Its gonna take a lot to get me away from here.

We've officially graduated, and we fly out today. We're all gonna miss it here. It will forever be the place we fell in love with Jesus. Thank you so much for your support. Pray for safe travels, I'll try and do a more extensive update in Joberg.

Wilderness Medicine, Sector Management, Expeditions

We here at the Advanced Mission Training program have all become certified Wilderness First Responders, the rapid 14 base is incredibly safe right now. We graduated the course Wednesday morning and it was an emotional good-bye to Allen, the instructor who flew in to teach us. The Rapid Fourteen Base is like Forest Gump's house. There is always new people coming in and going out, It gives you a chance to meet a ton of interesting people. Anyway now that we are registered Wilderness First Responders, WFRs, we have the opportunity to progress in our medicinal education and become Wilderness EMTs which is the same as an EMT basic so we could then work in ambulances and do wilderness recoveries and things of that nature. haha get it, nature. Anyway its a great course and if you ever have the opportunity to become a WFR I'd take that opportunity its extremely practical and relevant to just about anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

As well as the WFR we have been working on our final project which we present tomorrow. Our final project was to create a Sector Management plan. In case you are unfamiliar with Overland Mission's Sector Management I put together a short video.

Overland Missions Sector Video
by overlandmissions

Ok so I didn't make that video but my group and I did create a plan for a sector in southern Madagascar. Why southern Madagascar? We don't really know, all I can figure is we wanted to make things difficult on ourselves by choosing an Island. Despite all odds the plan came together really well and i'm looking forward to the presentation tomorrow. We have a map of our sector with villages marked out as well as a plan of how to buy land and build a base, an evangelism strategy and a humanitarian relief strategy all put in place as well. Its all budgeted out in a five year plan coupled with our fundraising plan, not to mention an itinerary and budget for our initial three week motorcycle re-con trip.

It was a really interesting project, it really forces you to think third world logistics and made us use all the training we've received. Africa requires a lot of thought and planning this much we have learned. Its so worth it though because people are really being reached.

On saturday we head out into the villages for the last time. We will be there until wednesday this time without any leaders. The AMT class is being driven out to the village and dropped off to minister to the local community until wednesday. Tom, another AMT student, and I were chosen to lead the expedition, it should be a blast and will no doubt be effective for the kingdom of God.

Please Pray for us and our work in the villages.

Pray for the locals hearts and our hearts to be open to the Holy Spirit.

Pray that we travel safely.

Pray that we cook our food well.

Pray that the group works well together.

Pray that people come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pray that those who already know Jesus are strengthened in there faith and courage.

Pray that our words are true and pure.

Pray for Tom and I to make good fair and effective decisions for our trip.

Pray for a Love that overflows out of our group and into the villagers.

Thank you so much, I Love and miss you all. Only a week and a half to go I can't believe it.

ABCDE, AMPLE, OPQRST

The thing about saving lives is its all about the acronyms. Wilderness First Responder course started yesterday and since then we have been loaded with acronyms. Today's acronym was CPR the good news about CPR is that when your applying it the person is already dead so it can only get better from there!

Wilderness First Responder course is basically an EMT course but for remote locations. We are learning how to treat pretty much anything or atleast to maintain a person for as long as needed until they can get to proper medical help. Skills like how to make a splint out of sand and a paper clip. ok ... maybe not that extreme but definitely how to make splints out of shirts and backpack straps and how to move people with broken bones. The course is eight days long and its all day we are worn out by the end of the day.

Sunday we went on a safari. Its a classic halloween tradition here in africa to go on a safari. Thats a little made up, but the trip was a blast. I know your wondering so i'm just going to start out with the disappointment, No Lions. We saw zero lions it was a bummer, but we did see elephants and impala and giraffes and zebras and camped amidst all of those animals.

The plains are so gigantic it looks like the ocean. It was a great halloween although a little slim on candy, i bought a box of coco pops cereal to compensate for the loss, it was sufficient.

Only 20 more days left in Africa, I can't believe its that close to the end. Thank you all so much for your prayer and support I can't wait to share stories face to face and practice that which the Lord has done in me hopefully spreading his Love and message of hope all the way.

Come Back Alive

Our come back alive course had consisted of each of us reading a few chapters of a book and then teaching those chapters to the rest of the class. This was peppered with a few practical techniques such as how to build a shelter, how to purify water with a plastic bottle, how to construct a fishing net. On monday our last presentations were made at the end of the day and we were all looking forward to having the rest of the night off when they broke the news to us.

We were given fifteen minutes to gather fifteen items that would allow us to eat sleep drink and build a shelter for all 14 of us. We were sleeping in the gorge.

We quickly made a list and gathered together all 15 items then gathered at the base where we were split into teams of three each of us given a GPS and coordinates with the location of our food.

Our group entered the coordinates and then headed out, it brought us way out passed the well into a field with a box hanging from a tree. The box contained a bag of rice and one live Chicken. We hiked down the gorge, live chicken in hand and got to work. We set up a location, ended the chickens life, purified water, constructed a shelter and slept under the stars on the edge of the Zambezi. It was a beautiful night and as you can tell we came back alive, just extremely tired.

I can't wait to sleep its gonna be great!

Simwatachela

A week ago friday we returned to the village we spent our first week in. It was so great to go back to people we had ministered too a month ago and see them just as excited about God as when we had left.

The first meeting was on monday morning in a huge tent that had been brought from the base. We had a pretty good turn out but not good enough, we knew there were more people in the surrounding villages that needed to hear what was to be said.

