the church in zoleka's house
We meet with around 25-30 different people on a regular basis for discipling now. Life is not as straightforward as having a set time and place each week; things have to constantly adjust to accommodate daily demands, but this sort of organic approach is very familiar to us so it is not a frustration.

However one group of about 11 do seem to meet regularly on one evening a week at Zoleka’s house. Last week we had a wonderful time acting out the story of the prodigal son. The love of the father was clearly demonstrated and God’s unconditional acceptance impacted us all as we took part.


We then encouraged everyone to practice retelling the same story to another person and challenged each one to find someone outside of the group to whom they could retell it during the week. We will find out on Wednesday how they did!
Update: well although some did talk to others no one managed to tell this story during the week! But next wednesday 3 of the guys will lead this group themselves. This was at their request - as they had been talking about who was going to lead the group when we were gone! Full of surprises.

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healings on the edge of the kingdom
In the last couple of weeks we have seen 3 wonderful healings as we have interacted with people day to day. The first was a little girl who came to an evening bible study with her mother. Fondiswa asked for prayer for her daughter because there was something wrong with her eyes, they were apparently changing colour somehow. A couple of the girls prayed with her and the following week we asked how she was doing, “Oh she’s fine now” we were told! Here she is -



Then we heard about Xoliswa who was stuck in bed unable to work with a severe ear infection. 2 of the team found her nursing a very swollen face and in a lot of pain. They ministered to her then returned the following morning to see how she was; no sign of her. Maybe she’s gone to the clinic, they thought. As they were making their way back they bumped into her sister; “Where’s Xoliswa, is she ok?” “Oh she’s fine. 2 people came yesterday and prayed for her and now she’s gone back to work!”

Then at another bible study with 11 people Sbusiso mentioned that he had a very painful tooth ache.



A simple prayer was spoken and within moments he found all the pain gone and no further problems since then.

I have always believed that miracles, signs and wonders happen primarily amongst not-yet-believers where the gospel is being shared and the edge of the kingdom is being advanced.

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david & daisy
The shack our guys are living in belongs to the brother of David, Sydney & John who all live nearby. Their brother is currently in jail and no-one seems too sure when he will return. He does not even know that his original house was burnt down and that he now has a beautiful new shack! We are praying for him to have an encounter with God in prison before he returns home.

David, his brother, who lives opposite (here with Daisy his wife) is hungry for more of God. After our guys moved in, David felt challenged to give up his drinking habit which controlled his life. With Gods help and the support of the team he has been dry for about 2 weeks. He loves talking about the bible and as well as having a bible study in his own home, he takes every opportunity to go with us to other peoples houses for bible studies.

We try to use bible stories as we teach and we are challenging people to retell these stories to others during the week. David is already doing this to great effect; though one of his brothers - John tries to run off each time David begins his story!

David apparently was talking/praying in his sleep the other night; Daisy heard him saying, ‘Lord pour your Spirit on me!’

If you’d like to, just take a moment right now and lift up David & his whole family to the Lord; ask him to meet with them powerfully and use them for his glory here in Red Hill and even further afield to bring hope to others.

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team house - red hill

Here’s some of our team standing in front of their des-res. The three on the left (Nick & Paula, and Lianna) are currently staying in the shack during the week - the weekends can get a little dangerous once drinking begins on Friday nights so they return to our team house in Fish Hoek for hot showers and the clothes washer.

They are doing an amazing job just living amongst the people in Red Hill sharing their lives, praying with people and sharing Jesus at every opportunity. We also have several community development projects we are trying to get started to address some of the profound social problems that exist here. Paula for example is helping to start a knitting/sewing business which will eventually take on a contract to produce ‘kangaroo-pouches’ for premature babies. Lianna is helping 3 guys with a bed-making project which All Nations funded (from donations) and may turn into a viable business in due course. Job creation is a critical issue here and I am meeting with 2 different groups who run employment agencies on a not-for-profit basis for similar townships in Capetown, to see what we can do for Red Hill.

These are just some of the things our team are involved with and over the next few days I will be posting some snap-shots and stories of what God is doing in the lives of the people here; it is very exciting!

As a team (of 7 people) we have a budget for our outreach phase of about R50,000 (£3,500). This covers our accommodation (shack included!), food and transport. So far between us we have paid a little under half of this but still have about £2,000 remaining to be covered. If you would like to help us as we work to see this community transformed by God’s love please send me an email and I will give you details of the appropriate All Nations account. Thank you.

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the landlady
There has been so much to keep up with this last week that it has been hard to get time to blog. Lots to tell but this is just a little pic in the meantime of a friend of Lianna's called Dawna talking with Daisy who lives next door to where our 3 team members are staying in a shack belonging to Daisy's brother in law James.

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making his glory known
Most important thing I've learnt during CPx? That I need a heart-changing encounter with the real Jesus; the result of which is that His glory becomes the goal and the fuel of all I do.

Here's something from John Piper to ponder on: God receives the most glory when we are the most satisfied, in Him.

On Wednesday in Red Hill our guys had around 20 show up for some food and a Bible study! God's presence was there and those I spoke to the next day had really enjoyed it. We hope to make this a regular event, and as we teach we will be looking for potential leaders who we will disciple and train so that they can lead and disciple others.

Our dream will be that when we leave there are disciples making more disciples.

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transition
We are in transition time currently; from lecture phase to outreach phase. Soon we will be a small team of 7 working alone up in Red Hill. It is daunting but exciting.

3 of the team will be living in a shack, belonging to a man who is currently in jail (a well know gangster in CT we are told!) during the week. We are unsure about safety issues at the weekends because of the drinking that goes on.

