A new year.

The school year officially began Monday August 20th. It is going to be quite a busy year for me, but Cat and I are looking forward to trusting God and seeing where he leads us this year and what he uses us for in the lives of students here at Western. Our theme for the semester is faithful and I want to invite you to pray for this when you think of us. There are three ares where I, our staff team, and students want to strive for faithfulness. The first is in studying the word and praying. The second is to be faithfully committed to our own holiness. The third is to be faithfully sharing the gospel with others. So please join us in praying specifically for these things to happen in the lives of our students.

Kevin

WNC might be the most beautiful place on earth

Cat and I went on picnic hike to the top of Yellow Mountain and caught the sunset. It was beautiful. These pictures or words cannot describe its beauty. It reminded me of how glorious our God must be. I could have sat for hours on top of that mountain in awe of grandeur and beauty. And this was just one beautiful place in all of the world, which is full of beautiful places. Each place intricately designed and dressed with its unique beauty from God. So his beauty and grandeur must be far surpassing and unimaginable. If he created this and all the beauty of the earth, then I can't wait to see heaven illuminated by his beauty and glory.

just some more pictures

Here are some more pictures for you. By the way, the yellow car...yep the ugly one...thats what we drove around at least it was more reliable than the kombies. The other pictures are some girls from our team and girls form TUKS at the JWC, Me and Pieter Wessels, who is a junior involved in Campus Outreach at Pretoria, and one artistic looking picture of Rob playing the guitar.

Taaibos

Taaibos is one of the two residence halls where I spent most of my time. Four of our students were partnering in ministry in Taaibos and I had the best relationships with students in this residence hall and just wanted to post some more pictures of them for you. In these pictures is myself, John Bivans who is a Western student, Uli, Rhynandt, Francois, Hanno, Scott and the Taaibos water tower. Taai means 'tough' by the way and Bos means 'bush'....so 'toughbush"

more pics

The first picture is obviously a just a good picture of Cat and I. The second picture is of the girls on our CCP team and Lola, the lady that owned the guesthouse where we stayed. She was actually very sad for us to leave and I got an email from her this week thanking us for the business and letting me know that she really enjoyed hosting us. She said that the house is quite lonely without us and that her and the staff really miss us. We are excited about continuing this relationship with her in the future.

more pics from our time in Soutpan

After visiting the church in soutpan we really wanted to come back again. So most of our team went one more time and gave away clothes and money to the pastor so that he could distribute it to the church as they had need. And they had need. Soutpan is a township that lives in third world poverty. People walk 2 miles everyday to get drinking water and it has 99% unemployment rate. The pictures here are of Cat and some women from the church after the morning service, a boy named Thato that he pastor adopted. The pastor, Frans, and his wife have actually adopted 6 children. the other picture is some of our students at Soutpan with some kids.

Last two weeks of South Africa

Really the last two weeks of our time in South Africa is when the most progress was made in ministry. The first two weeks we were on campus was spent identifying ourselves with Christ, meeting people, and building relationships. The next two weeks were filled with attending the JWC, Joint Winter Conference, with students from Campus Outreach Johannesburg and then our safari time and time ministering in Soutpan. But the last two weeks we were really able to build on the foundations we had laid during our first two weeks. So this part of the summer was really fun to see God work specifically in people's lives. I know that the last night we were there, two of our girls, Angela and Savannah, spent the night in one of the women's residence halls. They had the opportunity that evening to pray with a girl named Francis who wanted to turn her life around and begin a relationship with Christ. This was such an encouragement to our girls and a great end to the summer. I have attached a picture of angela with some of the girls they shared with...you might be able to make out the face of Savannah in the back...its the only other white face in the picture. Also during the last week on campus a guy named Thato prayed to receive Christ. A guy on our team named Scott had shared with him some and they decided to meet in his room to study the bible together one day. While studying the book of John, Scott had the opportunity to talk more about his life and his relationship with Christ. That night Thato prayed to receive Christ as well. It was cool to see that it was not just Scott who shared with Thato but a black guy named SP and a white guy named Uli as well had shared with him. Since I got back in the states Uli sent me an email saying that Thato is growing and is "quite keen for the word." It is really encouraging to know that Uli and SP are following up with this guy. I attached two photos of Thato, one is with Scott and Aaron and the other one is me and some guys from our team along with Thato and some other guys from Taaibos, including Uli.

pics of our kombies

As you might remember I wrote on our blog about issues we kept having with our Kombie's...that is what African's call a VW Van. The fan belt broke and we had to tow one, the same one would not start very faithfully and we had to do a rolling start, the back window was busted out of one, and the door fell off of it also. The door literally fell off when a guy on our team tried to open it. The only thing that kept us from being frustrated in these moments was a simple little phrase. T.I.A. "This is Africa." We would proclaim T.I.A. in one of these moments and just laugh it off. So I put up these pictures of guys on our team pushing the blue kombie and when the door fell off the green kombie.