Travelling buses, pregnant girls and the stuff of life

Starting a few weeks ago I organized for a group to come out and do voluntary HIV testing at the high school.  Hundreds of children are learning their status, are asking questions about HIV and are learning that HIV is a real thing and that they must live their lives in a way to attempt to avoid it.

On the left is Matthews who learned that he is HIV negative and intends to stay that way.  He is following Jesus and has made a commitment to wait to have sex until marriage.  On the right is Sandile.  He is the young man I told you about who is from Swaziland and has neither a mother or father.  The aunt that he is staying with is forcing him to deliver drugs and when he will not she will not give him food.  He is doing his best to follow God even when things are very difficult.  Please pray for these young men.

These are some of my boys (they are trying to lookd tough but are really sweet actually) and one of my girls.  They all got tested.

This is my friend Lentikile.  I threw a birthday party for him with all four of us and it was really fun.  He is 25 and it was his first birthday party.  I took a girl to him on Wednesday who was struggling with alcohol and boys and he discussed the way that alcohol can ruin your life and the effect that it had in his life.  He did not make good grades in school because of it, could have ended up with HIV because of it and now has a pregnant girlfriend who he will take care of for the rest of his life because of it.  He shared how God had made a difference in his life.  It was awesome to hear him really connecting with her.  Her name is Olebogeng...please pray for her.

This is random fun with children...happy bible storying and playing together.  They are so much fun!

We cooked at a church meeting to make some money for the youth.  We made pap and gravy and chicken.  You can see even the guys were cooking!

We also played around and had fun as we cleaned up after the meeting.  It was a total sucess!

These are four of the girls who attend the bible study at Romachana.  On the right are Alice and Mavis.  They are the two young ladies who accepted Christ last Satuday!

This is a group of journeypeople down in Jo'burg.  We hung out for the weekend and had a good time.  As you can see Paul is always a good sport!

I have been really blessed in that many youth have come to talk with me lately.  They are really opening up.  Please pray as there are two girls who are pregnant and I think have now decided to keep the baby.  I will go with them Monday afternoon for their first doctors appointments and to tell their parents.  Others are in bad home situations, are having boyfriends pushing them to have babies at the age of 16 or are just struggling feeling alone.  Pray that God would give me the opportunity to witness to these young men and women and that God would give them wisdom as they deal with the difficult things in their lives.  Please also pray for Kristy as she finishes her term September 20th and heads back to the USA.

"If any of you lacks wisdom he should ask it of God who gives abundantly to all without finding fault and it shall be given to him."     James 1:5

I will leave you with something just for fun.  If you look at the bottom of this broken billboard and this cell phone tower you will see that the children have made a swing set out of it!