First of all, Cape Town is Amazing! With a capital A! It's so beautiful here, the people are friendly, the mountains and ocean is incredible, and God is being represented through many many people here. It's definitely a sight to see.
We're staying with a missionary couple, Casey and Sarah Prince, who are from Raleigh, NC. Alison knows them from her church, Grace Community, so thats how we got connected with them. Basically, they're pretty cool. Awesome folks. Awesome story. Awesome ministry. Sarah has her Masters in Divinity from Duke, so she preaches in some of the churches often. Casey is a pretty legit soccer player, and has opened up a sports ministry called Ubuntu Sports Ministries. The reason why we are here is to help them both out with their ministries that they are doing.
Ubuntu Sports Ministry is so cool. Basically, Casey moved here, rounded up a bunch of kids, got a series of teams together to add to a soccer league here, coaches them, trains them, leads bible studies with them, shares God's Word with them, and encourages them. It's so great to see what he's doing. Alison and I have gotten a chance to attend some of the soccer games so far. The kids are GOOD! They all work as a team and kick butt every time they're on the field.
The reason for starting this ministry with the kids is to give them hope and lead them on a path towards God. Ocean View is great. Cape Town is great. But like any other city, there's a lot of drugs that go on and a lot of poverty that is in the area. Many parents are addicted to drugs, and dont raise their kids in a positive direction while they're young, giving them too much freedom and no positive role models while they're kids. As a result, a lot of people get addicted to drugs, remain in poverty or end up in jail. Casey decided to do something about that, and almost two years ago decided to move to Cape Town to starts a ministry through sports. It's great, because he takes young kids who are 13 or younger, puts them on a team in a league, leads bible studies before practices with them, teaches them soccer, leadership skills and life lessons, which as a result keeps these kids out of trouble and off the streets. I've been able to meet a lot of the kids so far and I can't wait for the coming month so establish relationships with these kids. One of the coaches and I had a really great conversation in the car yesterday about Jesus and what it means to us to live for Him, and a couple of the kids in the car were very interested and got to hear what we had to say. I'm so thankful for that opportunity.
I was talking to some of the kids about school the other day. They grow up speaking Afrikaans with everyone in the community, but the kids speak English in the schools. Some kids also speak another language to each other, but I forget the name of it. So one of the kids, who was 12 years old I might add, says to me..."we're forced to know and speak fluently 3 languages in our school systems. How many languages do you know?" My reply: "one. English". Dang it America. You let me down.
I've gotten to drive a lot while i'm here. It's so much fun. But scary. Every car is manual. No Automatics. Driver is on the right side of the car, not left. And traffic drives on the left hand side of the road, not right. Within the first 24 hours I was here, Casey gets me a car and says "ok, good luck. have fun driving". Then drives home....Driving has been interesting to say the least. Lesson #2 in Africa: Don't leave your lights on. The car dies quick if you do. Just saying.
Goin to Hillsong Church in Cape town tonight with the crew for some awesome workship!!
Doug
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