Porterville - Team Building

The whole team went to an area outside the town of Porterville, about 2 hrs north of Cape Town for 5 days of camping and team building. There are 22 waterfalls along the trail up the mountain, so awesome! Check out the pics. I felt like this weeks hiking was easier than the weekend in Stellenbosch, but Denzel said this hike was actually harder, so maybe I just learned from the first hike to be more positive and less hard on myself. Also God showed me the following verse before the hike and I recited it over and over in my head when things were difficult…..

Energize the limp hands, strengthen the rubbery knees.
Tell fearful souls, “Courage! Take heart! God is here, right here,
On his way to put things right….He’ll save you! Isaiah 35: 3-4

It was a good time, we were able to do what we wanted most of the time; we hiked, swam in the dam, went into town the one day and ate at a café, did some star-gazing, the one night the stars were SO BRIGHT, I had never seen so many stars, it was beautiful! It all reminded me of the verse right before the one above… God’s resplendent glory, fully on display. God awesome, God majesetic…

We also had many team building exercises, dealing with teamwork, trust, facing our fears, with opportunities to share more about ourselves, our thoughts about the future, what makes us special, what we struggle most with, what others can do to encourage us…. It was good to learn more about my team members, it showed how different we are yet at the same time have many things in common. I think we will be stronger as we go out again to the different ministries this week….

Speaking of ministries, we are still working on what ministries I will be serving in. We had a meeting with director of the SOS Children’s Village to let him know I am here and willing to serve them in whatever opportunities they might have. He said he would take the info back to their management team and see what they might need and then he would talk to the principal of the preschool/kindergarten they have at the Village and see if they need any help. He is to get back to us early this week, so I am hopeful we will hear from him soon with good news and I can start serving the orphans there soon, maybe 3 times a week. I have been praying for God to give me patience as I wait for additional opportunities to serve. I know that God has brought me here for a purpose and in HIS time it will be revealed, I hope you also will be praying with me my friends. I sometimes feel I should just start serving at the schools with the others, but I feel like God keeps reminding me that he called me to serve orphans and that the opportunities are out there…I am just impatient!

I have enjoyed getting involved in the office, I hope to split my time each week evenly between programs and admin in the office. They have plenty for me to do, so I am glad to have that to keep me occupied as I wait to hear from SOS. We are thinking about revamping our lifeskills and Bible study program at SOS, as it seems there are time conflicts and kids aren’t able to come. The last week we were there not may kids came to the actual program. We go an hour early and just hang out with whatever kids are out and about and they LOVE us coming! But we feel we need to look at the actual program and see how we can make it more affective, maybe look at one on one mentoring instead of the group activities…please pray also for this program…in closing God gave me another verse this week…

Form your purpose by asking for counsel, then carry it out using all the help you can get.
Proverbs 20:18

That last bit encourages me that I am not alone in this and that I should seek all the help I can get and you can help by praying! I hope all is well back home!

Blessings!