First off I need to apologize to anyone who believed me about the pictures that I posted last time. I forgot to add at the bottom that they were both a joke, just a little JB humor from being in Africa. So I apologize if I offended anyone by what I posted.

Second Off. Prayer Thanksgivings: God is good, God is good, God is Good! AMEN. I had a breakthrough on Sunday about being here, and loving the people the way God loves them. So thank you for those of you that have been praying for my heart to be changed, it is a daily battle but God has broken through some of the layers of concrete. I have also had some good impacts at the "ministry sites" that I've been to. Another one is safety. I'm not sure if anyone was praying at 1:30 am Safrican time, on Thursday morning, but prayers have been answered about keeping the enemy at bay.

Thirdly Prayer Requests: More safety, we have been wrecking satan's holds on people and places here and to put it nicely, we have ticked off the forces of darkness, but the good news and the only thing to have in mind is that God has victory, and God has given us the victory too. One of my new favorite sayings that I have learned here is "We are not fighting for victory, but from VICTORY!" Christ's blood has been shed over all that we have, can, and will do, and that satan has lost his keys to death. We also really need team unity for the last week and a half that we are together. Rebuke any gossip, slander, or harsh feelings that anyone on our team might hold against each other. Another one, please be praying that not only me but everyone on the team will know where God wants to take us for our second semester as we will make a choice Sunday, then be divided on Friday. I feel like God is calling me to Kenya, but to be reassured and knowing that you guys are praying for me will be awesome. Our choice is now only Swaziland or Kenya, they have had to cancel the program staying in Alabanza as there is no staff to manage the team, so we will only be divided into 2 teams.

So what's been going down the last couple of days. Well last Saturday we got to go to a new mall that had an indoor ice skating rink, so there were about 10 of us that got to go ice-skating in…Africa… not normal but I can say I did it. Sunday we had church again in Alabanza and a few locals coming in from the local townships. This week our topic has been 1 Timothy, and have been going verse by verse through it. A few days have made me fall asleep, but have given me opportunities to write little notes to encourage my teammates. (One thing we have in our house is a wall for encouraging notes that we have deemed the R.E.M. wall Really Encouraging Messages and a play off of The Awakening (What we are doing right now)) So that's been going fairly well.

Monday: I went to Atteradgeville and had a very interesting time, (Email me if you want more details) but we went to a new orphanage that has not been visited by AIM yet, that is kind of on the outskirts of the township. The kids were not there but the lady who runs the orphanage was, and was very receptive of what we were doing and would like us to stop by another time to chat with her.
Pray for this woman named Angie/Mangie, that God would come into her life and satan would be removed for good.

Tuesday: Got to go the hospital for the first time. Very good visit. I was shaking when I first got there because it is way out of my comfort zone and something that still freaks me out, but is awesome because I can't claim anything comes from me. We started out by getting there at noon, which is right when visiting hour is over, but the team that had gone on Monday had permission to be there the whole day so we assumed it would be ok again. When we got there security was not as nice as it was the first day apparently, because they told us to get out and come back at 3 when visiting hour opens again. So we asked one of the social workers to help us out, he called some supervisors and got us in, with the harsh looks of the security guards. *The hospital does not look like any hospital I've seen in America, it looks more like an inner-city high school, with "class room" like buildings under walkways and walkways that get you to different wards. The social worker led us to ward 7, which unfortunately was not the ward of perfection or completion because the head nurse was not happy that we were there, so while the one girl on our team, Michelle J, who speaks Afrikaans and is from Safrica, tried to calm down the head nurse while some of us slowly backed out and went to different wards. Me and the other guy, Mike, went to Ward 20 where we finally found males after trying wards that were all women. Stepping in I began what was probably one of the most awkward times here so far. But I stepped in to the first guy who caught my eyes and sat down next to him, his name was Solie and was very weak and wasn't very responsive, but allowed me to pray for him, and tell him that I would come and visit him again. After this I went 2 beds down to a really neat guy named George, who I sat and talked with for a very long time. He is a man who has TB and is actually a falsely accused convict (whether he is or not I did not have discernment from the Spirit, but I pray that he is) who was thrown in jail for murder and picked up TB and was in the hospital getting some treatment. The odd thing was or rather cool thing was, is that this guy knew God, he knew that God had him where he was to persevere through trials and grow and mature (James 1 or 2) So I prayed for him and got to talk to another guy who I don't think understood a word of what I said, but I preached the Good News to him, and listened to him mumble in whatever he spoke, then prayed for him too, before being told by Mike that we were getting kicked out. Great. Just what I wanted was to be thrown into prison for doing some visitations at a hospital. I followed Mike up to the superintendent's ward where we met the rest of our team sitting outside of the office while 2 girls were explaining what we were doing and where we were from. They were then escorted to the human resources office where the lady was not very nice and told us why we couldn't be there right now and that we weren't allowed to pray for people until we got permission from the pastoral staff (Christian, Muslim, Buddhists, etc.) We were then asked to leave until visiting hours were back in session. So we went outside and waited an hour until we could get back in. I then went back to the men's wards and found this man named Moses who was a very nice guy to be around and kept me entertained for the hour. We talked and if he was in the hospital for more than just a day I think we could have had a good friendship going on.

