Prayer Calendar June 20

Wednesday June 20

We will travel to Ingwavuma and hold a Medical Clinic

• Pray that there is an openness of hearts to Jesus
• Success of the first clinic at Ingwavuma - that we will effectively organize and administer medical care
• Ian (1Thessalonians 2:3-6)
• Adam (Matt 10:8b)

Feel free to post a comment/prayer!

June 19 Greetings from South Africa

Sawubona!
We greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Tracy did a fantastic job filling you all in on our journey to Esikhawini. It was a long one. But today, we began to experience first hand why we are here, and that has refocused our attention from ourselves to those we have come to serve.
We started the day with an amazing breakfast prepared by our chefs extraordinaire Shelly, Richard, and Robyn. It was almost too good. Sharon, Ian, and Shelly then headed into town with Mercy to purchase all the groceries and supplies that 22 people need to survive for a few days at least. The rest of the crew headed over to the church across the street to begin the tedious but necessary task of counting and sorting and dosing out the thousands of meds that were so generously donated to our trip. To give you an example of the number of meds we're working with, we had a total of 116,000 Ibuprofen. We had far more Benedryl, vitamins, Acetaminophen, and others.
The team got right to it and worked hard until well after 7 p.m. By God's grace, and with a little humor from Kristi, Ian and Adam, we not only counted out enough meds to get us through our first clinic, but we even had a little fun in the process. Megan O. and Adam handled our children's vitamins, RevRob and Sarah focused on vitamins, Megan V, Robyn and Pat counted thousands of Ibuprofen, Kristi, Katie and Melissa handled our Benedryl, John and Alex not only counted but perfectly organized our Tums, Ian, Cheryl and Richard worked on adult vitamins and Tracy organized our cough and cold meds. It was a full team effort and a great time to get to know each other a little better.
A little side note – we lost nine bags during our travels over here. Mostly they were meds and a few other medical essentials. So far, one has been found and returned. According to British Airways, the others remain trapped in an underground tunnel on a conveyor belt that broke down. Several thousand bags are trapped there and they are working to find ours. But a little extra prayer for those bags would be greatly appreciated. Again, in God's great plan, we are confident that we have all we need for tomorrow, even without those bags.
During our time packing, we were able to reconnect with some old friends. One of our dear friends, Sabelo, just lost his father this past week and the funeral was this past weekend. We were able to pray with him and for him and share in the grief of his loss and the joy of his now eternal life with our brother in Christ. We heard about the strike that is affecting everyone in South Africa as the nurses and teachers have not been working for the past three weeks. And we know that God has us here at this time, in this place, for a specific purpose. We are excited and eager to serve – to be His hands and feet in these few days.
We left the church this evening under a blanket of the most amazing stars and walked back to the Mafus for a delicious dinner prepared by Alex, Katie, Shelly, Richard. We even had chocolate cake – a Shelly specialty. :) After a little team meeting about tomorrow – our first clinic – we were off to pack, hang out and hopefully get a little sleep for what will be a very long day.
On behalf of the team, thank you all, so much for your prayers and support that have brought us this far. We ask that you continue to lift us all up as we head to the mountain for our first clinic. We are anxious and excited and ready to do what we believe God has called us here to do. Please pray for us energy, peace, graciousness, joy and love. We hope to be Jesus to the people we meet tomorrow and know that it will take strength and power beyond our own. We also hope to have a relaxing and team building time at Hluhluwe (the game park) on Thursday so we can come back ready and refreshed for our clinics on Saturday and next week.
May God bless you all! We will be in touch as often as we can but, we'll be at the game park until Friday afternoon (our time) so, it will probably be after that.
In Him,
Sarah

Prayer Calendar June 19

Tuesday June 19

We will prepare for medical clinics
Sort meds and pack clinic tubs
Morning devotions at schools
After-school Bible classes

• Pray that we will lovingly serve the people of Grace Evangelical Church and the community
• Team unity
• Megan(James 1 2-4)
• Cheryl(John 13:34-35)

Please feel free to post a comment/prayer!

June 18 Greetings from South Africa

Greetings to our Family and Friends from South Africa,
We have arrived safely in eSkikahwini after a long and twisty 50-hour travel adventure.
Many of you saw us off and could see how excited we were! We arrived just on time to check in a total of 54 bags including 33 bags of medicine and supplies, 3 wheelchairs, and 2 walkers. The British Air staff seemed to take it in stride.

Our first flight to London started the initiation of our "long flights". We flew through the night and arrived in London midmorning. Adam, Sarah, Robyn, Kristy, Cheryl, Shelly, Tracy, Alex, Melissa, Megan O, Richard, Megan V, and Rev. Rob rode the express tube from the airport into London and took in some sites during the layover. They saw Big Ben, Piccadelly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Falkand War Victory Day Parade. They also enjoyed a typical pub lunch of fish'n'chips. Sharon, Katie, John, Pat, and Ian took the opportunity to take a rest in the airport day rooms.

Later in the day, our adventure continued as we crunched into a Boeing-747 airplane to get us to Capetown. This flight was approximately 12 hours long and proved to be a challenge because of the limited amount of space - especially for those sitting in the middle seats. Somehow - we all seemed to make it just fine. During the flight, many of us were awestruck when we saw an AMAZING display of stars in the dark skies over Africa - they were breathtaking to say the least. We landed early in the moring in Capetown, South Africa. We breezed through passport inspection but were surprised to find out that nine of our bags never made it.

We had a really short amount of time to connect to our last flight and the baggage claim folks rushed us on without our missing luggage. We sailed through customs and we recognized that this was in direct result of all of the prayer support - thank you. We walked about a 1/2 mile outside from the international terminal into the domestic flights building and managed to check in all 18 of us in less than a half hour - so that we could make our connection to Durban. It was a whirlwind of activity but the team worked together as if we had done it a million times before. Arriving in Durban, many folks took their first steps onto African soil. We all felt a sense of relief that we had made it through our last flight. Isaiah Mafu and some of the folks from the church gave us a warm greeting and helped us get all of our luggage loaded into their truck & trailer.

Later that afternoon we hopped into our 3 rental vans and headed North to eSikhawini. Three minutes into our final leg of the journey the clutch blew out in Rev Rob's van. He handled it like a champ and they were able to contact us via the walkie-talkies. As they sat on the side of the road waiting for assistance they were overwhelmed with how many concerned drivers stopped to help. We eventualy made it back to the airport again and received a new van which was in full operational mode. We were so grateful. We traveled in a caravan to eSikhawini and arrived around 7pm. We were greeted by the wonderful sounds of African Song and warm hugs and handshakes. Yes - We finally arrived!!

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. We have felt the presence of God throughout this trip. Tomorrow we will be counting and packaging medication. It will take a lot of stamina and concentration - so please continue to pray for us and the Zulu people. (and that the luggage would arrive tomorrow!)

Kindly,
The 2007 South Africa Medical Outreach Team
[John, Ian, Katie, Pat, Sharon, Tracy, Alex, Melissa, Megan O., Shelly, Kristy, Megan V., Rev Rob, Sarah, Robyn, Richard, Adam, and Cheryl]

Prayer Calendar June 18

Monday June 18

We will arrive in eSikhawini and begin unpacking supplies for clinics

• Rapid recovery from 36 hours of travel.
• That the all of the luggage makes it safely
• Pray that many will come to know the saving power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
• Mercy & Isaiah (Matthew 28:1-7)

Please feel free to add a comment/prayer!