Hello all. I thought I'd write it all here so you'd know what we know. As most of you know we had an informal interview with Pastor John & his wife Evelyn from Cape Town South Africa (SA). They are looking for a couple to come run the FROG Center - a community center supported by Westridge Baptist Church. We were one of four couples being interviewed and we will know at the end of November if we've been chosen.
With that said here's the scoop on everything I can think that'd you'd want to know:
The FROG (Fully Rely On God) center, completed in 2002, is located specifically in Mitchells Plain, a township of Cape Town. It truly ministers to the local community, which is predominantly Muslim (only 2% of the whole country is Muslim, so...). They have a daycare, a newly started baseball team (one team I think), they feed about 200 people twice a week (Tues & Thurs), hold a Senior's Health Clinic on a monthly basis plus additional odds and ends. The center is rented out to the local community for weddings, funerals and other churches for their events. While it is a Christian center, the local Muslims are very open and friendly towards the center allowing the church to indirectly minister to the people. When the group comes to run VBS - the parent's know it's a Christian program, yet they still send their children so it's a great opening to sharing God's love and His word with a group that may otherwise not even consider such things.
Because of the economics of the area the church is unable to staff for an administrator and the locals are unable to work for little to no money so that's why missionaries. To give you an idea, as a ministry to the community they charge roughly $50 a month for the daycare. The workers are given a stipend from that, not a true salary. Pastor John says he wishes he could pay them more, "pay the worker his wages", but they are unable. Anyway, what Pastor John & Evelyn are looking for is someone to come in and help create more stable, working programs. As things are now, Pastor John is running things as well as pastoring a church. He can only do so much. Also various groups come throughout the year to minister, but once they leave there is no follow up, follow through, or anyone to continue the work.
So our job will first be to better organize what is already happening at the center and then adding on to it to further minister to the kids, to follow up on events that occur with the mission teams that come down and other things. For example, when the group comes to run the VBS Program, there is no one to follow up on those kids who have made a decision for Christ. I believe during the summer there were some students that helped run a ministry at 4 of the locals schools, but once they left there is no one to carry on the ministry.
That is something else we will be able to do. There is openness to the gospel in the local schools. You can go into the schools and preach the word of God. There are 4 area schools that Kevin would be spending his mornings at (1 school per day) doing a bible study and other activities. I will probably be spending most of my time between the actual center and home.
Also, Pastor John said that right now there are just a few students organizing their student ministry, but it's more social than anything else, no preaching, etc. So we will most likely be heading the student ministry at the church. So our Mon-Fri will be very busy. Sunday will be church - it starts at 8:30 and is usually over by 10:30-11.
They just finished building a house and totally furnishing it so we have somewhere to live (just 2 houses down from Pastor & Evelyn). When I say fully furnished I mean right down to the silverware. So we won't have to take anything with us but linens, clothes, toys and other personal things we can't live without. This means we'll probably be renting a storage unit for those things we don't want to get rid of in case we come back.
We will need to raise our own support for a minimum of 2 years - that's the commitment they are looking for. We will probably rent out our house, cause selling it would probably be impossible, plus this will give us something to come back to should we only be gone 2 years. We will probably sell our vehicles and all our other items we don't want to keep (mostly everything) so we'll keep you informed when the mega yard sale will be held, Lord willing.
A few other items of interest. Homeschooling is legal, so I will probably still do that. Healthcare is socialized, but they have private doctors as well - we'll probably go that route. Cape Town is in the Western Cape Province and is not only the capital of the Western Cape, but of South Africa's legislative branch. South Africa is a country on the continent of Africa, like the US is a country on the continent of North America. SA is divided into 9 Providences, like we have 50 states. Each providence has its own government and self rule but must adhere to the overall country's laws - like we have a state government and a federal government. SA is very modern, especially in the Western Cape, other than being in another country its looks like any other city you've seen. They speak English (British) and Afrikaans - a german/dutch language and since English is a Germatic language things are very similar. School is Skool, Fish is Vis, and then of course there are words that are very different.
If you want to know more about the country, here are a few links:
Hope you enjoy the links, espeically the last two with pictures. Please pray for the Lord's will. While we're excited that we may be going, our prayer is that God's will be done and if one of the other couples is better suited to the task than so be it. But of course we hope it's us!
