Home Sweet Home!

So, I'm now back in the big USA for a month!  I stepped off the plane after 48 hours of traveling, and was greeted with a whole crew of Texans!  So great to have people surrounding me that understand the value of American football and the beauty of country music!  We went straight for Mexican food and I had a good ole' fashion burrito with a large Dr. Pepper.  Who knew how amazing Dr. Pepper could taste after months of seperation. I guess the statement is true...absense makes the heart grow fonder.  I have really enjoyed being home these last couple of days, just catching up with friends and sleeping in my own room with my own bed.  What a luxury!  So, what's next for the vagabond?  Well, I'm heading to Switzerland for a school called communications and design.  I will be at this school for 3 months and here I will be learning all about the ends and outs of photoshop, video editing, and graphic design, and they will be teaching us ways to effectively communicate the gospel throught the media.  After this training, I plan on joining the Olympic outreach team in London starting in January.  The goal of this team is to travel around Europe and get people excited about missions and hopefully get the churches to send a team to do outreach during the Olympics in 2012.  I will be in the communications and public relations aspect of the team as well as the sports outreach aspect.  We will be making contacts around London and setting up sport ministry opportunities for the teams to join us during the month that the Olympics will be in London. I'm so excited about this opportunity because during the Olympics there will be people from all areas of the world!  So many tribe, tongues and nations will be represented and gathered together in one country!  What an amazing chance for God to show up and show off!!  If anyone is interested in supporting me during this time, either finanically or prayerfully, you can contact me at dondi_carter@hotmail.com.  I would greatly appreciate anything! I love you all, thanks for everything!

South Africa Dream Team 2010

Hey all, Here is a video I made of my trip to South Africa! I hope you enjoy! Thanks for all your love and support! You really are amazing and I could not have gotten to come on this trip without you!

You are the God of this CITY!

Hey All!

I hope you have been following the excitement of the World Cup!!  It is really exciting around here.  Every game is unpredictable and it reminds me a lot of the NCAA Bowl season or March Madness in Basketball, except with billions of people watching!  My ears are probably permanently damaged from the noice of the vuvuezelas, but I love it.  I think Texas Tech games should adopt this deafening instrament!  AYOBA!  The Bafana Bafana (South Africa's Team) is out of the World Cup, so the locals are pretty bummed, but at least the Bafana jersey's are now half price, so if yall want one...let me know :)!

So ministry during this time has been so crazy.  This is the first time I have actually had time to sit down and process what I have seen.  Last week, we ran a school program for kids ages 5-17, this was a great time of ministry, but the reality of their situation was shocking.  Many of these kids live in shacks with 20-30 other people.  Most of the children are being sexually abused by the men in their family and neighbors, and a lot of them are living with AIDS.   The boys in this area usually start taking drugs around the age 12 or 13 and join in gangs during this time as well.  The relationships we built were amazing during this week.  Some of the stories I have heard from these children that should still have their innocence was heartbreaking.  One mother even opened up to me saying how hard she has tried to protect her daughter, but the area is so dangerous.  Her daughter was recently gang raped by 8 men, and the pain from a situation like this I could never understand and pray I never will. It has been really great to speak truth into these kid’s lives who have never heard that they are loved or that they are fearlessly and wonderfully made and not a mistake or unwanted! 

Besides the school program, we have done outreach into the public viewing areas and around the city,  I have met so many interesting people this week and loved getting to just share life with people from all over the world.   Soccer really is a universal language and it has opened up so many conversations.  I am amazed at how open people are regarding their life and need for Jesus.   God’s timing has been perfect and has placed a lot of us in situations at the exact moment they have needed his touch.  It is so humbling to know that God is using me to make His name known among the nations.  Sometimes I really think, why me?  Why do I get to be apart of this?  I don’t deserve it, but I’m so thankful!  This week, we have soccer clinics all week, Girls detention center, Prison ministry, Township and village outreach, and going to AIDS orphanages and holding babies.  These babies are probably going to die, so they aren’t ever held to save time for the care workers to spend time on the other children.   So much darkness in this city, but God’s light is shining through, and his truth is being made known here.  

Dondi

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!