South Africa

The past week has been a busy one....this is the first time since my injury that I’ve left the state of Minnesota.  And it wasn’t just a hop to another city in another state.  It was a hop over a big pond and a couple of continents.

I arrived in Cape Town, South Africa with my friend and co-worker, Christopher Fry, about a week ago.  We’d felt God calling PPM to serve in Africa with increasing strength in recent years, and landed on January, 2012 as the time to get things rolling.  Christopher directs our marketing, but he had mentioned to me years ago that he’d always been very interested in serving in Africa.  As PPM has continued to grow significantly, we knew in our hearts it was just a matter of time before we began to serve and partner with the church in Africa.

After an 8 hour flight to Amsterdam  and an 11 hour flight to Cape Town, our feet were finally on African soil.  Since PPM always serves in partnership and under the authority of the local church, we always need to meet the leadership of the church where they are at…….

…….and they weren’t at Cape Town.  They were in Johannesburg.

So we went to sleep immediately after arriving in Cape Town, got up the next morning, and flew to Johannesburg, South Africa.  There we met a handful of people in leadership in the church, including the General Secretary of the Southern Africa Baptist Union, the Mission Director for the Southern Africa Baptist Union, and one of the founders of a multi-continent ministry called Luke 10 Transformation.  After a wonderful day of meeting and seeing Johannesburg, we flew back to Cape Town.

Rev Angelo and Rev Abraham

In Cape Town we met with the first pastor PPM will be partnering with (and receiving a mission team from Briarwood Church in Texas) in South Africa, a gentleman named Patrick Crowster.  Patrick and his wife lead a church called Belhar Baptist in the Belhar community of Cape Town.  Belhar has about 50,000 inhabitants and 90% unemployment.  The community suffers from not just a lack of jobs and opportunity, but from many other issues that often come hand-in-hand with a lack of employment.  Vandalism, theft, and drug use continue to rise in this community.  Lack of education for most people continues to hold them down as adults, and it breeds to some a degree a spirit of contentment with having little to hope for in life.

Belhar Church

Community of Belhar, next to church

As a response to this spirit in the community, Patrick and his wife began to research what jobs were most readily available and needing to hire within South Africa.  The greatest need for more employees was in the medical field, most specifically Nursing Assistants.  Thus, Patrick and his wife spent significant time working through the approval and certification process in South Africa, and they now are able to offer a nearly free education (and degree) for adults in the Belhar area who are interested in employment as a Nursing Assistant.  The response from the community has been overwhelming, and they are now training dozens of people from the Belhar community to become Nursing Assistants.  The job market for this position is excellent; 98% of the hundreds that have come through this training have been hired within 6 months of receiving the degree. 

Belhar Baptist is also significantly involved with a orphanage on the outskirts of Cape Town, has a youth music ministry, and is continually reaching into Belhar to show them God’s love in a practical way.

This is just one of the pastors and situations we’ve come across already in South Africa.  We’re thrilled to partner with Pastor Patrick Crowster and his community in Belhar, South Africa.  We’ve been praying for a location to begin, and this is it.  Yet, we also know this is just the beginning of what God is up to through PPM on this beautiful continent.

Christopher and I on Table Mountain

 We’ve also had the chance to see some of the beauty of Cape Town, which is indeed one of the most physically stunning places I’ve ever had the chance to visit.  South Africa is filled with challenges and struggles, but the people overall are resilient and optimistic about their future, and I’ve already learned more from them in a week than I ever imagined.

Self pic, Table Mountain

I’ll be writing more in my next blog about apartheid and the opportunity to spend time with a gentleman that, at first blush, has impacted me with his wisdom and experience more than almost anyone I have ever met…..but I’ll save that for next time.

PPM Africa begins now.  Please pray for us, and at the same time, let’s enjoy the ride. 

God is really, really good.