activities here.
pop the car in reverse and back away from one walking straight at you down the road (pictured on the left, no zoom, that thing is only a few feet in front of the car and not happy)… I’m just glad my stick-shift driving skills have improved enough that I didn’t stall at that point. Overall it was a great day driving around the beautiful park and we saw lots of elephant, giraffe, rhino, water buffalo, impala, the one lion and much more. The only bummer was that we didn’t get to see a leopard and therefore fell one animal short of seeing the “Big 5.”In St Lucia we stayed at a very nice little bed and breakfast where they really took care of us. On Saturday they provided us with beach chairs, towels, snorkel gear and a cooler for a beach day. We drove a short way up the coast to Cape Vidal, a beautiful beach. Unfortunately there were high winds which made it slightly less enjoyable and the swells were too big for snorkeling, but we hung out there and enjoyed the sun for a long time. We then found a picnic spot and stopped at Mission Rocks on the way back to St Lucia. Mission Rocks is a rocky beach with a bunch of tide pools. It too was gorgeous and really made me miss Northern California… big shout out to everyone in the Bay.
Finally, on Sunday, our last day, Lauren and I took a hippo cruise on the river and enjoyed watching some hippos and hanging out on the top deck of the boat. Overall it was a great weekend. It was nice even just relaxing and playing cards at the bed and breakfast. I didn’t really realize how worn out I was by everything at Lily and the vacation was a welcome respite, even if it went by too fast. It is fun though being back with the kids at Lily, and I even got a few of them to admit they missed us while we were gone. Please pray that God gives me the energy, strength and wisdom for the daily activities here.
For my parents
Seriously, anytime I talk to them they say that I haven’t updated my blog enough. So this is for them. I’ll try to be a better son…
So right after writing my last blog about wanting to do something in the community, I did just that. There was a group of missionaries from OM here for a week; they were from the US, Germany, Holland and Korea. On Friday the 14th, Dave Christensen and I took the group to some clinics in the neighboring town of Mpumalanga. At these clinics there were anywhere from 60 to well over 100 people waiting to be seen by the nurses and doctors. This group of missionaries got up in front of everyone and just started singing songs and putting on short skits, entertaining everyone and sharing the gospel at the same time. It was awesome to see them work, filled with such a joy and excited to serve. I can’t say I have that same unashamed spirit to go out and do that for anyone willing to listen, and it definitely pushed me and I was thankful I was with them. After the songs and skits, a translator that came with us (and just an amazing guy with such a great heart) gave a message. People were definitely moved and we prayed with some for salvation. We then simply prayed with people who wanted prayer, mainly for their illnesses. The people we prayed for couldn’t even understand what we were saying, but you could feel the Spirit at work and it was incredibly powerful. I prayed over people sick with HIV and many broke down into tears during the prayer. I might never know the full effect of what happened there, but I believe many hearts were touched and pray that God continues to work in the hearts of those people.
One thing about this culture is that people are far more receptive to the spiritual world than in the States. Almost everyone believes there is a higher power and are very willing to pray with you (like in the clinic), and believers here are definitely more aware of the presence of evil spirits. The problem is that I think many people still don’t fully understand what it means to be a follower of Christ (not that most of us do in the States either). They may claim to be a Christian but at the same time still try to mix it with witchcraft and ancestor worship and other things, not realizing that Jesus is the only true way. In general though, it seems different from the problems of indifference and atheism in the States. Please pray that God continues to work in the hearts of his people here and that we can help bring the true gospel to them. I’ve spent much of my life being timid about sharing the gospel; I pray that I can be unashamed of the gospel, bolder in sharing it, and not miss chances to share, knowing that God has not put anyone into my life without reason.
