Sawubona

Sawubona from South Africa!  Ashley and I are getting settled in to life here after a couple weeks of living in South Africa.  We have been spending a lot of time learning, even though we have been here before we are much more intertwined with the culture here now that it is just us Americans spending most of our time with South Africans.  We have learned a lot about the culture in general, the religious culture, what ministry will look like here, and what we will be doing.  God has definitely been humbling us and showing us how much we have to learn and how much he wants to teach us. Here are a few things we have learned:

-South Africans are incredibly accommodating, and the culture here is pretty awesome in helping others and finding ways to make people feel welcome.  We have felt very welcome by all groups of people, Zulu's, Indians, and white people alike.

-The largest religion in our province is a religion called Shembe, which is a very odd religion in that they believe that since Jesus or the apostles didn't make their way to South Africa, that he didn't die for South Africans.  It is almost exclusive to our province; even throughout the rest of the country you don't find many people who practice it but 3 million people practice it here in Kwazulu-Natal. 

-We knew this coming in but ancestor worship is also a large part of the culture here.  Even people who consider themselves Christian struggle with the idea of their ancestors being viewed as mediators between them and God instead of Jesus

-It can get VERY HOT AND HUMID HERE!!!!!!!  And air conditioning is not very common, so we have learned that sweating sitting around in our flat is very normal during summer months, still adjusting to that!

The picture below is of Ashley and the two other girls who will be on our team, Thandeka and Noscelo, at Howard college.  Howard is one of the campuses we will be working on.  Ashley and I will split our time between 2 campuses doing evangelism and discipleship on both Howard College and Westville college (2 campuses of the University of Kwazulu-Natal) as well as spending time partnering with Churches to do community outreach.  Right now we are spending time getting to know student leaders who are in town (school doesn't officially start until February 4th) and planning outreaches and events with our team.  We are so excited for school to start back up in February as planning everything has gotten us excited about really diving into ministry here!  Thank you so much for everything you do in helping our ministry, we are so thankful that each and every one of you is directly a part of what God is doing in South Africa and that because of God and because of you, people in South Africa will come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord! Be praying that we will cross paths with many different types of students this year who are yearning for and seeking truth. Thank you so much!

Prayer requests
-Pray for our planning times, that we would plan effective outreaches and be able to cast vision to our student leaders in making disciples of other students
-Pray for Ashley and I as we figure out what challenges we will face being over here, that we would be humble and completely dependent on God
-Pray that God would give us many opportunities during the first week to share the Gospel with non-Christians and people of all different religions
-Continue to pray for us as we figure out details on living here, we found an apartment and a car (huge praise!!) but the details never seem to end!
-Pray that Ashley and I would find a Church to be involved with and that we would be able to find community there
-Please pray for our other team members as they continue to raise funds for the year (Anele, Thandeka, and Nosci) Pray for new contacts for them and that they would trust the Lord to provide. It's extremely difficult for them to raise support here as you can imagine so pray the Lord's favor towards them in their support journey!

Many more updates to come especially as we really dive into ministry in February!  Thanks again for making this possible!
-Nick and Ashley