Beginnings at Junction Church

One of the church partners where I have been most involved is at Junction Church. It’s so neat to see the excitement that is currently surrounding the program there. They recently had their first weekly meeting and 23 individuals showed up to receive continual business and biblical training. The most encouraging sign? Over 16 of these individuals received microloans! Microloans are usually just a small part of the Paradigm Shift Program with only about 25% of weekly attenders qualifying for a loan. With almost 70% of weekly attenders at Junction receiving loans, it demonstrates the quality and talent of the entrepreneurs in this cycle at Junction.

Here is a quick bit on a few of the entrepreneurs at Junction:

Marcia runs a car wash/café in Diepsloot, plans to use the money to fix a broken water drain that has been giving her trouble for months.

Jans, founder of a production company doing a variety of lighting, sound, photography and event planning, will use the loan to buy his own printer to give clients quicker customer service.

Simon, a driven chicken farmer, is planning on using the funds to expand production from his operations in the North West providence nearer to the larger market of Johannesburg.

I’m excited to spend the next three months to walk side-by-side some of these entrepreneurs, helping them to develop their business skills and also challenge them in their faith. 

Spiritual Warfare in South Africa

While Africa may seem like a very Christian nation when looking at the plethora of churches, there exists a lot of syncretism in African’s worldviews with animism and ancestral worship ingrained in them. Whether it be consulting witch-doctors, owning wooden masks or wearing certain bracelets/necklaces, there exists many ways that false and demonic forces have distorted their view of the gospel. This syncretism has caused spiritual warfare to be elevated compared to what I’m familiar to. While not yet having completely experienced this battle yet, I believe this morning I got a brief taste of the devil's schemes against our mission.

We were running the 2^nd, all-day, Business Experience Course (BEC) in Zanspriut and we had 34 entrepreneurs register for the event. It’s typical that only about 2/3rds of entrepreneurs who register will actually show up but regardless, we would be ecstatic if 20 entrepreneurs attended considering last week’s 9 attendees. But when we arrived at the community center this morning, only 4 of the 34 entrepreneurs (12%) of those registered actually showed up. Considering the lack of turnout, we had to regrettably cancel today’s session.  In all the BEC courses that Paradigm Shift have run, there has never been this few entrepreneurs that have shown up. After talking to the few entrepreneurs who attended, it was revealed to us that this Saturday, particularly, was a tough day for the community because off the unusual amount of funerals. Many who originally signed up, could no longer make it as they needed to attend to their grieving family and friends.

While this situation may not overtly scream spiritual warfare, I do believe that Satan, as the ruler of darkness, does use death to try to thwart God’s plans of redemption. This opened my eyes to the truth in Ephesians 6 that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Pray that I take seriously this battle, that I put the Armor of God as I interact in these communities and that I can ultimately be one of the MANY agents of redemption that the Lord uses to bring the glorious name of Jesus to these dark and broken communities. 

African Safari Adventure

So this past weekend I had an opportunity to head up to Pilanesburg National Park to go on my first safari. Lets just say this was an adventure indeed. Pilanesburg is about a 3 hour drive from Joburg so we left around 7 AM to get ample time at the park. We were planning on spending around 4 hours driving around in our own car then spending 3 hours on the official park sponsored, tour guide. I loved the beginning part of this trip. It was absolutely gorgeous to see the beautiful landscape with mountains in the backdrops while many different animals all around. I also enjoyed it because this is one of the only socially acceptable times for a human being to act like a dog and stick his head out of a car window for an extended amount of time. Gotta find those lions off in the distance.

The first part of the journey on our self guided tour, we definitely found plenty of wildlife. We saw countless zebras, giraffes, wildbeast, kudo, warthogs and impalas. We also did get to catch a hippo while we were overlooking a watering hole. Here is one of my favorite ones... 

