The Grand Finale :)

2 days left here and I am beyond blessed! There is so much to update you on but I will give you a small glimpse of our last week here!  

This past weekend we attended the Joint Winter Conference (JWC) in Magaliesburg, South Africa.  This was a weekend full of talks about the Gospel, time to spend with girls and fun events.  The theme of the retreat was “The Link”.  The speaker talked about how there are many events in our lives that God links together to make something great and magnificent.  Those events are hard at times, but in the end, God does things that show you more of him and draw you closer to his throne.  He does all things for a reason and even in those rough times, he is glorified.  Karlie and I had 4 girls go with us and it was a great time to get conversations with them and to really see God move through our lives while we are ending our time here.  Thanks so much for prayers, they are definitely being answered!

(Below are pictures of me and some of the girls at JWC)

(Below is a picture of me bridge swinging in Magaliesburg! One of the coolest things I’ve ever done)

(Below is me, Maira, and Carly before we went bridge swinging)

After a long weekend at JWC, we spent 3 days at a resort as a team.  At this resort we were able to truly experience more of South Africa.  Each day there were 2 safaris that you could go on.  This was a 57,000 acre piece of land where animals roamed freely.  Throughout our stay there, I went on 5 safaris.  This was one of the coolest things I will ever be able to do and if you know my love for elephants, you will be so excited for me.  I got to see elephants multiple times and sometimes they were right next to the road where I could probably touch one if I wanted to.  Along with elephants we saw giraffes, lions, rhinos, hippos, buffalo, leopards, pumas, wildebeests, kudus, and springboks. 

(Below are pictures from our time at the resort and our time on the safaris)

 (This is our team with our 2 safari guides)

  

(Above is the first elephant I saw on the safari)

As we approach the end, I have a few prayer requests but first, I want to say thank you! Thanks for investing in my life and my trip to South Africa.  It has been an amazing adventure and God has grown me in ways I never imagined.  I have seen my life be transformed by the gospel and I know God is daily continuing to sanctify me and make me more like Jesus.  Thanks for prayers and for loving me so well! I can’t say thank you enough! 

Prayer Requests:

1. Pray that we enjoy the rest of our time here as we spend time together as a team and in South Africa. 
2. We are going to Alex, which is a township living in poverty, tomorrow morning.  Please pray that our eyes will be opened to the reality of the physical needs of those in SA.

3. Pray for safe travels and that God will protect us as we embark on a 17 hour plane ride back to America.

See you very soon!  

 Love, Samantha

Go and Make Disciples of All Nations

This has been one of the sweetest weeks we’ve had, and as we approach the end, it is getting harder and harder to leave.  We have 2 weeks left and only 4 days left on campus, where has time gone?  Even though our time here is coming to an end, God continues to do big things.  This past weekend, Karlie and I had the privilege of seeing one of the girls we’ve been investing in give her life to Christ.  She comes from a family who practices Ancestor worship and when we first met her, she was so interested in learning about Christianity.  After many conversations about the gospel, who Jesus is, and our need for him, she committed her life to him on Sunday.  This was so sweet for Karlie and I because God didn’t have to use us but has chosen to bring us here, introduce us to our sweet friend Yezee, and then share the most important news she will ever hear with her.  Please pray for her as she starts her walk with the Lord and pray that he continues to give her the desire to read his word, fight her sin, and tell others about him. 

(Below is Karlie and I with Yezee after she gave her life to Christ at church on Sunday morning.)

This past weekend, our team took a trip to Soweto, South Africa.  This is the city where Nelson Mandela lived for many years.  We went to the house that him and his family lived in before he was put into prison.  We were able to see his house, learn more about his background and his family, and also see what houses are like in South Africa.  As an American, I commonly forget how privileged I am and how much I have compared to people in other places of the world.  Driving through Soweto, our eyes were opened to the reality that there are families of 8 living in a small two bedroom house with their bathroom in their backyard.  It is definitely a reality that not all of us in the world are as blessed as us in America. 

