This past month our Leadership Summit coaches were taught a discipleship curriculum about reaching out to those around them.  Together, the coaches decided to go to a nursing home in their community as a way to come in contact with people they normally would not reach. In preparation, the coaches put together a small choir so that they could share Christ through song.

While at the nursing home, they read verses and made bracelets with the residents.  Not only were the people touched, but so many of the coaches were touched as well.  “I cried when they told us their individual stories,” said Patricia.  She went on to say how she was able to share with a man how God gives her strength and will give him strength as well.

“I met a woman and she told me that her children have not come to see her for a long time,” shared Busiswe. “I told her that as I speak to her, I am her child and I know that she is not alone because God is there for her everyday. I told her to put her trust in God because God does not leave His children alone; He takes care of them.”

Our coaches rock!

In our AIDS prevention program, our coaches are teaching our Save Sex curriculum. Instead of the common mindset of “safe sex”, we’re teaching young people to save sex for marriage. The coaches spoke out recently about how important it is to teach their students the value of saving sex until marriage.  They have taken the curriculum to heart and are focused on reaching all of their students with the truth about sex.  They are excited about the impact it can have on the youth in their community.

Mapuleng, one of our coaches, shared: “I want students to know the consequences of sex before marriage by dismissing the myths and increasing knowledge of the facts, including the Bible’s truth.”

Patricia, another coach, said that as she was showing the curriculum books to one of her classes, the students were so excited about how it looks like a magazine.  One of her students even recognized her cousin in one of the pictures and couldn’t wait to take it home to her family.

We are anticipating a great term with all the excitement that is in the air.

The past couple of months we’ve been looking for new coaches who have the passion, heart, and commitment to reach out to students in our Leadership Summit AIDS prevention program in Qwa Qwa.

When we finally found men and women that proved themselves worthy for the job, they had to face the challenging task of uniting with the existing coaches. We’ve spent the past few months bringing the new and old coaches together, training them as a team and bringing unity to the two groups. We’ve been helping them become closer than just coworkers; they’re becoming family.

We are so eager to see our program acquire new coaches each year because it means that our program is continuing to grow. Growth is good because it means that we can spread ourselves further and reach more students through our program.

No longer will it be new coaches and old coaches, but it will be the Leadership Summit coaches as one whole family. We are so proud of all them and cannot wait to see what God will do through them in this next term. We know that many students will be changed and that our coaches will continue to bring His light into Qwa Qwa.

Be sure to check out our August Field Report that contains the following stories and updates:

• Worth the Wait
• LaunchPad Starts Again
• “Jesus Healed Me!”
• Donate by Shopping

We’re so excited to announce that we finally have Thrive Africa t-shirts.  We’ve been wanting to have them for years, but just never got around to it!  We think these are going to sell really well in our curio shop. Kudos to Marc, for pushing and pushing until we made this happen! Thanks also go out to our intern models, Jody and Matt, for showing off a few more tees below.

We’ve chosen to do 5 different designs to start with:

• I Climbed Mount Everest - One of the mountains on our property
• Thrive Africa - A little organization promo
• Makgoa - Means “white person” in Sesotho
• Intabazwe - A village we minister in
• Qwa Qwa - Another village we minister in

The last thing we would have thought of doing on sunny Friday afternoon was hand out knitted hats to the Hope House kids, but that’s just what we did.

Megan Irwin, a 2007 Twenty4Seven intern, had her heart set on impacting the kids at Hope House no matter whether she was still in Africa or not. When she left the internship at the end of 2007, she decided to undertake a huge project: knitting 40 winter hats to give to all of the children. We were ecstatic to receive a package last week busting at the seams with 40 knitted hats just like she’d promised. We left for Hope House that Friday with anticipation brewing in our hearts, and were not disappointed with their reactions. She’d included a card that we read to them, and they erupted at the mention of her name; clearly she had not been forgotten. When we handed out the hats, there wasn’t a dull face in the bunch. The kids were absolutely squirming with joy, and their excitement was contagious.

It turns out that the hats came at just the right time. This past weekend the temperatures dropped considerably, enough to encourage wearing scarves outside, and all I could think about was how perfect her timing was. Because of her dedication and our delivery, the kids spent the chilly weekend with warm heads and even warmer hearts.

