Last week, our interns traveled to about ten different schools in Qwa Qwa and Intabazwe to perform a short drama to get students excited for LaunchPad classes (they started this week!).  Tumo’s Journey helped students realize that they do have a God-given purpose and that they can find this purpose throughout this term in the discipleship classes.

“I enjoyed the kids telling me that they wanted to find their purpose and to know more about God,” Jeremy said, “it was exciting to see their joy.”

On the last day, the interns even had the opportunity to pray with about fifty students. There were even three salvations! God moved in big ways throughout the week. We’re excited to see all He has in store for this term of LaunchPad!

On Saturday the Twenty4Seven interns and several staff members were given the opportunity to go rappelling off of Mount Everest.  It was a great time for team building, as well as bonding. The interns had a chance to overcome their fears, as well as a chance to try something new, while allowing the staff members to be an encouragement for them. Lucas, our guide, did a great job preparing everyone for the adventure!

Some of the interns even mentioned that having to trust Lucas and the equipment to keep them safe was much like having to trust God for protection and safety. Seeing God in even the littlest of ways, from the beauty of the mountain to the lesson in trust, made for an overall great experience.

Check out more pictures from the rappelling adventure here!

-Alaina, Twenty4Seven Intern

Our 2010 Twenty4Seven interns arrived last night. We’re so excited that they’ve joined in South Africa for the next 10 months!

Coming from all over the United States and Canada, there’s no doubt our interns will be an integral part of the ministry for 2010. We can’t wait to see what God does in them and through them throughout this year.

Join us in praying for them as they get settled into life on the field!

Our interns have spent a lot of time with the kids from Limakatso this year. Our Next Step interns worked hard this summer to renovate their physical buildings. And over the last few months, the Twenty4Seven interns have spent a couple hours with them every Thursday.

It was a huge blessing to be able to host their Christmas party on the mission base on Friday. They had a braai and were able to open Christmas presents with the interns.

You can see pictures from the Christmas party and the rest of our year-end celebrations here.

Our interns have been working on an Adopt-a-Family project for the past few months.

They built a house for a local family from the ground up. At the beginning, there were many labor filled days of making mud to form bricks. Then, our interns took the dried bricks and stacked them up to make walls. Eventually, a door was set in place and, even more recently, the roof.

Then the fun really started! Ditema, a mix of mud and cow dung, was spread over the outside walls. Designs were drawn on the walls and, once dried, they were painted.

After all the time they’ve put into the project, they are excited to report that the interns have finished the project. Not only was it a great opportunity to serve the family, but the interns were also able to learn even more about Basotho culture!

When do you get to play in dirt and cow dung? When building a house, of course!

Over the last few months, our Twenty4Seven interns have been working on a project called “Adopt-a-Family”, they’re building a house for a local family. Now that the they have finished the building portion of the project, they have moved on to ditema the walls. This includes a messy process of mixing cow dung, dirt, and water.

Once the mixture has been made, the brave interns who can handle the stench smear the mud on the house and using forks to make a design. The design is painted once the mud has dried. Each family typically keeps a copy of the different designs passed down from generation to generation.

Along with ditema, the interns are working hard to put the roof on the house.  Everyone is excited to see the finished project and to bless the family with this beautiful addition.

This fall, the other interns and I have been going to the Limakatso Disabled Center. We’re there to help assess the students. The experience has been great! To an outsider, it might look like we are just playing games and doing crafts, but we are also seeing their ability to write, use scissors, jump, and balance.

Each time we play with the kids on the playground, my mind goes back a few months, when we were blessed with so many Next Step interns.

One of them, Alison Gamble, told us this of one of her time at Limakatso:

“This week went by way too quickly.  I loved being at Limakatso on Monday and Tuesday with the entire Next Step team.  The transformation made in just two days was incredible.”

Even though they have been home for over two months now, their work has not been forgotten. We get to see the students reap the benefits of their hard work each week as we play with them. I know it will continue to bless the kids at Limakatso.

-Jen Tuck, Twenty4Seven Intern

Twenty4Seven is our year-long internship program. Our current interns are such a blessing to the ministry! We love seeing how God has worked in and through them over the past 8 months.

Here’s what one of our interns, Amiel, said about his year so far:

“We are 8 months into the internship; we just have a little over 2 months left. God has been so big in all of our lives as interns, we have really come together as a team. We have been able to see God do great things over the last few months.

At the same time, it’s not over yet, we still know that God has great things for us in the next 2 months. As interns we have been talking about how important it is to finish strong–we’re seeking God for what He still has for each of us for the rest of the year.”

The Twenty4Seven interns are beginning to spend time each week at Limakatso Disabled Center. Here’s what one of our interns said about the experience:

“We kicked off our time there with a day to meet and play with each of the students. We were able to make observations of each of them and will be taking more notes over the next several weeks.

During our time at Limakatso we will be playing and doing activities, but our primary goal is to make assessments of each student. We want to help determine what needs to be done so  improvements can be made in their daily lives and education. We are all excited to be doing this and can’t wait to see the lasting impact!”

-Jen Tuck, Twenty4Seven Intern

Our Next Step interns gave us a labor of love and learned that it is “All Kingdom business” as they helped to maintain our 2500 acre mission base while they were here. If you don’t live in a wood house, you may not know how important it is to oil everything that is wood every year. It helps plug leaks and keep the wind out.  And on our mission base, we have a lot of wooden structures.  Here is what one of our interns said about this last project:

“It was pretty hard work, but being able to fellowship with other people during that time made it go by really quickly. It was also a good reminder that all the things we do here, no matter how small or even when we’re working on base, its all for the Kingdom of God.”