(Below is our team in front of Nelson Mandelas house on the same day he entered the hospital)

After going to Mandelas house, we went to a local restaurant called Wandies.  This is a buffet type restaurant inside a house in Soweto.  This is a place where many celebrities come to eat when they visit South Africa.  You can write on the wall and make your mark that you were there.  We had the opportunity to write our names on the wall and to enjoy tons of good food.  They had many different African type foods there like beef curry, samp and rice, pumpkin (as a vegetable not a dessert), chicken liver, chicken, and yummy vegetables. 

                                                (Below is a picture of Wandies in Soweto)

             (Below is a picture of where I made my mark) *Samantha CCP 2013*

          (Below is a picture of Mike and Carly writing on the wall inside Wandies)

This upcoming weekend is the Joint Winter Conference.  We are leaving Saturday morning at 10am and will be back on Monday afternoon around 2pm.  This will be a weekend packed with rallies, soccer, fun activities, and time to hang out with the girls that are coming with us.  There are 3 girls going with Karlie and I so please pray for fun time with them and also intentional conversations.  Pray for each of the students that are going not just from Wits but also from UJ Kingsway, UJ Bunting, and Tuks.  Pray that God will open ears of those that are hearing the talks and also that their eyes would be opened to the gospel and their need for Jesus.  I look forward to updating you on how it goes and the big things that God does in just 3 days in Magaliesburg, South Africa.

Thanks for your continuous support and prayers for my team and I.  God is doing great things and even though we only have 2 weeks left, we have complete faith that we will see God do much more in that short amount of time!

Prayer Requests:

  - Pray for JWC and that God will open the eyes and hearts of many of the students attending.  Also, that he would use our CCP team as a vessel to share the great news of Jesus Christ.

 -Pray for intimacy with Christ! We enjoy the 3 hours in the morning in Gods word each day, but please pray that we don’t just scratch the surface of scripture but that we truly dig down deep and apply it to our lives!
 - Pray we use these last 4 days on campus all for God’s glory and not our own.

With Love from South Africa,

Samantha

Living Unafraid - Ephesians 2:10

We're halfway through and I can't believe it!  Thanks for your continuous love and support for my team and I.  It has definitely been an adventure and we are continuing to see God do so many things here in South Africa.

God has been doing so many things on campus through the lives of myself and my team.  The guys are able to spend each day in the gym and also playing sports outside with students.  This has become a great way for them to connect with Wits students and to get good conversations with them outside of working out.  All of the girls have had a great opportunity to get into the dorms and to meet plenty of students and to build deep friendships with them.  God is continuing to give us sweet friendships and is using them all for his glory.

Next weekend, we have a retreat called Joint Winter Conference (JWC).  This is a 3 day long retreat where students from 4 different campuses come and spend a weekend hearing God's word, enjoying fellowship, and doing fun activities like talent shows and bridge jumping (which I will definitely be doing).  We will have 4 different rallys which there will be speakers giving talks on God's word and sharing what it looks like to walk with God and the sweet news of Jesus Christ.  Karlie and I have 4 girls from Sunnyside going with us as of right now.  Please pray that girls will continue to want to sign up and that God will soften the hearts of girls to desire to spend a weekend of their lives that can potentially transform and change their eternity.  We will have a lot of down time there where we can spend time with these girls and have deep spiritual conversations with them, so please pray God gives us conversation opportunities and that we soak them up. 

Each week, Karlie and I have had the chance to do bible studies in Sunnyside and we have had good turnouts each time.  We have one tonight and one next Tuesday night.  Please pray for these that God will continue to work in these girls lives and that they will desire to know more about Jesus and that they will see that He is the only one who can fully satisfy. We have had great conversations so far and are continuing to pray that God will use our lives on campus and in Sunnyside specifically.
                               
                                 (Below is Yezee with the bible that Karlie and I bought her)

As a team, we have 2 weeks left on campus, which gives us 9 days including today to invest in men and womens lives and to share the most important news they will ever hear with them.  Please pray that we are "Unafraid" and that we continue to completely give our lives away and dont waste away these last few days we have been given.

