This was just a nice sunset between Table Mountain and the adjacent mountain during soccer practice one night.

This picture was on my day off visit to Cape Point, sorry I'm squinting so much, the picture took a while to take, I couldn't hold my eyes open any more.

I took a few pictures during our soccer camp in Capricorn. This gives a little glimpse in to the condition of the field as the kids are being coached by the AIS interns.

Cape Point Excursion

April 15, 2009
Yesterday was in the 80’s so a few of us went to the beach, you never know when it is your last chance, so you have to take advantage. It was nice today as well and it was the last day of our break, so I went with two friends to Cape Point. It is a national park where you can go to the very southern tip of the Cape Peninsula where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. It is also where the Cape of Good Hope is, and monument in recognition of the exploration of DaGama and Dias. It was a beautiful area where rocky cliffs and beaches fell spilled over in to picturesque sandy beaches. We saw signs everywhere warning about Baboons being dangerous and attracted by food, but we only saw two baboons, and they weren’t even in the park, they were walking along the street in the town just north of the park. (Yes, they literally were baboons and not goofy people). We did see a family of 7 ostriches though as we were driving to the Cape of Good Hope. Ostriches are fairly common here on farms, but it was fun to see them in the wild.
My roommate from Scotland leaves for home tomorrow morning, she decided pretty early on that she was not going to continue with the internship after the initial training phase, and I’m still not quite sure why. My other roommate from Cape Town will also be moving out this month as well to save money by living at home. Another woman will be moving in on Saturday, she does not work for AIS, but is loosely affiliated. I just met her about 2 weeks ago and we have not spent much time together, so my prayer is that we get along fine and that living together goes smoothly. I believe she is from Cape Town originally and as far as I know is employed full-time.

Soccer Camp Conclusion and Easter Weekend

April 9, 2009
Well, by the second day of camp, word got around the area that we were there and we had a few people (kids and young adults) trying to jump the fence and steal our equipment. We lost may be 5 or 6 soccer balls the second day. And when we sent people away who didn’t belong, they threw rocks over the fence or stood along the outside and swore at kids. (I felt terrible when a little boy about 6 years old came to me and told me there was a man standing at the fence swearing, no one should have to be exposed to that at that age). Everything else with the kids seemed to have gone well, the drills and Bible studies that is.
The third day, we were told that kids had stolen balls in their backpacks the day before and caught 3 kids with balls in their bags that day. We also caught kids hiding balls in a bush to come back and take later. I’m not sure if they got any, I tried to search the bush, but it was too dirty and smelly to get close. We also had to break up a few fights; it seems that a lot of the kids take to violence as their first solution to a problem, a cycle which I pray can be broken. We had to have people constantly watching the fence to keep people from jumping in and still had people get over. The gospel was still presented and kids were still influenced, regardless of what a few kids and locals did, the gospel went out.
Today, we had intended to allow locals to come participate in competitions and a tournament, but we had to be careful about who we let in. We did end up running a tournament for 15 teams and the day was successful. Again, there were a couple of fights, but mostly among the younger teenagers, and the older teenagers were pretty well under control, which was an answer to prayer. I was really disturbed though by 3 kids who were beating up on a much smaller boy, because they were angry about the result of a game, which he had nothing to do with. Two of them were holding him up in the air by his hands and feet while the third boy drop kicked him in the back. When I confronted them, they felt justified and really didn’t seem to care.
We presented soccer balls to the two winning teams in two age groups and it was amazing how many others came begging for balls for themselves, kids and adults giving any reason to get a ball. Unfortunately, some of the younger kids who had won soccer balls had them stolen from them before they even made it out of the school gate. I really can’t understand how someone can be so greedy or desperate and so conditioned to stealing that they think it’s okay to steal from a kid half their size. We did replace the stolen balls, but I would imagine that they were soon stolen as well.
I’m still amazed (appalled) at the state of a community that is so conditioned to fighting, stealing, and disrespect that it could be so evident in a kids’ soccer camp. It really showed the despondent situation the community is in. God is needed so desperately there. There were some good conversations in the oldest group of teenagers, between some offended Rastafarians and our staff. They were offended at nothing more than the bold presentation of the gospel, so hopefully God will continue to make them think and question and turn to Him. I am confident that a seed was planted in others as well and I pray that God will continue to water and nourish that seed until its fruition. We had a local church involved each day and encouraged all the kids to get plugged in there. Ambassadors was only there for a week, so I pray for the church to continue to make a long term impact.