The Thrive Trip team met a man named Thomas who was suffering from epilepsy. Thomas had no family and was living with a friend. The man who cared for him was gone most of the time, so Thomas was usually left alone. When Thomas was younger, his mother read Bible stories to him and his siblings. Both of his parents tragically died, and the children were left to the care of their grandmother. Unfortunately, his grandma was a sangoma (witchdoctor) who tried to poison the children. Thomas thanks God for being saved from being poisoned.

The group prayed for Thomas, asking God to heal his epilepsy. When they were finished, Thomas said that he had felt power course through his body, and he knew that God had healed him.

When the group returned to his house after lunch, Thomas was already looking better. He was talking more clearly, and both of his eyes were open. They shared Scriptures with him about the healing power of God.

The next day, Thomas was walking down the street, waving to them. He told them he was filled with joy, because God sent them to him. He can’t read, so he has the friend he lives with read the Bible to him. He wants to bring the man to Christ and to church with him on Sundays. Thomas says he will always remember the day he was healed, and he wants to share Jesus Christ with everyone he knows!

When we hosted a team from Mountainview Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, God—as always—worked as much in the lives of the team members as He did in the lives of the nationals they touched. Here’s the stories of three of the team members.

Chris
Chris was most impacted by a woman his team met, Sarah. He was touched by her love, humility, and trust. He believes the level of trust she was able to show was possible because though she had never had a white person enter her home, the love of Christ abounded. The experience was humbling and will stay with him forever. Chris says his heart is broken for the people of South Africa, and God gave him compassion for their situation. He now feels equipped with the information and the heart to better allocate his resources for sending others into the mission field.

Lani
While Lani was in Intabazwe ministering, she met a woman who said something she will never forget: “Maybe God sent you here just to speak to me.” Lani was also utterly taken aback by the amazing power of prayer. Her group met two men who were alcoholics, and after praying with the men for an end to their addiction, the men stopped drinking.

Aiden
This was Aiden’s first mission trip, and he feels this experience has truly shaped him. His eyes were opened to many things, including the enormous amount of potential in the people of the villages—the potential for the adults and children to become incredible leaders. God showed Aiden the power of sharing Jesus Christ with people through relationships. He is anxious to share what he has learned here in South Africa with the members of his community back home. Aiden is also waiting for God to send him on his next mission trip. His heart has been burdened to share the love of Christ all over the world, “How can we stay in the United States when there are people out there like [these people]?” He is returning home equipped with a heart for many, many more mission trips!

Christina Corvin, one of our Outreach Staff interns, shared this amazing story with us:

When I was out doing ministry with the team we hosted from The Falls Church, we saw God do the miraculous!

On our second day in Qwa Qwa, my group saw a woman sitting on her front step, eyes covered with her hands. We introduced ourselves and found out her name was Maria. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot and had a slight cloudiness over the pupils. She said she had been in pain for over two years. And then she pointed to her feet and told us she couldn’t wear shoes because her feet had been painfully swollen for a long time. We asked if we could pray and she said, “If you pray for me, I will be healed.”

We were all instantly encouraged by her incredible faith, and we prayed for her. When we finished praying, she told us the pain was gone! We were so excited and told her that we would keep praying, because by the end of the week, she was going to see us coming, clearly.

Sure enough, we went back the next day, and her eyes were no longer cloudy, and there was still no pain. And then the next day, God had healed the pressure, and the blood vessels had relaxed and her eyes were no longer bloodshot. She thanked us repeatedly and told us she thanked God for bringing us to Africa. We left with our spirits high and our hearts encouraged by God’s healing grace. He is not just alive and moving, He is alive and moving in the small corners of the world, like Maria’s house in Qwa Qwa. We thank God that Maria can see perfectly and pain-free again.

Oh, and she can wear shoes again, too.

We spent this past weekend redefining passion.

The Passion Conference came to Johannesburg, and we were lucky enough to be a part of it. The entire day was electrifying, and the shadow of it still impresses itself on our hearts and minds. We were with 6,000 other students praising the name of our Lord, and the best part was that we weren’t even in our home country. We had the opportunity to unite ourselves with thousands of South African students in the Name of Jesus, and it was absolutely breathtaking.

In case it wasn’t clear enough, Passion’s purpose is to ‘glorify God-uniting students in worship and prayer for spiritual awakening in this generation’, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Passion is uprooting students all over the world and bringing them to a point of awareness where they can begin making a monumental difference even in their generation, and the excitement is catching.