       (Below is some of the CCP girls along with some Sunnyside girls we've built friendships with)

On Saturday, we attended a professional rugby game.  This was really fun for all of us to do.  Before we came to South Africa, we learned how to play rugby as a team.  It was a good time for us to hang out but also to apply the small amount of knowledge we have on this sport to watching an actual game.  Below are some pictures of my team and I at the Lions game.

On Sunday, the guys took all of the girls on a group date.  They took us to get frozen yogurt, which is one of the only places in Jo'burg that has froyo.  At the frozen yogurt place, we did speed dating and just got good time to get to know each other more.  After that we did a scavenger hunt around the mall and this was fun and gave us an awesome opportunity to get out of our comfort zone.  That night, we went to a place called Carnivore.  This is a really high class steakhouse and they start off the meal by giving you bread and soup and then they bring out a salad bar to your table.  From there, they come around with food on skewers and they put it over your plate and give you how ever much meat you want.  There are 12 different meats that you can try and almost everyone on our team tried everything.  Some of the foods we tried: (Crocodile, Lamb, Antelope, Chicken Liver, Impala, Venison Sausage, Pork Sausage, Ribs, Chicken, Eland, Rump Steak, and Venison Meatballs).  They then serve dessert and lets just say, by the end of the meal, we were all extremely full but also extremely satisfied.
                                   (Below are some pictures of my team and I at Carnivore.)

We have had the time of our lives so far and are excited for these next 3 weeks.  We are blown away by the prayer requests that God has answered.  He has done so much in our lives and also through our lives.  We are all learning what it looks like to really strive to know Jesus more and out of the overflow of knowing him, we will want to love others and to share about that love with them.  Please continue to pray for my team and myself especially.

Prayer Requests:
1) Pray we strive to know God more deeply each day!
2) Pray we invest our lives these last 2 weeks on campus and don't waste it.
3) Pray for intentional conversations with girls on campus.
4) Pray for the girls we are taking to JWC and the girls that want to go.  (Specifically pray for  Yezee, Cheryl, Joy, Zee, and Dee).

In Christ Alone,
Samantha







   

Lion Park Adventure :)

Family and Friends,

Saturday morning we went to the Lion Park, which is about an hour away from where we are living.  At the park, we were able to go on a drive through the park where the lions were roaming free in their natural habitat.  On this adventure we saw giraffes, cheetahs, wild dogs, antelopes, zebras, ostriches, and most importantly lions.  While driving, we saw all of these animals then we later entered the lion exhibit.  This was a gated section of the park and was controlled by security guys that continued to keep the gates shut so the lions couldn't get out.  We drove down paved paths and the lions were walking all around us.  A few of them came right up to our windows and their heads were at the same height as our windows.  It was so magnificent being able to see these animals so close up and in their natural habitat.  It was so amazing to think of the reality that God created these animals and that they are all so different from each other.  It is also marvelous to think that he didn't have to create animals to be on this earth but has created them in a way where he is well pleased with them and we can now marvel at them.  Being in an environment like this just gave me even more reasons to marvel at how big our God is and how mighty he is.

                                          (Above is our team at the Lion Park on Saturday)

                                   (Above are some of the lions at the entrance of the exhibit)

  

(Above is the "king of the pack" marking his territory on a tree right next to my window)

After the drive through, we were able to enter the other part of the park.  This was an area with more animals and also an area where we were able to play with the lion cubs and to be hands on with them.  We were allowed 2 minutes in the lion cub area and were allowed to pet them and play with them.  After this, we were able to feed the giraffes and to look at the leopards, baby cheetahs, and meerkats.  This was a fun opportunity for our team to walk around together and just to hang out.  We had a lot of fun there and it was definitely something we will never be able to experience again.