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Unfortunately we didn’t see any of the Big 5 (lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants or buffalo) on our self-guided tour, but we still had the 3 hour tour with the park rangers to help us find some of the more elusive, rarer animals around the park. So around 30 minutes before the tour started, we decided to make our way to the gate to meet up with the tour and that is when the rest of the day became REAL interesting. As you would guess, the roads in an South African National Park are not at tip top shape. And when your little sedan roughs it out with the potholes, 9/10 times the potholes will win. And this is exactly what happened. We hit a pothole and cracked our oil plate and all our oil spilled out on the African trail. This put us in a very interesting dilemma. We are in the middle of an African Safari, where we may have seen 5 cars the last 4 hours and we have no cell service. On top of that, one of the park rules is that you are supposed to stay in your car at ALL TIMES because you have no idea what could be hiding in the brush. People die every year because they want to walk around, get a closer picture etc. So you can see the pickle we are in. So we decided to go with the risker choice and get out of car, and push it to the nearest intersection. Luckily, there was only a pack of wildbeast and zebra’s in the distance and no lions, rhinos or elephants to kill us(at least from our initial glance). After about 20 minutes, a lion actually jumped out of the brush and almost attacked Jonathan! … no that didn’t actually happen. Would have been a cool story though… Instead of a lion, it was another car coming down that path. Marissa and I hitched a ride with this Czech couple to head back to the gate to call a tow truck.( interesting 40 min car ride considering between the two of them they spoke about 5 words of English). To make a long story short, after spending many minutes on my phone with the insurance company, towing company and tow truck driver, It took 4 and half hours to finally get the truck down there. By the time we got to our car, it was dark out and the tour was long completed. So unfortunately, no lions or elephants or rhinos were seen on this weekend’s adventure.  Guess I’ll just have to save that for another journey.

So, moral of the story?? There was a reason why Jeeps, Land Rovers and other 4 wheel drive vehicles were created. For times like these. Next time I'm or you are on a safari, leave the sedans for the city roads and get a Jeep (Logan, where are you when I need you most?)

The Ceiling Light

It's currently 11:44 PM and I have spent the last hour in my double size bed staring up, thinking, gazing and contemplating my bedroom’s light connected to the ceiling of a solid, sound, well-structured South African home.  Oh how I take such a seemingly insignificant structure for granted.

Today I visited the informal settlement in Johannesburg called Zandspruit. The benign term “informal settlement” doesn’t even begin to paint the picture of the poverty, hopelessness and brokenness that exists in this community. As we drove closer to this informal settlement, I started to see this densely populated area with makeshift buildings not really thinking that tens of thousands of people actually inhabited these structures. These homes were extremely small, held up by a mixture of cement and tin and many without electricity. Some homes may have had outhouses but many do not have running water. There were stand-alone shops everywhere where people were selling everything imaginable just hoping to get enough money to get by.  It’s shocking to think that actual people live every day in this situation.  It opens my eyes to a completely new perspective when I come back to the comforts of my South African bedroom.

But the irony of it all is, as I sit in my light illuminated, cozy bedroom in Northcliff while utter darkness covers the electricity-less Zandspruit, there does shine a small ray of hope, of redemption, of change in Zandspruit. While we were there, we visited two entrepreneurs who have been impacted tremendously by the ministry of Paradigm Shift.  We spent 2 hours chatting, enjoying the company of Francinah, a 57 year old go-go (grandmother) who has developed the business skills to sell adorable baby onsies in SA and in fair trade retailers in the States. We meet Sylvia, who manages the 29 person cleaning crew of Zandspruit who has aspirations in the future to take her passions for bread making by managing a bakery. These two individuals, having God-given skills, talents and passions were helped tremendously by the coaching, mentoring and encouragement offered by Paradigm Shift. While these are only two stories amongst the thousands in the community, God is doing a work. We also trained a group of highly qualified, God-fearing, business professionals to launch the first stage of the Paradigm Shift program this Saturday in the Zandspruit.  This will be opening up the door of future opportunity to the thousands in the area so that more stories like Sylvia and Francinah can arise.

While we all may be blind to the amazing blessing of the comforts that we inhabit, let us also not be blind to the work that God is doing in individuals lives even among the most poverty stricken, seemingly God forsaken areas. 

Cribs: South African Style

Hey Guys! Here is a video update of where I will be staying the next four months. Enjoy!