In Leadership Summit, the coaches are not only teaching their students valuable information, they are also building genuine relationships.  Throughout their classes, they are investing in their students and building a deep and compelling trust.

A student in Patricia’s class has opened up to her enough to share an untold hurt.  When the student tried to share this with her parents, she was met with cold shoulders and indifferent hearts.  Instead of being unreceptive, Patricia welcomed her with love and warmth, enabling her to find freedom in the arms of God.  Patricia helped her student embrace healing by putting her in contact with someone who could provide additional counseling and connect her with the right authorities.

Recently the interns and many of our staff members had the opportunity to attend a traditional festival in Qwa Qwa, that was put together just for us! We spent a Saturday morning amazed by traditional dancing and music. A couple dozen people had practiced daily for about two weeks-just to be able to share more of their culture with us.

We know the more we can learn about Basotho culture, the more effective we’ll be as a ministry. It’s safe to say we all walked away from this experience not only with more knowledge, but also feeling incredibly honored and blessed to be entrusted with participation in these cultural practices.

“I’m free!” she exclaimed.  One of Tshidi’s Leadership Summit students had approached her with a heavy heart about being an orphan, but left school that day liberated.  “I told her she wasn’t an accident.  God made her for a purpose and wanted to use her,” said Tshidi.

Tshidi always has a testimony to share during our weekly coach meetings, but this week her faced glowed as she retold the story.  Another Leadership Summit Coach, Thapelo, practically interrupted Tshidi with a similar story.  In Thapelo’s words:

“After teaching the lesson on self-image, a boy from my class came up to me and said, ‘You really lifted me up.  The kids always make fun of me because I’m a little darker, but I’m made in the image of God and that is all that matters.’  It felt so good to be used by God to help him.”

We hosted our first-ever radio station mission team this month!  Life 100.3, from Barrie, Ontario formed a team comprised of promotional winners and radio station staff- and they spent 10 days serving alongside of us.

Driving through Qwa Qwa on their first day of ministry, the team needed to turn on the radio to see what South African’s listen to.  Seeming more than coincidental- the Qwa Qwa radio station is the very same frequency as Life: 100.3.

Before their time in Qwa Qwa came to an end, Life and Qwa Qwa Radio staff were talking face to face.  They spent a morning together- sharing about everything from Canadian culture to radio technologies- and in doing so, Thrive made a new connection that’s loaded with potential for spreading the love of Christ.

It was awesome to see God work through more than a coincidence- it was His providence.

Our AIDS Prevention Program, Leadership Summit, hosts a quarterly one-day leadership seminar called IMPACT. On May 2oth we had nearly 200 students from 17 public schools in Qwa Qwa spend the day being challenged to impact their respective communities and schools.

At this IMPACT- we wrapped up and reviewed our past teachings on leadership- and then we called the kids to action. We broke up into small-groups by school, facilitated by a Thrive staff member or intern, and each group was given the task of addressing a problem in their school. These were the instructions: identify problems in your school, narrow it down to one you think is most important and then decide what you will do about it.

We know these kids are amazing. But, we were blown away by these 7^th, 8^th & 9^th graders.

By the next IMPACT on September 14^th, the kids are going to do things like: launch a campaign to increase school safety, get electricity in their school (sadly, some schools still don’t have reliable electricity), and start a peer counseling service for other students.

By the end of IMPACT, the students were charged up! They left excited about their projects and feeling equipped to change their schools. Little do they know that as a Thrive Africa family, we left the day so encouraged by what God is doing through them-that we can’t wait to hear what they report back in September.

Check out pictures from IMPACT here.

“I think I am a mistake!” admitted Dikeledi, a student in Lettia’s Leadership Summit class.  Lettia’s heart broke as Dikeledi described her situation at home.  ”Since I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, my parents don’t treat me well.”  Lettia replied by speaking right to Dikeledi’s heart, “You are not alone.  God is always with you and will never leave you.”  Dikeledi’s demeanor began to change in front of Lettia as she continued, “God will give you guidance on how you can get through this difficult time, if you ask Him.”

The conversation continued as Lettia encouraged Dikeledi to keep respecting her parents and demonstrating the love of God through her actions.  “You really helped me so much!”  Dikeledi said as she hugged Lettia.  Dikeledi returned home that day with a new hope and excitement in how God could use her to reach her family, because Lettia allowed God to speak through her.

