The Thrive Africa back-to-back youth camps finished a couple weeks ago. The camps were a good combintaion of ministry and fun activities. It was such a great week for all that attended. We’ve got over a 100 photos to prove it.

The theme of our two camps was New Nation. The young people were challenged to forget the past and press on toward the new future the Lord has for them. It was amazing to see many of them make commitments to follow the Lord wholeheartedly for the first time. I’ve always had a heart for Youth Camps ever since I gave my life to Christ at a Young Life camp when I was in high school. Please be praying for all the kids that attended that they would take what they learned here back to their homes and draw closer to God.

We’ve got over 150 pictures from the Thrive Africa Youth Camp that we had last month. Everything from PlayStation, wall-climbing, water balloon launching to some of the most unforgettable faces you’ve ever seen. Go ahead and check out the photos on the Thrive Africa website.

On Friday, October 21 a few of the Thrive Africa staff will be heading to Botswana for 2 weeks to for our annual ministry tri to server Love Botswana Outreach Mission. Thrive Africa has been going there for the last 4 years to simply server the ministry in whatever way we can. Botswana is the country located directly above South Africa. It’s only about a 2 hour plane ride. Everyone will be working out in the bush most of the time building new facilities, while I’ll be working in their creative department on some new design projects. This is the second ministry I’ll be visiting during my time here in South Africa; the other was Living Hope back in March. I’m exciting to go into another country and see the great things God is doing through another ministry in Africa. I also simply can’t wait to see another country in Africa. Apparently, the landscape over there is very different from South Africa. Very flat, lots of sand and ridiculously hot.

I’ll be sure to take tons of pictures.

Yes, it is a commandment and most of the time material things don’t mean that much too me, but it’s hard to not want one of the new Apple Video iPod’s. It’s ok to be a little skeptical. When I first heard about the idea for a portable video player I to asked the question, “Are we all walking around with a bunch of video clips we need to watch.” Luckily, Apple addressed this issue because at the same time the Video iPod went on sale Apple also started selling episodes popular TV shows and music videos from their iTunes music service. For example you can download episodes of ABC’s Lost for $1.99 an episode the day after it airs on television. As an avid follower of Lost before I came to South Africa this would be great for me because I’d be able to stay up-to-date with my favorite series (we’re about 6 months behind). It beats having to wait for the complete season to come out on DVD.

They also have episodes of Desperate Housewives and most of the short films Pixar has created over the years that plays before all their feature films. Yes, the list of TV shows is short now, but give it about 6 months and I’m sure you’ll have most of today’s popular TV shows available to download. You can also watch the shows on your computer as well as your iPod. You just have to wonder though if you’ll be able to burn all your shows to a DVD.

I’m really sure how this happens, but it seems that every night after work I’ll head down to my house, make some dinner, relax, and flip on the tv to CNN to catch up with what’s going on in the world. After that I’ll usually make my way up to another staff house on the property and hang out for bit, maybe a game of darts if everyone’s feeling a bit competitive.

It’s at this point when someone will ask what time it is. The next comment usually goes something like this. “You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s only 6:15 pm.” Back home after I left work, ate some dinner, and watched some tv it was around 9 pm. Here it’s very different. I don’t know if it’s because we all live on the base and can walk to our homes so we don’t lose time in the commute home, but most of the time we’re all looking for something new to do by 7 at night. We can’t run into town to hang out at Starbucks and the closest movie theater is an hour away, so we are simply here on the base with each other trying to amuse ourselves.

The only nights the TV can save us are Tuesday’s and Saturday’s. On Tuesday’s we have Survivor, CSI, 24 (actually, 24 just ended last week for us over here so now that’s out.) Then on Saturday there’s Overhaulin, Mythbusters, and The Deadliest Catch. On the other nights we’ll either talk shop, throw in a DVD movie, or watch some episodes of season 1 of the West Wing that I brought over.

At first it was pretty annoying, but now it feels more like a blessing because the days seem longer. More time to work, hangout, and watch movies.

It’s suprising how much the weather over here reminds me of home. Take today as an example. It was beautiful for almost the entire day, sunny with the temperature around 75. Then around 5 o’clock out of nowhere came these rain clouds, but it didn’t even really rain. We just got a bunch of hail the size of peas. Yep, just a quick 20 minutes hail storm then the sun came back out. Unfortunatly, the sun didn’t stay out for very long and later in the night we got hit by a pretty bad storm that knocked the power out a couple times.

The last couple of days I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather. The typical cold seems to be going around here among the staff - sore throat, headache, runny nose, etc. As bad as I feel, which isn’t all that bad I’m just glad that I don’t have what this guy has.

“The disease is characterised by sudden severe headaches, fever, vomiting and muscle pain, as well as pain in the lower back and upper abdomen. Uncontrolled bleeding usually occurs three to five days after symptoms appear.”

Deadly Congo fever alert in South Africa
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The past couple of weeks have been a non stop up at dawn labor to pull off our youth camps. In the midst of this it seems that I have totally forgot to write my September newsletter. I don’t really have a good excuse for this other than I might have underestimated how much work is involved with being a full time missionary.

FYI - missionary work is not a 9 to 5 job. It’s not that I thought I’d be on vacation while I was here, but I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve left the office by 5 pm since I got here. As a matter of fact in the past month I think I’ve still been slaving away in front of my computer until about 8 at night. Sure, I could “clock out” at the end of the day, but I think the reason I’m staying is cause I’m beginning to understand the urgency of reaching the people here. So if I have to stay at work a bit longer to better prepare for a teaching I’m doing in the village, help paint an office, or bust out a video to show the kids at the end of a youth camp I’m totally up for that.

It’s a life that blends the work day with your personal life. This is the life of the missionary.