A busy week in Africa...

I can't believe it has almost been a week since we left the US. We arrived in SA on Monday and have been going ever since. Here is a picture of the view from where we are here at Thrive Africa.

Ashley and I have been filling in as "extra hands" here at Thrive Africa as they gear up for a busy outreach season.

Here is where Ashley and I are staying. It is a cabin with two sides. We are in one side with one other summer staffer named Rebecca (from Nebraska). It is nice...but cold at night...burr. We are sleeping in our long johns (Jen- Ashley thanks you)and that keeps us warm. We love the days...they are sunny and warm (when you are in the sun:)).
One more random picture...they have about 750 wild animals on this property (which also runs a game lodge)...so we have interesting neighbors. Here is a female ostrich saying hi to Ashley....

You may wonder what I mean by Outreach Season since this is a ministry and outreach is a constant thing...So, let me try to explain. Well the mission of Thrive "is to equip and mobilize indigenous leaders to become effective, valuable, and productive influences in their cultural communities through evangelism, discipleship, leadership training, and mercy outreaches." They do this all year long through various means (teaching dicipleship classes, leadership conferences for women and pastors, teaching in the local schools, and OUTREACH to the villages to help build the local churches).

This outreach season is mainly during the US summer months (now) when students and others are out of school and traveling to do Short term missions. They have quite a few church teams and also host Teen Mania later on in the summer. This is where Ashley and I are fitting in...so what have we been doing?

This week has been a lot of prep work....full time missions involves lots of aspects, for me this has included a lot of computer work (excel database stuff), for Ashley it has been a lot of counting, organizing, running the coffee shop (that helps support the ministry), etc....BUT today we got a total treat...


Ashley and I went with part of the team that is here (a church from Michigan) and one of the coolest staffers here (Rebecca) to the Disabled Children's Center that Thrive operates in one of the local villages. We went to hand out little bags that someone from the States had sent for all of the kids. It was precious, they loved their stickers and bracelets and some also got new dresses. This was Ashley first hands on ministry in Africa, so I was happy to be apart of that. This is a picture of Ashley with two of the girls.

Here I am with two new friends and my friend, Noiky was trying to teach me the word for Ape in Sesotho, of course, I can't remember the word now...arghhh...it might take me a while to get this new language. I can't help but try to learn new languages though...I love communicating!....in other words..I like to TALK:)



It was a lot of fun and a real blessing to be a blessing. We leave tomorrow for our Safari weekend and then will spend some time in Johannesburg on Sunday before we pick up the 14 teenagers who are coming in to be summer staff on Monday. I have a part in training them which will be fun and then a new short term team comes in on Wednesday.

I hope all is well there in America and know that I know that I am my happiest when I am using my talents on the mission field. Please keep me in your prayers, because if you know me well, you know I am seeking the Lord about the future and how prayer ministry and counseling could be used here and around the world.

More next week-
Charlene