Final Day = Crazy (yet again!)

Hello friends -- the following letter comes from one of our team members for the South Africa trip (Dalton Pigman).  If you'd like to respond directly to him, I added his email to the cc field (it's daltonwpigman@gmail.com)


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Hello friends and family,
I have been having a great time here in South Africa. The time spent with the Norman and KC team was a really powerful experience. I am grateful for this opportunity that God has provided for me. I wanted to let you know about another opportunity that has recently come up. While working in the townships here in South Africa, I found my self working along side a man named Raymond. Raymond is a black South African here on leadership at All Nations. Raymond was originally planning an outreach to Mozambique with an All Nations team set to depart the 15th of June. Unfortunately for Raymond most of his team was not able to join because of various reasons. The state of the outreach was looking pretty gloomy. 

Just before I met Raymond for the first time another guy from All Nations named Gawie(Pronounced Havi) told me about the Mozambique trip and that Raymond had been scrambling to find the "missing pieces" of his team. Gawie told me that he was almost certain that Raymond would love to have me. It just so happens that the same day that I was to meet Raymond, and talk to him about the trip, he was going to talk to Floyd McClung (The big boss man of All Nations) about canceling the trip. Thankfully I got to Raymond first. When I told him that I was interested, he lit up like a light bulb. He immediately started planning right where he left off. He pulled out a fully packed bag from under his bed and told me "that's all he needed to hear." So now it was only Floyd McClung that we had to face. 

After explaining the situation to Floyd we all had a time of prayer and worship. As if reading my heart, Floyd put his hands on me and spoke in tongues. Soon after he took me in the hall and gave me his blessing for the outreach with one requirement, that I get the blessing of Mike and Kayln Arndt (My hosts and friends). After receiving theirs as well, the time has come to ask for your blessing and support. I will be honest, we already have a ticket. We found a good deal and just snatched it up. We are trusting God for the rest of the support. 

The trip will be 26 days long and will consist of training, supporting, and working along side black African Christian leaders in Mozambique. We will leave the 15th of June. Our vision is to equip Africans to lead Africans. We want to create something sustainable and not reliant on western thinking or westerners. I am asking God for 6000 rand which comes out to about 750 US Dollars. This money will go towards a two way plane ticket, bus ticket, lodging, food, visas, one yellow fever vaccination, and work projects. So if you would like to make a donation you can do so through All Nations. Here is all the information you will need: 

All Nations Capetown
Standard Bank Fish Hoek Branch
Acc No:072110619
Branch Code:03600980
Swift Code: (Put My Name) Dalton Pigman
Email: allnationssa@gmail.com

Thanks and Blessings,
                          Dalton Pigman

ps. you are welcome and encouraged to forward this to anyone else who might know me and be interested in supporting me as I have a limited contact list. 

Final Day = Crazy (yet again!)

Well -- today was another crazy day!  Unfortunately I don't have long to type (about 7 minutes!) but I'll make it quick!
 
This morning at 8 we got a SMS from Mike and Kalyn saying "6 baby whales beached at kommetkie!  They need help!  If you hae swimsuits, come!).  We within five minutes loaded the VW microbus (which comfortably seats 10) with 21 of us and headed to the beach.  They were actually wrong about the number...there were 55!  And they were full grown.  Most of us immediately jumped in the water and started helping trying to drag the pilot whales back into the water.
 
Juli (being the magnificent reporter she is) found the head of the Environmental department for this part of South Africa and got the scoop.  They were full grown. They were waiting on the alpha male to lead the rest out. Some of them weren't strong enough to even get past the breakers.
 
We did what we could and spent a couple hours helping get most of them at least in the water.  As we left all of our team was so excited for the experience.  a) most of us got to touch whales (i helped carry three out to the water, for example) and b) we felt like we were seeing God's redemptive power work in His creation in a way that we hadn't before.  If people like us weren't there to help, they would have died on the beach.  While they are whales and not humans, there is something about stewardship (particularly creation care) that begs us help in this small way. 
 
This afternoon we are tying up loose ends and getting all of the hungry (for Jesus) people that we've met together and introduced in some way to long termers.  Tomorrow we will be saying goodbyes, debriefing, and heading back to the states. 
 
Pray for favor and safety as we finish up and as we travel tomorrow and Monday.
 
Look for pictures too when we get back!
 
Brandon

Two Days Left!

We have two days left for ministry in the townships! It's hard to believe!

 Our time here really has been good! Please pray that we finish strong!

 Yesterday we had a half day in Masi and a half day off. For the Masi
part, we broke from the normal routine and instead (in our small
groups) treasure hunted. There were many cool stories from this and
I'll go ahead and recount the two from my group.

