Life In South Africa
A Beacon In The Valley
This particular Thursday night last May had been unlike any other night of evangelism our ministry team had led. Our “Coffee With God” outreach time of discussing a short Bible study in a one-on-one setting while sharing coffee together had gotten a little out of control. Normally we had a slow, but steady flow of […]
East Mountain’s Breadth and Depth
Earlier this year I attended a conference where the hosts highlighted their organization’s desire to further their discipleship efforts by “casting wide” with large-scale events and then “going deeper” with a smaller group of individuals who attended those preceding events. This was their hope in sharing the Gospel across the continent of Africa. It was […]
July 2016 Family Update
“I will NEVER homeschool my children!” I can just imagine God chuckling to himself when He heard me say those words a few years ago. In fact, I even repeated them during our orientation week at United World Mission when I informed them that we would need to be fielded where there was a good school because […]
East Mountain Update: Celebrating Thanksgiving in South Africa
November 26 marked the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving brings families together from all over the country to share in meals, stories, games, and fun. Thanksgiving also helps each one of slow down enough to take time and give thanks for all that has happened in our lives over the course of the year. Despite being […]
August 2015 Review
Trinity Church (Mitchells Plain) As we mentioned in our June update, Michele and I have been tasked with helping East Mountain (EM) with deepening their partnership with Trinity Church in Mitchells Plain township. This role officially kicked off a couple of weeks ago and will last at least six months as Michele and I get to know […]
July 2015 Review
As you may have read in our past few blog posts, we are continuing to adjust to the new culture, languages, and life in South Africa. Most of the time, we are successfully navigating our way through our new home town. Other times, such as in the sugar cookies incident, not so much. After the the […]
Sugar Cookies & Culture Stress
Mohammed Ali had it all wrong when he said that he “floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.” He should have said stung like a sugar cookie instead. This is because with a one-two butter-laden combo, Michele was knocked out. Michele’s plan of making sugar cookies for our dinner guests last week failed miserably because […]
May & June 2015 Review
Michele and I stand amazed that twelve weeks have passed since we set foot on the plane that took us to South Africa and into the next phase of our lives. Here we are almost three months later feeling very full and beginning to settle into a new routine in both our work and time at […]