Nelson Nyman

We are finally in Jerusalem after meeting up with the rest of the Discipleship Training School from New Zealand!  It has been an absolutely amazing school!  We spent 3 months at YWAM New Zealand before setting sail on this outreach of a lifetime.  Our team of 8 travelled the length of Africa from the bottom to the top working with contacts of all kinds.

Leading a YWAM DTS outreach is an experience like no other.  We visited 5 countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Morocco.   One of our goals is to expose the students to as many long term missionaries as possible.  It certainly happened.

Here in Jerusalem, we are sharing testimonies and celebrating what God is doing.  There are 6 teams present and the energy is high!  I am so happy to have been able to bring our team to the end in one piece.  We are all healthy and safe.  We met the budget and saw God do all kinds of amazing things.  It’s a great feeling to get a “job well done.”

Along with a “proper” debrief of everything that happened and some good application and re-entry teaching, we are getting a really comprehensive tour of the holy land.  I’ve read the Bible all my life, but this is amazing.  It’s so incredible to see places where the Lord actually walked.  I am most blown away by the coexistence of all the different people.  Everybody has a piece of this place.  There is the wall around the original city where the Old Testament “Holy of Holies” was inside the temple.  It’s believed to be the actual spot where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac.   After that, the Israelite temple was built and later sacked.  There have been various temples and things on the same location and now it’s the “Dome of the Rock” …a Mosque of all things.  Just standing next to the “Wailing Wall” and then going up and walking around that Dome is crazy.  I have hardly been to a place where there is more tension.

I would highly recommend making the trip if you can…

Over the past 2 weeks we stayed at a place called Osanidde Village. It’s an island-based orphanage in Uganda.  Bussi Island is an agro-fishing community predominantly made up of peasants who practice subsistence living along the shores of Lake Victoria shores.

We worked with an evangelist called Michael Kayzze-a Uganda native with a passion for seeing God transform the islands.  We were part of running basic “crusades” and “conferences” with local churches.  The 2 weeks were pretty much non-stop.  We spent the mornings working with the churches teaching from the Word and encouraging believers.  The afternoons and evenings we participated in these “crusades.”  A crusade is a local evangelistic meeting with a generator, sound system, and two microphones.  The local pastors bring worship singers with drums and we all set up what basically turns out to be a worship service right on the side of the road or in a market or somewhere else.  There are no paved roads on Bussi.  The conditions are basic.  Our team might share testimonies, perform an evangelistic drama, sing a few songs, and Michael or one of the other pastors will give an alter call, and may people will come forward.  In a few places they lined up a baptism for those who wanted.  It really fits what’s written in Acts 8 about the Ethiopian man and Phillip.  Phillip lead him to the Lord, they found some water, and baptised him straightaway.  John (one of my team mates) and I had the opportunity to baptise many people on two different occasions like this.  It was such a privilege.

People are mostly open to the gospel because when Jesus comes into a community like that, He brings life.  Families stay together, crime decreases, and people begin to have hope.  When people have hope, it effects everything positively.

The orphanage was started a few years back as a prayer house.  Our contact’s father had a vision to start a prayer house on a piece of property close to the water.  One thing lead to another, they started buying up the adjacent property, and began taking in children who had nowhere to go. Today there are about 160 children there.  I asked them who takes care of the kids.  He told me there are widows who live there and teach them in the schoolhouse and teach them to work and live.  It’s amazing to me that the Lord takes care of his own…to see a house of prayer turned orphanage where widows are doing the training and the kids are living useful lives.  If the truth where known, they blessed us far more than we blessed them.

Psalm 68:5-6

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Today we are at the end of a 3 day, mid-outreach break in a place called Kisumu, Kenya located part way to our next ministry location called Moshi, Tanzania.  We spent the time regrouping as a team, having team times of worship, one-on-ones, and other things we as team leaders are encouraged to do at a mid-outreach “debief.”

Tonight it’s back on Akumba Bus with a route going from Kisumu back through Nairobi(arrives at 430am) then goes south across the Kenya/Tanzania border and arrives in Moshi about 2pm.  These overnight bus trips a are a real adventure.  I try to sit in the front because watching the action on the road is fantastic entertainment.

We travelled from Johannesburg to Nairobi, Kenya by plane the other day.  It seems like a week of travel even though it was nothing more than a day and a half.  The flight was on time.  Nothing more than a 737 to get the 4 hour flight done.  I guess I expected something more than standard Southwest equipment.  Kenya customs took about 2 hours and set us back $25 per head for a multiple entry 3 month visa.  I had no idea, but the guy I have been communicating with to arrange the bus to Uganda and possible overnight in Nairobi turned into a friend and an invaluable resource.  He lined up a room at the YMCA hostel with breakfast for 6000 KSH(Kenyan Shekels) which translates into about $75US.  That’s a steal for 8 people.  We are trying to live and do everything on $18/day per person, which is not easy.  The Lord has helped us on numerous occasions, and we are basically right on track.  We spent the day yesterday with Dave (the contact) looking at local ministries in some of the bigger slums in Nairobi.  There are kids everywhere and some of the guys have a ministry where they sell paper bags with logos on them to generate cash and keep busy.  These former street people are so resourceful when given the chance.  This stop was not even on the schedule, but we were given the chance, so why not?  You never know when you might be back to a place or what the Lord might do.

Pandemonium.

