Bafana Bafana!

Hey HEY HEY!






Where do I even begin! I feel like I need to have a daily update to actually communicate accurately all of God's goodness! It's hard to even know where to start...How about by telling you how extremely pumped I am that the World Cup is in 2 days! Everyday at noon everyone in all of South Africa goes outside and blows their airhorn for at least 30 minutes. It is madness here! I was actually on the South African News yesterday! We matched around Cape Town as apart of a prayer walk and the news came and filmed us as I was jumping up and down with excitement! Then I was interviewed about what we were doing here and was on the South African radio for at least 10 minutes...everyone thinks I sound like Miley Cyrus, so maybe South Africans everywhere think Hannah Montana came into town for the World Cup, either way, it was amazing that the interview was broadcasted around the country and I was able to share the gospel through the radio waves! Don't worry I will sign autographs later :)!







In other news, ministry is really starting to pick up. Starting Monday, we will be doing soccer clinics in the morning, public viewing areas in the afternoon where we will be serving free coffee and talking with all the fans, and then prostitution/human trafficking ministry in the evening to late evening. Human Trafficking is such a huge issue, because just for the world cup they are bringing in 40,000 women and children as human sex slaves. Many of them have come here with promises of modeling jobs or a chance to star in a movie, only to be brought into hostels and drugged or beat into submission. We went through training on how to respond to this, but the worst thing on all this is 75% of those captive in human trafficking are from the ages 5-15. We have been trained to know what to look for and have even been working with the non-corrupt Cape Town police! I have developed a relationship with a girl who was raped repeatedly and almost sold, but was rescued in the last moments through a miracle. She has since become a Christian, and I have been visiting her everyday and helping her through the discipleship process and she is even going to do a Discipleship Training School with YWAM! We brought her the application yesterday!





Also, we have been able to talk with AIDs Victims, prisoners, gangsters, drug dealers, widows, children, youth, single parents, orphans and everyone in between about the gospel. We have seen guys be completely drunk and as we prayed for them they completely sobered up, and we have seen men with heart disease and polio healed! We have talked with witch doctors and done muslim ministry around town! We even have talked to a few crazy people which was very entertaining, one guy was convinced that Jesus was his mother and everything he said was a line from a movie, but he loved his bible we gave him and treasured it like he had never been given anything so great before. I wish so much that you all could come along with me and see what an amazing God we serve!





Just a few prayer points:

1. Safety. Soccer fans are more passionate than American football fans, so just pray for God's protection over our team and over the nation. We have had a few close calls with some of our team members, and nothing major happened, so I know that that had something to do with you prayer warriors out there.

2. World Cup team fans. It is amazing that nations are coming to South Africa! Can you believe that the world's biggest persecutor of Christians is North Korea, and their fans are coming to South Africa! We will get to share the gospel openly to the most closed country in the world! Just pray for opportunity to open up among these nations and they can be transformed here and take it back to their countries and transform their nations

3. Human Trafficking. That we will be able to have eyes to see and wisdom to fight against this as well as safety as we minister into the late hours of the night.

4. USA to not get completely smoked by England this Saturday, because we have some serious England fans around here and I will never hear the end of it if we lose! We did beat Australia in a friendly match on Saturday 3-1, so I enjoyed that OOOO SO MUCH! Also, If you are watching the quarter final and semi final games on TV, look for me behind the goals on the 9th row, because that is where my seats will be!! I will be painted from head to toe and if Brazil is playing, I have a jersey, a scarf, a hat, some brazilian flag sunglasses and some brazil jewlery, so hopefully they get a close up! My luck on getting on national tv has been pretty good, but I think I am ready for the international stage :)!





Well, that's all for now, I can't wait to see what God is going to do in the next few weeks and what type of stories I will have to share next update! We serve an AWESOME GOD! I love yall and I miss you! send updates on life in your world, I hope to send pictures soon :P





Bafana, Bafana!!!!

Cape Town!

I finally had time to write and update you all on all the happenings of Africa!  We have been here a little less than 2 weeks and I have already fallen in love with this place and these people.  We have done so much ministry already.  We have visited a couple of village/townships and served food and rice to the people in the area.  We have played a lot of soccer with the kids in these areas which has been awesome to connect with them first through sports and then after they have warmed up to us then we were able to go into their homes and talk with their families.  I connected really well with a girl named Caylin and after going into her home, we talked with her family for an hour.  There were around 20 people living in one small apartment room.  They were so excited to have us there and even when they had so little, they tried to offer what they did have for us!  It was really great to talk with the family and build the relationship with them.  It is really heart breaking in some of these community because of the hopelessness in some of the hearts of these people.  One girl was 10 years old and was talking about the only form of entertainment they can afford is to have sex, and she said if the statistics are correct then she will have AIDS by the time she is 15 and be dead by the time she is 20, and that is what she has to hope for in her life.  It is great to be able to go into these communities and offer the message of Hope and speak truth into their lives.  The people are so receptive to the gospel.  It has been great to watch as they hear that some one loves them unconditionally.  I talked with one girl in one of the youth groups we were helping with and she started crying as I was telling her that God is a father that loves her and created her and has a plan for her life, because her father was killed in a gang fight and her mother has different guys over and they have abused her.  Watching her cry over the gospel reminded me how powerful the Gospel actually is and what an amazing message we carry!  Besides working in townships and food shelters, we have worked with youth groups, done dramas and talks at local high schools, worked with orphans, and went to an AIDS hospital.  In the AIDS Hospital,  the people in these places are the people who have around 2 or 3 weeks left to live.  We were able to talk and pray for these people, but it is very hard to stomach some of there stories of children who are innocent and infected with AIDS or young girls who are raped and didn't do anything to deserve this situation.  I am still trying to process it all, but I know my life will never be the same after I leave this place.  I am excited about the ministry opportunities coming up, because we are going to be helping with Samaritan's feet and giving 30,000 new shoes away to children who don't even own one pair of shoes!! I am really excited about this and also, the world cup starts in 18 days!! The excitement in Cape Town is unbelievable!! The ministry opportunity is going to be crazy and I'm pumped! AHHHH USA for the win!! probably not USA, but FOR SURE BRAZIL! GOOOOOO BRAZIL!  I have already gotten my yellow jersey and face paint, so I'm ready!

