Our time in Africa was powerful. It really opened our eyes and directed our hearts. We learned so much about the African landscape, with its massive spiritual and social needs. Some of the experiences we like to describe as “the best worst thing that have ever happened to us”. In the end though, we were convinced that South Africa is where we should be. We truly fell in love with the people and our hearts ache to be back with them.
Disappointment, Decompression and Refined Vision
While in South Africa we were acquainted with several really great organizations; Traditional churches, house churches, and mission teams focused on the un-reached. Our plan is to stay connected and serve these organizations. We had previously decided to work with a church plant in Cape Town, but after further investigation, we learned that it wasn’t going to be a good fit for our us. This was disappointing because it left us with no immediate clear path back to South Africa. But as we talked with our mentors, decompressed from the year and really had a chance to meditate on what we learned it became clearer what our next steps should be.
Returning to South Africa: Inspiration, Preparation and Immigration…
We saw so much opportunity for the Gospel, and met many African leaders we really want to invest in and serve. We are certain that Cape Town, South Africa is where we want to be, long term… That being said we have decided to take some time (a year or so) to prepare before we return. There is MUCH work to do. The first hurdle is visas. It is logistically difficult to live in South Africa on volunteer visas. Volunteer visas last a limited period of time and are restrictive. We have decided to attempt immigrating to South Africa. This does not mean that we will revoke our US citizenship, rather we will pursue dual citizenship. The first step towards citizenship is finding jobs in south africa, or starting businesses. We are really excited at the prospect of starting businesses. The entrepreneurial spirit is a huge need in South Africa. People who can create jobs, develop markets and stimulate economy are in high demand (especially in regards to web technology).
Discipleship & Entrepreneurship
Nichole and I believe our gifting in business may be something that He wants to bless Africa with. Along with simply loving Africans and seeking to bless their communities, we could potentially earn access and influence that would otherwise be unobtainable. We also feel that working and doing business in South Africa puts us in an ideal place to learn the culture. When we first started thinking of going to Africa this was our vision, it has been neat to watch things come full circle and see the vision be more defined. We recently started calling it Gospel Entrepreneurship… Starting businesses with a “double bottom-line”.
This kind of mission work will allow us to create unique community and offer holistic discipleship/development to Africans that we are working with. It would also allow us to be a valuable resource to the ministry organizations that we will be partnering with. If you would like to learn more about this kind of ministry checkout this book On Kingdom Business: Transforming Missions Through Entrepreneurial Strategies
This Year: Working, Learning, Preparing and Adopting
2010 will be a big year. We will be solidifying relationships with sending churches. We are both resuming our jobs; Nichole will be doing dental hygiene and making sure I don’t break something, and I am doing social media consulting in higher education along with launching a new business that creates mobile applications. Sojourn, our church in Louisville, has a pastors school that I will be attending to get further training. To top this all off we feel strongly about trying to adopt a child from Africa this year. We are signing a lease for a little home in Germantown, Louisville, and hope that it will be the last lease we sign in the US for a long time. Needless to say, we need your prayers for all of these endeavors.
Your prayers and support this year have been invaluable. 2009 was a hard year, and we really couldn’t imagine having done it without all of you. The letters, notes, comments, phone calls, emails, twitters, facebooks and messages have truly blessed us.
As always, we love to get comments from you! Feel free to ask any questions too, and from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU.
I have been doing short term contract work for Southern Seminary and had an opportunity to speak on Social Media and the Gospel.
Social Media is Powerful, Dangerous & Necessary
The seminary has been so welcoming and incredibly receptive to the use of social media for the advancement of the Gospel. It has really been a pleasure.
This video should give you a better flavor of the environment we are living in. The voice you hear is Stephen Murray. He is one of the local leaders of the church plant.
This is a general post to begin casting the vision of where we are and where we are going. There is so much to say here, but I will try to keep it concise. I would love to chat with anyone individually if they would like to know more or if you would like to be involved on a deeper level.
Confirming the Vision – Defining the Vehicle
So much has happened in the last 6 months. Being in Africa has taught us a lot about the Gospel, our lives and ministry. Our vision of seeing the Gospel change lives was powerfully affirmed, but we did not have a clearly defined vehicle of ministry. During these last 6 months we were courting 2 awesome organizations, All Nations and The Acts 29 Church Planting Network). The final decision has been to join the Acts 29 efforts happening here in South Africa. The major reason for this decision was our home church, Sojourn Community Church, is part of the Acts 29 Network. It was at Sojourn that we experienced the initial inspiration to move to South Africa to live and work. We have also been impressed by the Acts 29 Network as a whole, it was recently named by researchers the most influential church planting movement in the world.
Who are we working with? What will we be doing?
The Acts 29 Director of Africa, JD Senkbile, has invited us to join him in planting a church in the heart of Cape Town. We have accepted the invitation. We really like JD, his family, and his vision for planting city churches that are transforming the city through the Gospel.
Along with living as missionaries to the city of Cape Town, I am being asked to contribute my technology, communications and networking skills to the mission of the church plant and Nichole will be involved in the administration of the church i.e. making it legal, setting up financial systems, etc.
Early Stages of an Urban Church Plant. Learn, Learn, Learn…
Cape Town is an incredibly cosmopolitan/diverse city. Though it looks NOTHING like most of Africa, you can find almost every African country represented. There is a huge opportunity to have an impact on all of Africa from this city… To our dismay, the city center has almost no evangelical churches and many churches are closing and or moving to the outlying suburbs. This should not be happening… We are working with JD as the team takes the initial steps for strategically planting an urban church. At the moment we are burying ourselves in the culture. Attending key cultural activities, doing demographic research, networking with leaders and building relationships with locals. It has been very exciting. There has been little or no opposition to the proposal of a new church plant in the city center. I had a local business man get really intense when I told him what we were planning to do. “This part of the city needs a church badly, there are so many drug addicted, lonely and lost people in this area and there is no church to meet them”.
We want to meet them.
Missionaries to Africa live in rural villages, eat caterpillars and sleep in mud huts…
The next several months may look very strange to some of you. It actually looks strange to us. In our minds, missionaries to Africa live in rural villages, eat caterpillars and sleep in mud huts. Though there is a place for missionaries to go to such places, God is leading us to be in the city. We believe the city is a strategic place to be with the potential to affect the entire continent. That being said, many of the pictures, videos and activities we share with you are going to look much different from what we have been sharing and what you might expect.
To all of our friends, family and supporters… Thank You for being a part of this journey with us. If you have any questions or comments we would love to hear from you! Feel free to contact us directly or leave a comment below…
Amazing, difficult, profound, adventurous, turbulent, challenging, awesome, character-building, revealing, educational, radical, enlightening, frustrating, life-giving and eye-opening. Thats a decent stack of adjectives to describe the last 6 months of our lives in Africa. The first 3 months we were in Cape Town, South Africa with a missions organization called All Nations. We worked in an [...]
There are 10 christian tv channels and an infantry of churches and cults in Vic Falls, so the environment is very “religious”. Strangely though there is a huge shortage of bibles here. That being said there is much heresy and false doctrine floating around. It was very discouraging at first, especially at bible studies when [...]
This is a guest post from our team member Danielle Kittinger.
I was in the midst of falling into a deep sleep when my dreams became influenced by outside noises. Dogs were barking, followed by a heavy scuffling and blowing, joined by the sounds of running, clapping and calling. Suddenly reality broke through the [...]
Our first day of outreach we met Bruce. He shared a bit about himself and we shared our vision. He was receptive and really grasped what we were trying to do. He promptly led us to his entire family which was scattered all over Chinotimba. The last stop was his home. It was a 6 [...]