Wed: I decided to stay back at the house and do laundry (2nd time since being gone from the states!!! Yeah we have to hand wash them, and it takes forever so I've been reusing clothes up to 3 or 4 times and when I run out of socks I switch over to sandals) So I got that done then with the other 4 people who stayed prayed over our house and claiming back the house for God's use and prayed over all the beds of our teammates. One cool story is that the house before it was sold to the Alabanza staff is that the owner was going to sell it to be a brothel, but felt that before he sold it to them, that he should wait for a better offer, and he waited and out of nowhere decided to Give it to Deeni, the lady who owns Alabanza. But anyways one of the rooms, a room that is now vacant and was kind of creepy, actually very creepy, we came into it and felt the oppression and darkness (literally and spiritually) and just prayed in it with no affect really, but after all the prayers over the beds came back and decided to throw open the windows, and try the light switch one more time which threw out all the darkness, and actually felt very homely. Just a cool act of God. Then that night or the next morning was our spiritual attack.

Thurs: Went back to the hospital with no problem in getting in and got to see my homeboys George and Solie again, and prayed for both of them, then went into one of the children's wards, cancer patients actually and sat down and drew with a few kids and pushed them around in wheelchairs and just talked and loved on them. These kids and other patients have nothing to do at the hospitals, threes no TVs, no fun activities to do, except lie in bed and be depressed basically, so spending time with them means a lot and although it may not seem like much it is. After the kids ward I went back to the men's wards and just prayed with a few men before it was time to leave. Then tonite we got some information on Kenya since unfortunately we won't be able to visit it. I am currently watching Pride and Prejudice (new version) with 4 out of 6 guys and a few sisters. So it's been relaxing tonite and we get to sleep in tomorrow!!! For some reason half of our team doesn't know how to be real humans and sleep in past 6. What the heck?!?! Me and my brother Mike usually pull the sleep in until 7:52 where we wake up, get dressed, clean the room, then book it down to breakfast.
 
A few other things that have been going on that whether you want to know or not I'm gonna throw out there. I just finished my new book Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell the guy who does Nooma videos, which although I didn't agree on everything he wrote he had some great insight on things that I haven't thought about before. One being that because the earth is God's and God has given it to us, we can claim what is good in it for God. I know this probably sounds weird and isn't coming out how I would like it to, it did have some great truth. Like even though we may not agree with someone of a different belief, that if they have truth that points to God, we can claim that. That just because they are Muslim or ZCC, we don't have to disagree with everything they say, if they have truth bring that out. The apostle Paul used it in the bible in 1 Corinthians using a secular poet  as his example. Secular quotation in the bible, but it's truth pointing to God and can therefore claim it.

Also I love my team, I hope that if you have extra time that you can check out some of my teammates blogs.

Please continue to uplift my leaders in your prayers. I am calling you guys out that have said you will pray for me, and asking that you remember me in your daily prayers or my team especially to rebuke fear from entering our house or our minds, anything or anyone that shouldn't be at the house, and discernment for everyone on our team.

Like always please send me prayer requests and updates on life so that I am not totally out of the loop. I feel like I am missing everything and everyone from home, I have no idea what is going on in anyone's life and would like to know that everyone is still alive or if not… well I hope it doesn't come to that.

Sorry this one is so long, I just want to make sure that you have something to do when you're bored or to any of my teammates parents that you kids are not posting, you can adopt me and accept this as a blog from you kid.

God Bless. Thank You. Yebo.

I have uploaded a few pictures in my "Check Me OUT!" section, not many  but I will try for more next week.