That same night I then agreed to help at a sleepover with some boys from the community. It was me and 9 boys, and I’ll just say that it was crazy. I think they were all between 11 and 16 or so, and they were so excited to be having a sleepover that they couldn’t contain their energy. They ran crazy all night and I think maybe slept for only an hour. I was able to get a few hours myself, but I just tried to remember that they’re young and don’t get a chance to do that stuff too often. They were also all part of a little dance crew they had formed to perform in a contest we hosted at the community center the next day…
That Saturday the 15th, the community volunteers that I teach the business class to, put on a concert and dance contest at the little amphitheater we have at the community center. People from the community signed up to perform anything from gospel music to rap and compete in the hip-hop/pantsula dance contest. Interspersed into the day were a few pastors who gave messages. The event was a lot of fun and it was cool to see people from the community get into something they could relate with, and show them that rap and hip-hop dance could be done well and be clean at the same time. I really enjoyed it and we also took some of the kids from Lily, many who couldn’t stop dancing to the music all day themselves. I think some hearts were touched there as well. We also capped it off by serving free hotdogs, soup and juice to any kids who were there, and there were a lot. The plan is to hold maybe one event a month here to help reach out to the community. Last month’s event was the Nick Vujicic visit, so they will vary greatly.
That was a busy weekend as on Sunday a few other volunteers and I took some of our third graders to Tala, the small game reserve that borders Lily. This was their reward for passing the times table test that we gave them in homework club and they were super excited. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them, especially cause they are such goofs. They are trouble though too, and they got a hold of my phone and called my mom without me even knowing it. It wasn’t till a few days later when my parents reached me that I found out some of the boys had called my mom’s cell at 4:30 am pacific time and left her a 2 minute message in Zulu. At least my mom said it was cute, ha.
Speaking of homework club, we are done for the year! The kids are going into exams and about to head into summer break, so we won’t pick back up till January or February. As for the next few weeks though, we will be very busy preparing the kids for a nativity play they will be putting on at our church in Pietermaritzburg. We are working very hard to get them ready and hope they won’t be too scared by the large audience. I think its going to be very cute, but it is really hard work getting little kids to concentrate long enough to practice; they don’t really get the concept.
Well that’s it for now on that front… onto the next set of adventures.
So right after writing my last blog about wanting to do something in the community, I did just that. There was a group of missionaries from OM here for a week; they were from the US, Germany, Holland and Korea. On Friday the 14th, Dave Christensen and I took the group to some clinics in the neighboring town of Mpumalanga. At these clinics there were anywhere from 60 to well over 100 people waiting to be seen by the nurses and doctors. This group of missionaries got up in front of everyone and just started singing songs and putting on short skits, entertaining everyone and sharing the gospel at the same time. It was awesome to see them work, filled with such a joy and excited to serve. I can’t say I have that same unashamed spirit to go out and do that for anyone willing to listen, and it definitely pushed me and I was thankful I was with them. After the songs and skits, a translator that came with us (and just an amazing guy with such a great heart) gave a message. People were definitely moved and we prayed with some for salvation. We then simply prayed with people who wanted prayer, mainly for their illnesses. The people we prayed for couldn’t even understand what we were saying, but you could feel the Spirit at work and it was incredibly powerful. I prayed over people sick with HIV and many broke down into tears during the prayer. I might never know the full effect of what happened there, but I believe many hearts were touched and pray that God continues to work in the hearts of those people.
One thing about this culture is that people are far more receptive to the spiritual world than in the States. Almost everyone believes there is a higher power and are very willing to pray with you (like in the clinic), and believers here are definitely more aware of the presence of evil spirits. The problem is that I think many people still don’t fully understand what it means to be a follower of Christ (not that most of us do in the States either). They may claim to be a Christian but at the same time still try to mix it with witchcraft and ancestor worship and other things, not realizing that Jesus is the only true way. In general though, it seems different from the problems of indifference and atheism in the States. Please pray that God continues to work in the hearts of his people here and that we can help bring the true gospel to them. I’ve spent much of my life being timid about sharing the gospel; I pray that I can be unashamed of the gospel, bolder in sharing it, and not miss chances to share, knowing that God has not put anyone into my life without reason.
That same night I then agreed to help at a sleepover with some boys from the community. It was me and 9 boys, and I’ll just say that it was crazy. I think they were all between 11 and 16 or so, and they were so excited to be having a sleepover that they couldn’t contain their energy. They ran crazy all night and I think maybe slept for only an hour. I was able to get a few hours myself, but I just tried to remember that they’re young and don’t get a chance to do that stuff too often. They were also all part of a little dance crew they had formed to perform in a contest we hosted at the community center the next day…
That Saturday the 15th, the community volunteers that I teach the business class to, put on a concert and dance contest at the little amphitheater we have at the community center. People from the community signed up to perform anything from gospel music to rap and compete in the hip-hop/pantsula dance contest. Interspersed into the day were a few pastors who gave messages. The event was a lot of fun and it was cool to see people from the community get into something they could relate with, and show them that rap and hip-hop dance could be done well and be clean at the same time. I really enjoyed it and we also took some of the kids from Lily, many who couldn’t stop dancing to the music all day themselves. I think some hearts were touched there as well. We also capped it off by serving free hotdogs, soup and juice to any kids who were there, and there were a lot. The plan is to hold maybe one event a month here to help reach out to the community. Last month’s event was the Nick Vujicic visit, so they will vary greatly.
