mbjones

As many of you know, I spent most of the month of June in Cape Town, South Africa. We spent the vast majority of our time working in a black township called Masiphumelele (Masi for short). In Masi, 30 to 40 thousand people live in mostly poverty (there are a few nicer places but they are few and far between).

Our first day was spent exploring Masi. We met in the morning, prayed and worshipped for a while and then broke into twos (three’s if you count the translator) and headed into Masi to prayer walk, meet people, and get a general feel for the area. It was a Saturday so we were immediately confronted with some of the deeper heart issues of Masi. For lack of more productive things to do, most seemed to use the weekend as a chance to party. We went out at 10 in the morning and all of the bars were already full and many were drunk. The stench of marijuana was strong in many areas. We even saw one fight break out.

Right from the start, the work needed to be done in this township seemed overwhelming. There were so many issues that people were dealing with, many of them issues we couldn’t fully understand. Along with the aforementioned problems with drugs, alcohol and violence, there is an 80% unemployment rate, AIDs runs rampant, witchdoctors are quite prevalent, and there is any many places just the heaviness of hopelessness (and really, these issues don’t really even scratch the surface).

Despite our fears though, God did move in rather intense and amazing ways. Fruit was seen where once there was no life. We quickly learned that no place is truly hopeless. Look for more stories on what we saw and what we did coming soon.

The next few weeks will likely be filled with posts about South Africa, mostly. I’m going to start posting pictures, stories and thoughts from my time there, starting today. Look for ‘em, as they’ll all be good posts, I’m sure.

I had lunch at Louie’s today with Conner. He eats there so much that they comped our meal. Score! Can’t complain about that at all! Incidentally, I had the blackened chicken sandwich with a side salad. It was good. Real good.

Cool new word site: Wordle.

The trailer for the new Bond movie is out. The HD version can be found here. I’m excited.