Our mission, at Thrive Africa,  is to equip and mobilize indigenous leaders to become strategic, Godly influences in their cultural communities. II Timothy 2:2 says,  “…Teach these great truths to trustworthy people who are able to pass them on to others.”

I had a great opportunity to see what and how God was doing just that through us. Our Leadership Summit department heads up leading thousands of students in the schools truths about who they are in Christ and how they can be leadership themselves in, not just their community or school, but even their country.

A few months back we challenged a couple hundred students from different schools across Qwa Qwa to come up with ways how they can change their community. All 239 kids come, 22 teachers and 13 schools took action and started to make an impact.

Click here to see more photos.

Recently I’ve been missing my music dearly…

Music is such a filler for me. I can’t drive without music. I can’t work without music. I can’t go on runs walks without music. It really keeps me moving and up beat.

Nevertheless… my iPod has been missing for a couple weeks. Without that there isn’t a lot of music to listen to, especially in the car… there aren’t many English radio stations, much of it is in Zulu, Sesotho or Afrikaans.

So now I’m trying to save up for an iPod nano (to keep costs down… plus anything bigger is too big for me). If you’d like to contribute to that cause feel free. A few dollars here and there can go a long way.

Who doesn’t want to just go away for the weekend day to an exotic country and stop at a little town on the way to catch a bluegrass/folk band and buy some homemade bramble jam?

Katie and I took a little day-long road trip this past Saturday. We took a very scenic route thru the Golden Gate National Park, and then stopped in a little town called Fouriesburg. We were going to just drive thru until Katie saw that there was a Spring Festival going on so we stopped there for about an hour.

We continued to our main reason for taking our little excursion and went another country called Lesotho. The main people group that Thrive Africa works with are Basotho people who originally came from Lesotho way back in the day. It’s a beautiful country and incredible mountains and landscapes. We stopped at a historical cave and we were given a tour of that and learned more about the Basotho culture.

It was a nice day to get away for a bit and just have a great and memorable experience. Especially when we realized that once we got into Lesotho our phones didn’t work. So we hoped that we wouldn’t break down. Fortunately we made it home just fine.

Check out more photos of out trip here on my photo page…

My buddy Matt that I live with here, spoke at church last night and did an amazing job. God really used him to speak truth in to everyone here at Thrive. It was a great reminder that God is purusing us even when we don’t think He is, but that He is always calling out to our hearts. Here’s a little video Matt put together to show us, in a creative way, what God truly has for us.

Thrive Church Video from Matt Moline on Vimeo.

Matt used the creativity that God gave him to create this video with Final Cut Pro.

While Katie and I were visiting a friends ministry. We were on our way to a school one morning in eSikhawini to lead prayer with students and teachers. The road was dry and dusty and I caught a photo of people walking on the side of the road to work and school.

I do find the ‘speedbump’ sign kind of funny seeing that it’s on a bumpy dirt road.

Check out some more photos that I’ve taken.

I think I talk about living out here quite a bit and what I’m doing out here but I’ve never shared really about how I got here. Let me take you on a little journey down memory lane…

Three years ago… break for a second… wow I cannot believe it’s been three years since I first came out here. That’s just crazy to me… (ok back to the story). Three years ago (July 2007) I was leading a mission team from my old church with the high school ministry to South Africa. In being part of the leadership of this group that came out I wasn’t expecting to come back home with a lot on my mind but more that the students would get more from it, as if I knew what I was getting myself into or something.

The mission trip was great and I had a good time but nothing really hit me. I didn’t have any pull or anything to come back to South Africa… until the bus ride back (on the N3 highway) to the airport in Joberg (Johannesburg, just in case).

I was praying and asking God what He wanted me to get from this trip and it was nearly verbal when He told me He wanted me to come back. I didn’t believe it so I kept praying. I looked out the window and saw a man going into his hut. I started to imagine what he might see when he walked in. maybe a matress, not much food, and probably a family of five. Then I thought about walking into my house in America and I saw the big screen tv, my own bedroom with a computer, a kitchen with a fridge full of food and air conditioning…

That was it! I couldn’t take it. I started sobbing uncontrollably because God truly touched my heart for the people of South Africa. I had never felt so in touch with God before in that moment. I opened my eyes and looked out the window and saw a billboard for Huntington Bank that was green with white letters reading “SAVE NOW!“.

As soon as I got home I called my parents and my dad answered. I told him I was going back to South Africa and all he said was, “We’ll talk about it.” We laughed nervously because I knew I was serious and he wasn’t too sure.

Right away I started raising support sending out letters and talking to people. I took that semester off from school cause I didn’t think it’d be worth it if I was going to move to another country. Even before I applied for Thrive Africa’s internship I sent out the support letters because I knew one way or another that I was going back to South Africa. God had me convinced that that was where He wanted me to be. I did get accepted into the year-long internship and started preparing to leave for late January of 2008.

God flew me safely to South Africa on January 21, 2008 (about a month after my birthday (hint-hint, nudge-nudge)). Within the first couple months of being on the internship I met with a few members of the leadership of Thrive Africa and they asked if I wanted to come back on staff with them the next year for a committment of a three year term. It didn’t take long for me to make my decision to come back but I thought I should still spend time and pray about it to make sure. I felt God giving me the ‘okay’ to go so I let them know on the day I was baptized.

And now… I’m here. This is where I am living now, living a life I could have never imagined. I feel truly blessed that God would use me this way. I never though my computer skills and talents would have been used or needed on the mission field but God showed me that there are so many things that can be done anywhere around the world.

This is all only possible because of the prayer and support I have received from you. If you would like to support this story to continue and be a part of something greater go to my support page and give like you’re giving out of someone else’s wallet. It’ll go further than you think. God can use you to bless hundreds and thousands of South Africans and you can then be a missionary right out of your home.

Thank you and God bless.

I’m not big into hip-hop and rap but when I hear Verbs and saw this guy randomly come out and break dance, I couldn’t help but watch. At this Impilo (my friend Ndumi’s ministry) event, Verbs was getting the whole crowd involved singing “HEY-OH!“, this kid showed off his moves and did a great job too.

Talk about a way to overcome your fear of heights. Actually stop a moment and think about an area of your life that you have fear…

How about walking backwards off a cliff and trusting someone you don’t know with ropes attached to you?

Well I don’t always have a fear of heights but repelling off a 25 meter (about 83 feet) boulder was a very scary thrilling experience. I love to mountain hike and boulder on the rocks around Mt. Everest (my backyard) and Eagle Head.

But the fear was real. Why do I say that? Because how many times has God brought us to a spot where He wants us to move and we instantly have fear because we don’t know what will happen. When I moved here, to South Africa, I was fearful because of finances and community and just not knowing what life was going to be like. Stepping into the unknown, off a cliff is scary. But God had his strong ropes attached securely to me so that I could take each step one at a time and he was holding me up the whole way. We need to turn our fear into faith. Step into comfort and love and out of fear and security.

What area in your life to you need to go from fear to faith?

This is Lucas. He trained us for repelling off of Mt. Everest.

Last year I went to the lion park a couple hours from our base and we had a great time but this year it was so much better (well at least playing with the cubs was better). I definitely had a chance to experience some good quality time with the lion (and white lion) cubs. They were just too cute and fun to play with. Here’s a few shoots from this past Saturday.

Ok… I know this might look gross but it’s still cute that he fell asleep eating…

Ariel handing me one of the lion cubs

Is the sign really necessary?