That was a busy weekend as on Sunday a few other volunteers and I took some of our third graders to Tala, the small game reserve that borders Lily. This was their reward for passing the times table test that we gave them in homework club and they were super excited. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them, especially cause they are such goofs. They are trouble though too, and they got a hold of my phone and called my mom without me even knowing it. It wasn’t till a few days later when my parents reached me that I found out some of the boys had called my mom’s cell at 4:30 am pacific time and left her a 2 minute message in Zulu. At least my mom said it was cute, ha.
Speaking of homework club, we are done for the year! The kids are going into exams and about to head into summer break, so we won’t pick back up till January or February. As for the next few weeks though, we will be very busy preparing the kids for a nativity play they will be putting on at our church in Pietermaritzburg. We are working very hard to get them ready and hope they won’t be too scared by the large audience. I think its going to be very cute, but it is really hard work getting little kids to concentrate long enough to practice; they don’t really get the concept.
Well that’s it for now on that front… onto the next set of adventures.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
It's raining and I'm in the mall again on my day off...boo
Hey all. Hope everyone is well. Sorry the blogs have slowed down, I'll do my best to get better at it. I need to start writing down stories as they happen during the week again, cause by the time the weekend comes I forget about most of them, I guess just cause I'm so immersed in life here at this point that at times things blur together and I've also become more used to the funny ways things work in this country. Lauren has a good blog today though on an awesome experience she had this week, so check that out. It has to do with some doctors from London that are here for 2 weeks. She got the chance to get out into the local community, which is one thing I definitely would like to do and am bummed i haven't made it happen yet. I get so caught up in the bubble that is the children's village that I don't really know what's going on as much in the community at large. Every thursday we have to do a huge grocery shop for the week's groceries for all the houses at the orphanage and this week I helped out with it again. It was me and my two roomates and as we drove back from the store to the children's village through Mophela we watched as many people stared at us driving past or made comments and hand gestures about wanting some of the food. As we drove the three of us discussed how weird it must be for these people to see 3 white boys driving this truckload full of food through. Even though I knew it was food for the whole orphanage I still felt a little bad about it.
Speaking of the community, I'm still struggling to figure out what to do with my business class. I'm going to stop calling it a business class at this point cause I'm not teaching a whole lot of business. I think it's mainly going to be just getting them a good working resume and some interview skills, with a few other things thrown in. I mean, we tried to teach them how to write a proffesional business letter the other day and are going to have to end up working on their basic english writing skills instead... I'm just not prepared for this and don't relate. It's really hard in general with education around here. I'm not sure I've mentioned it before, but we have 14 year old kids in 5th or 6th grade that can't read. I'm helping teach homework club for the 1st through 3rd graders and we're now using lesson plans out of an American Kindergarten book. It's just tough sometimes and wears on me, especially when I just wonder if I have enough time with them in that role to really make a difference. I think back to living with my old roomate Aaron Torchio and the struggle he had teaching kids in Los Angeles who were in 6th/7th grade and often at first grade level... I feel for you even more now buddy.
One fun thing we did this past week though was invite over a couple of community guys for a bbq. One works for the Lily Community center next door and the other is a volunteer there and in my class, although he now has another part time job. It was a lot of fun having them over and hearing a little more about their life story and just making some friends from the area. They are really cool guys and I can learn a lot from them as well. Plus we have just been so blessed and it is nice to be able to have some people over to share that with. I hope we get the chance to do that again.