After that, Dave and his hugely pregnant wife, Lucy treated us to a lavish dinner at their house before putting us on an overnight bus to Kampala, Uganda.  The bus just sat there running without explanation for almost 2 hours after the scheduled departure time, but, as they say constantly, “This is Africa.”    So, after blasting along in the dark for hours and hours, the sun came up and we stopped at the Ugandan border.  These countries all consider themselves East Africa, but going from one to another reminds me that they are not the same country.  Getting the $50, three month Ugandan visa set us back $400 for the team of 8. I was told Kenya lowered theirs to $25 to encourage tourism, but apparently, Uganda doesn’t share that same desire.  Not many “whiteys” at the border other than one German girl who threw a fit about the cost of the visa.  How unattractive.

Continuing on, we arrived here to our next contact-a local pastor who works in a place on Lake Victoria called Bussi Island.  He just laid the plan on our exhausted team for the next 16 days.  First it’s travel from one island to another running what he calls crusades.  There is morning Bible teaching to believers while the others are in other groups going door-to-door.  At nights, we are part of these Evangelistic meetings.  The whole thing sounds absolutely non-stop and crazy and I can only speculate what it will actually be like.  The islands have no power or internet, so things may be a bit quiet, which is fine with me.  I hope to write facts instead of speculation at the back end…

We are in a town called Lanseria outside Johannesburg.  After a series of flights (Christchurch, Aukland, Perth, and finally Johannesburg) we arrived last Wednesday to a thriving ministry project called Refilwe.  It’s a growing “Site,” with multiple outreach programs.  A slogan I have seen here reads, “Breaking the cycle of poverty.” There are about 55 orphan children here.  So far we have spent the days working on several projects improving the site and attempting to share the life in abundance Jesus promises in John 10:10.  Jesus told us to go to the nations and “disciple.”  John and I have been having a nightly Bible study with some young guys where we look into the Word to get and give answers to the questions they have about life.  This kind of discipleship is like the old saying about teaching a man to fish and feeding him for a lifetime.  More and more, I think that was what the Lord meant when he talked about “life to the full.”

The ministry has generated lots of local support.  One of the big cell phone companies here called MTN finished what they dubbed “21 days of improvement” all across Africa, so there was a huge production with media, money, and catered meals here for a day.  We laid sod by hand for a full sized football field in about 8 hours.  I would guess there were over 100 employees and volunteers all together.  It was fun to see all the people working at a manic pace to get the work done, but also interesting how things are made to “appear” a certain way when they will be on TV later.

South Africa is in absolute pandemonium over the World Cup.  Flags fly everywhere and people wear the yellow and green.  Sports unite people in a universal way whether it’s the “All-Blacks” of rugby in New Zealand, the Cubs in Chicago, or this month-long world class “football” shoot-out.

One huge part of Refilwe is the medical and social outreach into the community. Our team of 8 rotates in pairs through different groups.  Usually 4 of us will stay at the site and do manual labour, 2 will go out with the community outreach group, and 2 will do data entry to help the nurses conquer the backlog of paperwork in the office.

I went out with a nurse called Gene the other day.  We walked from Refilwe out along these dusty African foot trails where we met up with Peggy, Gene’s assistant.  We spent the morning walking around dragging this HIV testing kit that rolled on a luggage rack from door to door asking if we could test people.  Gene just loves on these people, mostly women telling them to take care of their babies, giving them pamphlets about HIV and condoms and other things to help stop spread the disease.  Some want to be tested, some don’t want to know.  She says she would rather do this than get paid any amount doing anything.  I can see why.  These people have absolutely nothing.  They know so little.  I was listening to a conversation Gene had with a girl and I wondered if the she even connected sex with pregnancy and the resulting baby in her arms.  Gene lead her to the Lord and despite my questioning whether the girl even totally understood what she was committing to, (do any of us really?) tears streamed down her face as she repeated the words of the sinner’s prayer.  The presence of Jesus is strong in those moments.

I will try to post some pictures of that village or something that helps to give a picture.  It’s hard busting out the camera in those places.  I feel out of place enough knowing those people can barely eat while I take their picture.  Some moments are better just archived in the mind and relished with God.  I saw a verse the other day I think applies.

“The more the words the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?”  Ecclesiastes 6:11

Actually, several days passed since i wrote this.  We are leaving Joburg this morning and should be arriving in Nairobi, Kenya tonight where we stay at the YMCA guesthouse(luxury…haha).  Tomorrow, we will hopefully look at one of the biggest slums in Kenyaand a ministry there, but Kenya is not really on our list of stops.  It’s transit into Uganda, but the Lord is definitely strategic and uses every moment and wastes nothing….tomorrow night it’s an overnight bus across the border leaving us in Kampala, Uganda by Saturday morning..

Baptizing John.

This is a picture from the other day.  After all this time in lectures with Outreach looming on the horizon, we asked any of the students if they wanted to be baptized before heading out.  There were 4.  John chose his small group leader and I to be in the water.  It may not look like it, but that water is freezing.  It’s fall here in New Zealand so it’s nothing like when i got baptized in Hawaii years ago.  It was actually my first time baptizing anyone, but it’s God who does the work.  We are just his servants carrying it out.

Today is the day before we fly out to Africa.  There are 6 teams total.  Two of them flew out this morning.  Two more leave tomorrow early, then it’s us.  Our path is Christchurch, Aukland, Perth(Australia), and finally to Johannesburg, South Africa.  We arrive at 515am to some sort of airport transfer taking our team of 8 to a small camp of some kind where we are rumored to have work in a medical clinic helping with HIV testing and some mechanical work on a tractors.  They divide the girls and guys, so i am guessing John and i will be doing the dirty-work, which is fine with me.

The anticipation around this place is intense.  People are ready and waiting.  I think we worry too much.  You can only plan so much for this type of thing.  I think the more time we spend in prayer, the better it will turn out. I mean, how much can i control anyway? Really.

Here’s a shot of the whole school.

Around the World DTS a few weeks back.