Australian Update!

EasterFest!

Hey YALL!!

I just wanted to update you all with happenings around base these last couple of weeks!! Things have been so crazy in the land down under! We went to a town called Toowoomba for a week. First, it was great to be in the city because how much fun I had saying the word TooWOOMBA! I found reasons just to say the town name, because it is such a crazy name. Also, during this week was April Fools Day, so you know that I had fun with this day! We were in Toowoomba because we were in charge of the nations largest Christian Festival called "EasterFest." It is alot like "Rock the Desert" in Midland! We were in charge of setting up the festival and helping wherever we were needed. I had no idea what went into a concert like this! We woke up around 5:30 every morning and didn't go to bed before 2am. During the festival we did everything from Security (that's right, I was backstage during KJ-52, Superchick, and Newsboys!) We had a lot of fun with the Security aspect because we were checking wristbands as people were walking into the park. We would pull them to the side and make them feel like they were in trouble and then ask them with serious faces "have you eaten any fruit today?" or "could you please hop on your left foot?" then we would take the tongs from the kitchen and use it as a pretend security scanner. It is amazing

what people will do when you have a Security shirt on. Another cool thing we were able to do was walk through the camping areas at night and just hang out with the thousands of youth campers! Because I had an accent it was like an automatic open door into conversations! We had

great conversations with people and saw some real deliverance from sin and hard times they were going through. One thing I learned alot through out this week was just the joy of serving. I was in charge of changing the Rubbish bins (that's right they call it Rubbish bins...I have been made

fun of multiple times trying to call it Trash cans!) anyways, I had to change all the trash bins everyday. With a concert this big, I would say there were around 400 or 500 rubbish bins spread out over a kilometer (that's australian for Mile) The first day I had a lot of fun, because we walked around with the trash claw that picks up trash easily and also looks a lot like a gun or sword, so we made it a "special operation" and did ninja moves to each rubbish bin.

The second day, the claws broke, and my army buddies were assigned to moshpit security, so I had to go around by myself. During this time, God really taught me an awesome lesson. This is what serving is all about. Sure, its fun to serve when God calls you to be the cool backstage Security hands and it's easy when he calls you to serve in the comforts of your life, but what about when he calls you to serve among the garbage and in the disgusting rubbish bins that when they are changed, your work goes unrecognized? I believe that when Jesus was here,

He was serving in the dumps and serving among the Trash. It's the Joy of serving. When I came here, I said, Lord, I will go anywhere, I want to be your hands and feet. It was as though God was saying "sure Dondi, you will serve me in the cool places like Africa and do cool things like

feeding the hungry or building house, but will you go among the rubbish and serve me with everything? Will you go to the discusting places by the world standards? And when you go there will you serve and see people through my eye? Will you love the unlovable, and will you still serve when your work goes un-noticed?" I came to realize, I am ready to serve where ever God can use me, even if that is in the depths of the rubbish. Here I am, Send me!

Update from Down-Under

Wow, were do I begin.... I told myself I would update this thing once a week, but when life gets going...It really gets going!  I don't even know how to describe what has happened in the last 6 weeks except to say that my life will never be the same.  I have seen God in a way that I have never experienced before.  We have studied his character and nature like God the father, the comforter, the provider, the king, the friend, the director, the master, the healer, and the warrior.  It was great diving into each of these areas, because their are so many aspects of God that I feel I have only seen the beginning.  We were at the beach all week last week, and I would get up early in the morning to watch the sunrise and see the waves come into the shore.  I just felt like this was symbolic to what I am learning here.  Right now, I feel I have only see the shore of his ocean.  If this is what the shore looks like then I want to be swimming deep into all that He has for me.  Each week as I process through lectures I think, ok, now I think I get it and then the next week starts and my mind is blown once again!  This week we are learning about God being Lord in our life.  That means surrendering our lives, the plans we have made for ourselves, the worry and doubt of what comes next and just completely following Jesus.  It is alot easier said then done, but I want that so much!  I can't wait to see what the next step is!

So, We are going to South Africa in May! I'm so excited because I'm pretty sure we got World Cup tickets!! I'm very slowly becoming a Soccer fan and since we play soccer almost every day around here I realize that I wasted my time playing basketball and volleyball all my life while the rest of the world is an expert at soccer!  I have also started playing some tennis, some of you may know my history with Tennis, but I am determind to rise above it and be an expert when I get out of here!  Anyways, in south africa the plan is to go and do whatever is needed of us.  Maybe that is playing with orphans, talking with the prostitutes, serving the widows, I am not sure what all that is going to look like, but we are praying now that God would move mountains and use us to do his will!  I'm pumped!!

Hopefully I will be able to get back into the whole once a week update thing!  We are going to an easter festival all week next week, so I will update after all that happens there!  g'day mates!

dondi

cRaZy WeEk

This was a video we made for our YWAM book report hahaha!

South Africa!!

Our group just found out that in the middle of May until the middle of July we will all be working in South Africa!  It is going to be during the World Cup which is really cool because people from every country, tribe, tongue and nation will be in this place for this event.  We will be working in the prison ministries, human trafficing, prostitution, drug rehab, and evangelism around Cape Town.  I am so excited and pumped to see how God is going to move in this place.