Another thing I started doing this week was wrestling with some of the boys on the trampoline. The last few days have been me verses 6 to 10 kids at a time... my body aches! Seriously, even though many are small, you get that many kids hanging around you and its a serious workout. I just popped 3 more advil for my back. It's a fun way to hangout with the kids though and they love it. A week or so ago a kid came up to me and said he had taken down "one of the big 3." I didn't understand him, so asked what he meant. He was saying that he had taken down my roommate Jon while wrestling. Apparently the boys have nicknamed me and my roommates the Big 3... I like that, haha.
There are so many basic things I miss about the states... like 24 grocery stores or even orange tic-tacs being orange, I mean I bought some orange tic-tacs the other day and they taste the same but they are white. Does that make any sense? why are orange tic-tacs here different than in the states? And why do the oreo's taste different? I mean, come on people, its the same product, just in a different country/continent. Anyway, enough of that ramble. But onto a similar point, you can't pump your own gas in this country, and when you tell someone to fill up the tank, they try to let the pump run as long as possible, even after the tank is full and the gas is spilling onto the ground... I mean, I gotta tip these people and watch them the whole time to make sure they don't pull stuff like that, it's just not worth it.
My roommates just left for a 10 day trip to cape town, so please pray for their safety and fun. It will probably be a crazy week as I'll have to probably do even more of the handy man and driving errands. Seriously it's crazy how much time we spend driving places since the village is so far out of the way. It will also be nice though to have an empty house to relax in at times. Please pray for my energy and strength this next week.
Alright gotta run without looking this over. Take care all. Hope all is well.
Speaking of the community, I'm still struggling to figure out what to do with my business class. I'm going to stop calling it a business class at this point cause I'm not teaching a whole lot of business. I think it's mainly going to be just getting them a good working resume and some interview skills, with a few other things thrown in. I mean, we tried to teach them how to write a proffesional business letter the other day and are going to have to end up working on their basic english writing skills instead... I'm just not prepared for this and don't relate. It's really hard in general with education around here. I'm not sure I've mentioned it before, but we have 14 year old kids in 5th or 6th grade that can't read. I'm helping teach homework club for the 1st through 3rd graders and we're now using lesson plans out of an American Kindergarten book. It's just tough sometimes and wears on me, especially when I just wonder if I have enough time with them in that role to really make a difference. I think back to living with my old roomate Aaron Torchio and the struggle he had teaching kids in Los Angeles who were in 6th/7th grade and often at first grade level... I feel for you even more now buddy.
One fun thing we did this past week though was invite over a couple of community guys for a bbq. One works for the Lily Community center next door and the other is a volunteer there and in my class, although he now has another part time job. It was a lot of fun having them over and hearing a little more about their life story and just making some friends from the area. They are really cool guys and I can learn a lot from them as well. Plus we have just been so blessed and it is nice to be able to have some people over to share that with. I hope we get the chance to do that again.
Another thing I started doing this week was wrestling with some of the boys on the trampoline. The last few days have been me verses 6 to 10 kids at a time... my body aches! Seriously, even though many are small, you get that many kids hanging around you and its a serious workout. I just popped 3 more advil for my back. It's a fun way to hangout with the kids though and they love it. A week or so ago a kid came up to me and said he had taken down "one of the big 3." I didn't understand him, so asked what he meant. He was saying that he had taken down my roommate Jon while wrestling. Apparently the boys have nicknamed me and my roommates the Big 3... I like that, haha.
There are so many basic things I miss about the states... like 24 grocery stores or even orange tic-tacs being orange, I mean I bought some orange tic-tacs the other day and they taste the same but they are white. Does that make any sense? why are orange tic-tacs here different than in the states? And why do the oreo's taste different? I mean, come on people, its the same product, just in a different country/continent. Anyway, enough of that ramble. But onto a similar point, you can't pump your own gas in this country, and when you tell someone to fill up the tank, they try to let the pump run as long as possible, even after the tank is full and the gas is spilling onto the ground... I mean, I gotta tip these people and watch them the whole time to make sure they don't pull stuff like that, it's just not worth it.
My roommates just left for a 10 day trip to cape town, so please pray for their safety and fun. It will probably be a crazy week as I'll have to probably do even more of the handy man and driving errands. Seriously it's crazy how much time we spend driving places since the village is so far out of the way. It will also be nice though to have an empty house to relax in at times. Please pray for my energy and strength this next week.
Alright gotta run without looking this over. Take care all. Hope all is well.
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