(Top Right: Me with a lion cub at the hands on exhibit in the park)


(Left: My ministry partner Karlie and I at the Lion Park)


(Below:  Me right after I fed the giraffe and he came right up to us and was trying to nestle his head on us)



                                (Below: Me, Michaela, and Danielle next to the Meerkat exhibit)

                                    (Below: Jimmy, Mike, and Ben next to the Leopard exhibit)

*The day wasn't even over yet*

Saturday night, our team went out to dinner at a restaurant called Moyo. This is a very expensive steakhouse and we definitely got to experience the African culture.  In the restaurant, they had a guy walking around and playing live music along with 2 other men who played instruments.  They came to our table at one point and let us dance with them as they played South African songs.  Also, there was a guy who walked around and painted your face!  Each person on our team got their faces painted and it was a perfect opportunity for us to use our famous phrase "We're only in South Africa once".


(Above: Some of us at the dinner table at Moyo before we got our faces painted.
*Left to right* Carly, Danielle, Me, Michaela, and Ben)

(Left: All of the girls with the muscian men at Moyo)

(Below: Some of our team after they got their faces painted
*Left to right* Mike, Staci, Kyle, and Karlie)

 In a few weeks, we have a weekend long retreat called "Joint Winter Conference".  We are coming across a lot of barriers with students since it is the time of exams and students wanting to go home.  Please pray for boldness for our team as we continue to recruit for it and pray that God would soften the hearts of students and to give them the desire to want to invest in one weekend of their lives that could possibly change their eternity.


Please continue to pray for my team and I!  Pray that we would continue to strive to know God more and that he would daily sanctify us and make us more like himself.   Hope everyone is doing well!!!!

All the way from South Africa,
Love, Samantha

2 weeks down and time is flying!

Thank you for praying! God is doing so much here in South Africa both in and through our lives. We have already been here for 2 weeks and I can’t comprehend how fast 5 weeks will go if we are already this far into it.  We spent this past week as our first week on campus.  We have had the privilege of meeting men and women in the res halls and on campus.  Our team was privileged to have gotten the opportunity to get student ID cards.  This is the first time CCP students have ever gotten approved to get them.  This gives us the opportunity to eat in the dining halls and also to go into the recreational center.  The boys have had a chance to meet guys while playing sports and also by simply working out.  This also gives the girls an opportunity to do workout classes with girls we have met in the res halls.  This is a huge opportunity for us to meet students and also to have fun with them.  While I am here, I will be laboring in Sunnyside, which is an all girls res hall on campus.  There are 3 Wits girls that I have the privilege of laboring alongside and also Karlie, from IUPUI, who is my ministry partner and we get to meet girls together and invest in them.

(Below is a picture of myself and some of the girls that I have the privilege of laboring alongside in Sunnyside)

At ISU, we have weekly Campus Outreach meetings and at Wits they have the same exact thing.  Here, they call it High Definition (HD) and it is on Wednesday nights at 6pm.  This past Wednesday was the first one that we were able to attend.  We started HD off by singing a South African worship song, then went into doing a game.  The game was to see how well we knew our movies.  There were 3 teams, one team was 3 Wits girls, another was 3 Wits guys, and the other was 2 CCP members along with myself.  Of course, we won the game and were pretty proud of ourselves. A student then gave her testimony and shared with everyone how she came to know Jesus.  After that, our CCP director, Chad, gave a talk on “How do you know if you’re a Christian” and applied it to the song Skyfall by Adele.  He applied it well to the gospel and was able to give a clear representation of what it looks like to faithfully walk with God.  After the talk, we were able to sit and talk with students about what they thought about the talk and to spend time with them.

(Below is a picture of Karlie and I with some of the girls in Sunnyside at HD on Wednesday night)

On Saturday morning, we had a Braai at our house.  A Braai is a giant barbeque with lots of food and music.  These are huge in South Africa and are a big way that people use to get together and have fun.  We had different types of South African foods that everyone enjoyed.  The food went fast and we all went back for thirds.  We also had music and used the tennis courts in our front yard as a giant dance floor.  The Wits students taught us a few South African dances and we also taught them some of our dances.  Braais are so big here and it was such a privilege to be able to host one at our house and to invite our friends that we have met on campus.