After the 'gospel' event last week we now have 3-4 potential house churches just starting made up of 2-6 people each. We are feeling our way forward with each of these groups and are very aware of not wanting to build over-dependence on us. We want these churches to be self-sustaining so that they can reproduce themselves without being dependent on outside help. This would give the highest possible chance of a future movement and that is what we are passionate about; here in Cape Town and everywhere else.

A little personal news: Joanna and I are celebrating our 23rd anniversary today and Tim is on crutches following a violent clash of legs in a basketball match at school. All the meds said he had broken something but after some ardent prayer the xrays revealed nothing broken!

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red hill by headlights
We had a party for Jesus on Thursday evening; here is Floyd's account:

Last night we were in Red Hill, the community where we have been working to do relief work after the fires that swept through there. One of our teams did a gospel drama by the light of cars shining on the actors. The wind was whipping sand in our faces, but the people of Red Hill were drawn into the simple drama story portraying a father who drove out his daughters for prostituting themselves (a big problem in disadvantaged communities: very poor people do desperate things), then took them back at the urging of a man with a message of forgiveness. Several people accepted Christ.

Our teams have labored long hours in Red Hill, but they now near the end of "Phase Four" of the relief work. We are transitioning to longer term development work and to planting simple home based churches. We are dreaming about Red Hill experiencing transformation.

One man in Red Hill named Sydney was convinced there were demons or spirits under his shack home. He believed these spirits were more powerful that God. His little son woke up every night screaming from bad dreams. The local sangoma (witch doctor) promised to take care of the problem for a lot of money. But one of the couples on our team offered to pray with Sydney, and since that day his son has not experienced one bad dream. Sydney has opened his heart to Jesus in a new way, and is pouring a concrete floor in his shack home this week!

One of the keys to transformation in Red Hill is servant leadership. It is the key to changing Africa. There is a desperate need for a new generation of leaders and a new expression of the church of Jesus Christ, making disciples, training servant leaders, and planting holistic church planting movements that preach good news and live good news to the poor and needy.

Thank you for standing with us to make a difference in Africa,

Yours,

Floyd and Sally McClung

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how are we doing?
As you can tell it has become harder to blog consistently. The 'lecture' phase of CPx is drawing to a close and the 70+ students have been preparing for the various outreaches, which include:
- Mozambique
- Zanzibar
- Transkei
- Lebanon
- Townships in CT
- Limpopo
- Spring Bok

All Nations have been having their Africa region retreat weekend which we, as potential new staff, have been involved with. It was a time to get to know others who are part of the AN family and refocus on the specific vision which we share:
Making disciples - Training leaders - Planting churches

We had the Near Eastern OM director with us all week sharing about the M-sl-m world; this is a major focus for AN's and Floyd is passionate about it. It was a daunting, moving and highly challenging time.

How are we?
Well as so many predicted, against all our expectations, we have made the hard (in some ways) decision to remain out here for at least another year. We both realised that we would be short-circuiting God's work in our lives if we were to finish in August. We have more to learn and more to be changed inwardly before we can 'safely' return to Europe.

Tim is delighted; he likes his school (as do we) and he can surf through the winter! Joanna & I are partly torn, as we really want to be with Rebekah and Jamie, particularly as this year will probably be their last full year 'at home'. But J & T will be back home for a few weeks in June/July and Jamie will hopefully head out here for part of his gap year; then we plan for the whole family to be together out here at Christmas (on the beach!). Here's a pic of Fish Hoek where we currently live in amongst all those houses.

Personally I am pretty drained emotionally and long for some healing/ progress in this area. Joanna is doing courageously. Together we are going to be responsible for the Red Hill outreach team (and long term), which I find very daunting. But we have already seen much to encourage us and are discipling one or two individuals one on one. I will try and get time to do a round up of Red Hill news later in the week.

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another full week
It's been another full week here. Not least because we had a little 'African Adventure' getting Tim off to Malawi on Wednesday. Won't recount the whole story, but it took us from 3am in the morning til 11am to get him away from Cape Town airport - his first flight having been cancelled after the passengers had all boarded!

We have had Jay Pathak teaching all week about evangelism. He is well known in Vineyard circles I think. He was great (for the westerners, though I think he lost some of the Africans), helping us remember the simplicity of it being all about Jesus and that its really not too complicated. Plus stuff about open & bounded set thinking (Frost & Hirsch talk about it in their book 'shaping of things to come') something I have been attempting to come to terms with over the past few years, so it was good to hear how Jay has been able to 'earth' it in his own experience and how that has radically impacted how he shares Jesus with people. You can find out more about Jay here

Been praying a lot about things in Red Hill and have been there all day today. With most immediate construction work completed we have much more time to be with the people to chat, hear their stories, talk about Jesus and pray with people. A number of our team have already seen several great things happening; ministering to a young couple who were struggling with relational issues (in Red Hill this usually means abusive violence and loud screaming), discipling a young guy who knows Jesus but longs to be free from alcohol, helping a young guy start a bed making business, distributing more clothes and supplies, dealing with some demonic/witchcraft activity in a house and praying for loads of big and little needs - a job, a new TV etc!

It is truly amazing how totally we are received in the community; previously outsiders would have been chased away and threatened but we are fully accepted. 3 of our team are even exploring moving into a shack for our 3 month outreach phase.

Joanna is having a 'mums' night out watching a film with other mums; she has been doing amazingly here; its like a whole new lease of life as she rediscovers things she let go of many years ago; and she is re-finding her wider calling in God. It is a joy to see.

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