To reach these people we all split up and each of us headed out in separate directions with a local to invite people to the meetings. It was a great opportunity to bond a little bit with the locals one on one. They got to show us where they lived and how they lived and where they drank from and broke our hearts a little bit.

Inviting people definitely worked because we went from about 30 people on saturday to about 300 people on sunday and the same on monday. It was insane. The meetings went great, everyone spoke what was on there heart and the holy spirit moved and lives were changed and hope was found where it hadn't been before.

Then on monday we did recon.

we split up into 3 groups. One group stayed and lead the meetings, another group walked towards the mountains and the group I was with headed the opposite direction of the mountains. Each group had a translator and our goal was to spread the knowledge of Jesus Christ to every house we came across. We are talking people who are never visited, ever. There aren't roads to these peoples houses there are footpaths that locals know. We walked and ministered for 8 hours straight. It was one of the most tiring and rewarding experiences of my entire life.

We prayed with an old lady who had never prayed before, imagine how good her voice sounded to a God who had missed her, imagine how much this God must love her to send people all the way from America to happen upon her home just to reclaim her. Its amazing, just to think of the unlikeliness or my ever meeting anyone I met out here, its amazing, it really makes you think of how important each meeting is.

We crawled back in later that day and broke down the tent and sat around the campfire and played mafia for like 2 hours then we all crashed. It was a great trip for everyone, a welcome break from the day to day, and a welcome reminder of what this is all about. Only people can impart the holy spirit to people, we are people therefore this is our responsibility.

This passed week we've only had two classes "Come Back Alive" and "4x4 vehicle recovery" both have been a blast, we've built shelters and dug out trucks its been fun.

Today was a fantastic Sunday, We slept in and then headed to rapid ten to do some swimming and cliff diving, rapid ten has become like my favorite place in Africa, I should change the name of this blog.

I only have 5 more weeks left here and so much is left to do. I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers it has been so effective.

Remember that God is your father, thats like a big deal, think about it.

Into the Bush

Tomorrow morning we head into the bush to preach the gospel. We're going back to the same place we went to before to see the same people and hopefully many more to encourage with the Word. Its pretty exciting business, I mean think about the story we have to tell, its pretty incredible.

I just want to request prayer. Pray that we travel safely. Pray that we pack all that we need.

Pray that we will be open to what the Holy Spirit has to say.

Pray that we have the courage to say it, no matter what.

Pray that love is overflowing from our group and into the villagers.

Pray that they will find a Father in God and a Savior in Jesus Christ.

Pray that we are filled with a spirit of service for the villagers.

Pray that the sick will be healed, and that demons will be cast out.

Thank God for loving you and the whole world.

Pray for the wisdom to love the things God Loves.

Pray for God's will to be done on Earth as it's done in Heaven!

Lazy Sunday

So today I took one of those naps where you wake up and its dark out, and you have one of those "whoa, where am I?" moments. Well it turns out I was in Africa at the Overland Missions Base on Rapid 14 of the Zambezi river and I had just enough time to not take a shower before dinner. Why so tired?

This Advance Mission Training business will wear you out!

So this week we learned how to weld and covered all 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, but we also had a 5 page paper due on Friday on a killer book called "Such a Great Salvation," by Mike Petzer.

Welding is a blast, but it really is like an art that requires tons of practice to get good at. In an effort to give us the amount of practice necessary to build our confidence and stuff like that we were assigned a project. The project was to design and build a toilet paper dispenser. So it was pretty much everyones first time doing metal work, which when you look around the warehouse feels like carpentry in the future, and we realized that between the sparks, the electricity, and the mandatory eye protection that it was probably the manliest thing any of us had ever done. Soon after that we realized that we were make poo paper dispensers and somehow that made the day longer.

Crispy (Chris P.), my welding partner, and I made Overland Missions symbols into toilet paper dispensers, They came out pretty decent much to our surprise. My confidence in the art of toilet paper dispensary is at an all time high.

Friday and Saturday we experienced a meteorological anomaly, It rained both days straight. Not heavy rains, but pretty decent rain. It was AWESOME! It had been so hot but its still pretty cool out from the rains, I'm sure that by the end of our stay here I will hate the rain and resent the fact that it came early but the benefits have been incredible. I felt like I breathed for the first time in a month because all the dust had been washed out of the air.

The biggest shift of the past few weeks has not been the weather however, across AMT life has become normal. We all pretty much have our morning routines and afternoon routines, we can walk to the bathroom at night and back to our tents without getting lost, we know where its cool in the afternoon, we know when to get seconds at dinner (always) and when not too (never). We know our way up and down the gorge, we know how long it takes to wash dishes and how to make nshima and beans taste better (sugar on the beans). Its all become normal. In fact the strangest parts of Africa are when actual normal things happen, for example last wednesday was an AMTers birthday. His name is Bryan.

For Bryan's birthday we went to an Italian Restaurant in town called Olga's. Its owned by real live Italians and they make everything in house so its outrageously delicious, and it works just like a regular restaurant. You walk in get seated, place your order, receive food, converse, eat and pay. It was delicious and such a fun night but also incredibly strange, because it was so normal. Just a night out for a friends birthday dinner. I can't explain it but the pasta was delicious.

Well the fire has been lit under the water tank so showers should be getting hot, I'll update again soon, I love you all and miss you all. On friday we leave for the villages again for a few days, please pray for our preparation and that God can start preparing their hearts and ours!

P.S. I just wanted to say thanks again to the Echarte's for the guitar. It has been so great to have out here, and can make me feel right at home whenever I need to. Might even lead worship one of these mornings.