After seeing the impact that Leadership Summit had in her son’s life, Emily wanted to have the same kind of influence on others- so she joined our staff as a Leadership Summit Coach.  After reading through our curriculum materials, Emily expressed, “I didn’t know how important I am to God.” Even though Emily’s reason for joining staff was to reach out and empower her students- she’s also been changed within.  Emily said, “My husband told me that God is using me and when the hard times come, I need to push through and let His power work.”  It is such a privilege to watch our coaches grow spiritually through their commitments to impact others with the love of God.

God has chosen each one of the Leadership Summit coaches and entrusted them with His valuable Word.  They are showing Christ to students who never may have sought or understood Him otherwise.

Thapelo, a coach, is encouraged to use this gift, “Nothing much to say I only see God’s grace every time after class. And I become like wow God is using me to pass out his message to his lost people. Obviously God trusts me that is why he chose me. So now I am looking to reach more souls for God’s glory.”

It is so important that as we do God’s work, we are driven by the desire to glorify Him.  The message being taught in the schools is not our own- but God’s- and it’s making an eternal impact in the lives of many.

~ Sam Behrman, Twenty4Seven Intern

After a three-week break from LaunchPad, the interns were anxious to jump back into teaching classes. This week was devoted to reviewing what the students had learned so far this term. With a few minutes at the end of her class, Samantha opened up the floor for questions. She told the students to ask anything.

And they did. Topics ranged from friends to what God thinks about homosexuality. It was a safe environment for the students to ask challenging questions about topics they’re dealing with in their daily lives, but aren’t being talked about at home. Even though there were some tough questions, Samantha did a great job of fielding questions and instilling truth into the kids in her class.

It’s exciting to see how, as they pour into others, our interns are being stretched and are growing through teaching.

Our experience at Thrive was so diverse and varied: pastor’s conference, orphanage, disabled centre, relationship evangelism, praying at the local hospital, etc.- that it is hard to claim just one as being the most impactful.  Looking back on our trip, I can see God’s hand in each activity, visit and conversation we had, which is so faith-inspiring.  One such time occurred at the Limakatso Disabled Centre.  We were there for the second day in a row and my husband Dave and I were excited to get the chance to serve these delightful children for another day.

We had our “Noah’s Ark” theme and activity ready to go: the plan was for Dave to use a hand puppet to help me narrate the Noah’s Ark story.  Then we were going to have the children glue popsicle sticks in the shape of an ark and then inside we would decorate them with animal stickers and rainbows, of course, to symbolize God’s promise.  The morning started off well, with Topsy (our translator) helping us communicate this amazing Old Testament story.  After I finished reading, I told the children that now we’d be passing around construction paper and popsicle sticks.  As I was talking I turned to my basket of materials and realize with a missing heartbeat that there was NO construction paper!  I frantically looked under the basket to see if we had dropped it or stuffed it in Dave’s back-pack.  With sinking hearts, Dave and I realized at the same time that we had forgotten the construction paper. I immediately started to panic, after all, our ENTIRE lesson hinged on using PAPER to construct an ark!  And remember, this is Africa so it’s hard to improvise and just run to the big supply room to grab more or to just find new materials and switch to a different project!  Desperately I sent up a prayer to God for help...”I’m not a teacher by trade Lord you know that…how am I to fill in the time for them…what are we to do now!?”  And all of these dear children were just staring at us happily expecting the project to begin so I turned with pleading eyes to Topsy and said, Do you have ANY paper?  In my head I was thinking that even a small pad of paper would do!  She pointed to the one cupboard in the classroom and said, oh yes, there should be some there.  I walked over not knowing what to expect and inside I found big thick sheets of blue, red, pink and green construction paper!  And even better, the papers were all printed with the following graphic on the bottom: GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES.

Well, the Lord certainly got my attention that day!  I immediately felt foolish for having had any anxiety or fear about the lesson…not only did He provide, but he provided even better paper than we could have dreamed!  And as the story of Noah is essentially a story of the Lord’s covenant with us…the subtitle of the page just made the children’s projects look as if we had planned it ourselves.  It was a small, but subtle reminder to me that Jesus is constantly walking ahead, besides and behind us all the time.