 * Our clues were "pink house" and "shoulder". Outside of a pink house
we saw a girl in a sling. We asked her if she was having shoulder
problems (she was) and then told her what we were doing. We prayed
for her and she immediately began weeping because she couldn't believe
that the Lord wanted to touch her in such a way (she was healed --
before we prayed she had no movement and after she could move her arm
once again). She immediately showed us where she lived and asked us
to come back. We invited her to our praise and worship this morning
and she came and is hungry to know more about Jesus.

 * We were walking and saw another pink house. We knocked on the door
and a guy came out of the next house surprised to see us (he wasn't
expecting to run into anyone). We asked him if anyone was home in the
pink house (no one actually lived there, he told us) so we told him
what we were up to. He immediately wanted prayer for three things,
two in particular were meaningful: to know Jesus and to have some
assurance of salvation. We explained grace to him, prayed for him and
he is excited about being introduced to long termers to learn more.

 There were several other cases of healings and curses broken and
people hungry to know Jesus -- quite a morning I'd say!

 For the afternoon we headed to Cape Town (the waterfront area) and
started at a big, nice mall and had a leisurely afternoon doing
different things. Some of the group shopped, some explored the city,
some found quaint coffee shops to relax in. We then had dinner
together and called it a night. All in all -- it was a very good
day.

 As I've said before -- keep praying! We appreciate it!

 Looking forward to sharing more with any of you that are interested
when we get back to the states!

 Brandon

Going Forward.....

Yesterday was awesome!

In our normal morning devotional time, we (as a whole team -- all 30+ of us) felt like Jesus wanted to do something different with our time in Masi.  We ended up praying and worshiping about twice as long and then as a whole group, took it to the streets (and by it I mean Jesus!).  We grabbed the two guitars, left the building and started singing and worshiping as we headed to two specific houses -- one lived in by a man named Mfunkedo and another a woman named Angela.  We all felt like the Lord wanted us to press in for healing (Mfunkedo has bad leg problems -- he's an amputee -- and Angela is an AIDs victim who was likely on her death bed the first day we met her -- but not right now!). 

It was such an intense day.  As we walked to Mfunkedo's, people from Masi heard the praises and came out of their houses to join us.  We had quite a troupe by the time we got there.  We then met Mfunkedo and told him what we were up to.  The first thing he told us was that he wanted to know Jesus and asked us right then and then to pray with him about that (which we were excited to do!). We had met him on Sunday and had told him the Gospel then -- he wanted to think about it but was ready yesterday!  He prayed and worshipped with us and we spent time praying for his legs.  Nothing incredibly crazy happened there but it did bring the presence of God to that corner of Masi (it's now called the corner of Good Hope by the residents).  People were constantly coming up and pulling team members aside and asking to know more about Jesus, to pray about connecting their hearts to Jesus and to pray for healing.  Several people came from streets away because they heard the shouts of praise to God. 

After several hours (no joke!) we headed to Angela's house and did more the same.  She has improved greatly since we came and is excited to hear about and know Jesus.  While the AIDs might not be gone yet, she is getting stronger by the day (really!  The improvement is amazing!).

As I started with, yesterday was awesome!   But it was also intense (as you can imagine).

As far as prayer points for the remaining days:

* We are all tired.  It's a fact of life that when you run hard you get tired.  Pray that the Lord will continue to be our strength as He's already been.
* Also pray against spiritual oppression in Masi (and South Africa!).  It was even more noticeable today than other days to me.  Every child I saw had the ancestor worship strings tied around their stomachs.  They are supposed to ward off evil spirits by the power of the ancestors but in reality it just brings spiritual bondage to dark forces.  Also, their is a "prophet" who claims that when people pray to his picture he heals (and not by the name of Jesus).  His picture was in almost every home I went into today and one very sick boy had his picture tied around his neck.  It's heartbreaking to see people turning not towards the truth (Jesus!) but to darkness.

Much love from South Africa land --

Brandon

Posterous | Re: Masi = awesome!

It's been five days since I've written? Things have moved so quickly
here. It feels like it's been no time at all here, and yet so much has
happened. I've seen such amazing things here. People have been
completely healed of pain that has afflicted them for a long time. I
have shared the gospel with people who have received it with joy. I
met with three women in Masi in a house church-- and it was so
awesome! The woman who's house we had it at is a total person of
peace. After we read the Bible with them she took us around to
everyone who lived around us and was introducing us and having us pray
for people and inviting them to another meeting Saturday. I have
several similar house church/Bible studies set up for Friday and
Saturday with hungry women in the wetlands. It's so exciting!
----Julianna