Day 8 - Saturday Training, Shopping & Sights

The ladies of HBC and other churches join with Mona, Katie,
Mel & Busi to learn of effective Children's Ministry techniques

Where has the week gone!?! Can you believe we have been here a week? Nope, us either. Today began with a training for Children's Ministry workers and potential church planters. Mitch & Mona McDonald led their respective groups. Mel & Katie helped with the children's workers session and had a wonderful time with 8 other women, representing 4 different churches. Mona brought a great lesson on the different learning styles of children and the circle of learning, making sure the children have experienced what they need to in order to apply & practice a truth from Scripture. Mitch led a number of men in great conversation regarding future church plants -- Pastor Julius has a vision for 5 new church planters by the end of 2014.

During a walking tour of Pretoria, Keith buys an ear of corn from
a street vendor and Antoine tries on a new hat

Not everyone had an “assignment” this morning, so some of the team got to hit the streets of Pretoria to experience a little more “up close and personal” view of the city.  Kevin, Antoine & Keith (along with Emmanuel who you’ll read about next) put in about a 4 mile round trip on foot from the campus of Hope Baptist to Church Square (a famous center of Pretoria) and back.  They experienced a lot of new sights, sounds and smells and gained a new appreciation for Pretoria and its people.  Later in the afternoon, the entire team got the chance to go to an open-air market to do a little shopping, since we have had entirely full days prior to today and have not had such an opportunity. 

Antoine with our faithful driver, Emmanuel,
who has become a good friend during this week

We need to mention someone who has been incredibly helpful to us and has made our trip much more than it could have been. Emmanuel has been our personal chauffeur all week, driving our rented van from where we’re staying to the church and back and all over Pretoria to find food or show us a new sight or wherever the team needed to go. He has taken off working as a driver of his "truck for hire" service in order to transport us. What an example of true servant-leadership. He is also the Evangelism Director with Hope Baptist Church. He was with the team of volunteers all week sharing openly the love of God! He has laughed with us on too many occasions and patiently answered questions as we seek to understand cultural differences. He is the brother we never knew we had, but now are so glad God introduced us to him! Thank you Emmanuel for loving us (and keeping us safe through the sometimes crazy streets of Pretoria)!

We head to bed tonight in anticipation of a great day tomorrow at Hope Baptist Church as we get to experience our second Sunday worship service of this trip.  We do not know what God has in store, but with the incredible week of sharing with hundreds upon hundreds of people that didn’t previously know about Hope Baptist Church, we can only imagine!

 

Here are a few more pictures from today (click once on each image to enlarge):

David and Jean-Claude do a little music practice
in preparation for tomorrow's big service

Here's a common mode of transportation for little
ones on mama's back in Pretoria

Here's a woman working on some bead creations
while we were out at the market doing
some shopping