Thank you so much for your prayers! We couldn’t do this without God and your prayers.  There are a few things that would be greatly appreciated for you to pray for. 

1)  Pray that we can continue to meet students and that God will provide time for us to hang out with them and be able to learn about their lives and their culture. 

2      2) Pray for good fellowship with my teammates and that we will all continue to grow in our walks with God together.

3      3) Pray for strength to continue to invest my life into girls on campus even when I may feel tired or mentally drained. 

I hope everyone is doing well! Feel free to comment on these posts and let me know how I can also pray for you!  Any encouragement is also welcomed.  Love you all!

In Christ Alone,

Samantha

  

Exploring Jo'burg

Family and Friends,

It has been such a blessing to be able to have finally made it to Johannesburg.  I am so excited to see what else God has in store, since he has already blessed us with so many experiences.

Our theme for the summer is "Unafraid" and our theme verse is Ephesians 2:10 "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."  Our prayer is that we are daily being refueled by God's word and the truth of Jesus, that we will then be unafraid to go and tell the students of Wits the gospel.  We are daily praying for this and our hope is that you will pray for it with us.  

This week, we have had the opportunity to explore Jo'burg a little bit and experience some fun cultural things.  On Saturday, we attended an Orlando Pirates Futbol game.  This has been something I have wanted to do for years and we had a lot of fun.  Even though they endured a loss of 0-1, we had a great time as a team.  It gave us a great opportunity to hang out and to just spend time having fun together.  Below is a picture of our team at the game during halftime.

 Below is a picture of our house and where we are all living.  On the left side of the house is a pool, but it is too cold for swimming.  Also, in front of the house are tennis courts and I have already played once.  Basically, I'm living in paradise! :) 

 Yesterday, we went to campus for the first time and were able to walk around with some of the South African girls and meet other students and go on a small tour of campus.  This was super exciting and it was great to finally be able to see how school is for them here and to build sweet friendships with students.  We are on campus from 2pm to 9pm Monday through Friday and usually eat dinner with them also. It has been a great experience for all of us and we look forward to spending more time with these students and with their friends.  Please continue to pray that we can build trusting friendships with the students here and then be able to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.  God is already doing big things through our team and we are excited to see what else he has in store for us.  Below is a picture of all the girls before leaving for our first day of campus.

Prayer Requests:

1) Please pray that we are spending time in God's word and soaking up truth each morning before we  start our day.  Then that out of the overflow of our hearts, we will share this good news with others.
2) Please pray that we live out Romans 1:16 and are unashamed of the gospel.  Pray for boldness and that we are Unafraid to go and tell others about Jesus.
3) Pray that we continue to soak up everything here and our time that we have with the girls on Wits campus.  We only have 6 weeks left and we want to make the most of it! 

In Christ,
Samantha

Hello from South Africa

We have made it safely!  Our team arrived in Johannesburg (Jo'burg) yesterday afternoon.  We have already had the privilege of making friends with people here and experiencing small parts of the culture.  I would love to tell you in great detail what we have already experienced, but my time to update you is limited.  We have a lot planned for the day, but I wanted to inform everyone that we are safely here and are slowely settling into our home. 

Our team is staying at a Bed and Breakfast.  We have 3 rooms: 1 room for the guys and 2 rooms for the girls.  Each room has its own bathroom and we are settling in comfortably. 

We ate pizza for dinner last night and their pizza is like something I've never tasted before.  Also, today we went to a cafe and tried burgers and fries.  The food here is not made with as many preservatives as food is in America and so everything is sweet and is healthier for you!

We also attended the Apartheid Museum this morning and were able to see different views of what exactly the Apartheid was and how it affected the South Africans here.  We also went to a separate museum that was all about Nelson Mandella and to see the impact he has had on this country is absolutely unbelievable.

This is only the start of our adventure and I can't wait to share more with you as my summer continues! Please keep praying for my team and I and drawing near to the throne of grace!

With Love,
Samantha