April 14, 2009
Saturday, I played in probably the most boring game of my life. First of all, I was asked to play goal keeper, which I have never played before and most people will laugh when they read this. Our starting keeper wasn’t around, and the two back ups were both injured. So, since I’ve coached keepers before, I was the next option. The team was new to the league, so we didn’t know what they would be like, but it turns out anyone could have stood in the goal (and I mean anyone, like a 5 year old would have been fine). We won the game 9-0, I touched the ball twice, plus a few times that my team kicked the ball back to me from about 30 yards out, I think because they felt bad for me. I basically watched for 90 minutes.
Sunday didn’t feel much like Easter except the church service (actually I went to good services both on Good Friday and Sunday). I was a little sad after church, because at that point I had no plans for the day and thought I would end up doing nothing all day. But then one of the other interns called and a few of us went to the Waterfront, where we knew all of the tourist restaurants would be open and ate an overpriced lunch and then walked around for a while.
I would ask for prayer for church. I enjoy the sermons and I am comfortable with the worship and the doctrine. However, it is a fairly large church, so a meet someone new each week, but then never see them again, so I’ve found it hard to get to know people. There have been 3 social events since I’ve been there, but I haven’t been able to go to any of them because of commitments with Ambassadors. I haven’t seen any of my small group in church yet, so I haven’t really built relationships there either. I have friends from Ambassadors to hang out with on evenings and weekends, but it would just be nice to have friendly faces to connect with on Sunday mornings at church.
We completed the training portion of our internship on Thursday, so we were given a couple of days off this week and don’t have to be back in the office until Thursday. I still have practice and games, so it hasn’t been completely responsibility free, but a nice change of pace anyway. Yesterday we went to an amusement park that said it was Africa’s largest amusement park. I’m not sure I believe that claim. It would have trouble competing with Kennywood and Cedar Point makes it look more like the Big Butler Fair. It was fun, the lines were fairly short, but so were the rides. We rode everything we wanted to in about 3 hours, watched a poor dance show (not my choice), and then went home. It was a good day trip, but it made me yearn for an end of the summer trip to Cedar Point when I return.

Soccer Practice and Soccer Camp

April 4, 2009
My first practice coaching the Ladies reserve team was interesting. Because we only found out about the league a couple of days prior to starting practice, there were only 8 players there. I was told that there are more interested, just unable to attend on short notice. The level of players was quiet varied, from brand new to retired semi-professionals, which will make practices interesting. I think if we have a decent core group of experienced players it should be okay and it will help the new players along. Apart from the soccer aspect, I think there will be a lot of potential opportunities to disciple the young girls, which is a definite area for prayer.
After a busy week last week, this one was a little bit lighter. We will be running a soccer camp next week at a local school while they are on break. There are 800 kids in the school, but we are limiting the attendance to 250 kids because of space and staffing. The camp will be paid for by businesses who have agreed to sponsor kids, so getting 250 9-13 year olds there shouldn’t be a problem. It is a very poor community, where kids don’t even have a field or a park to play in, so we will be using the school facilities. AIS is working with a church and another soccer organization to run the camp, but I was asked to run the AIS portion of the camp (who knows why?), which will be the older half of the kids. So this week I have been getting all of the details planned (coaching and Bible study sessions) and coordinating all of the other interns to make sure everyone is prepared and trained to lead a group of kids on their own. Please pray that the program runs smoothly, that coaches lead well, and most importantly, that the gospel is declared clearly and made known to the kids. Pray particularly for Thursday, which will be a day open for all kids and families to come from the community. There will be games and skits, as well as a gospel presentation and testimony. We have invited local churches to help that day as well, to allow people to be plugged in to a local church to allow ministry to continue.

April 6, 2009
We had our first day of soccer camp this morning. We were supposed to start at 9:00 and thought there would be a couple of hundred kids, but there were only about 40 there. Apparently, the recruiting in the schools was a little lacking compared to what we expected. Thankfully though, a couple of us drove out in to the township while a couple others walked around the block and within 15 minutes we had 200 kids at the field, ages 6-18. The field is in pretty poor shape, mostly sand pits and hills, and more glass than grass, but the kids were happy to have soccer balls to kick around and play with. From the road you can’t see how poor the community is, so I was actually glad to be able to drive around looking for kids, because I was able to see the homes the kids came from (I was actually a little scared, I would not go there at night or alone, you could tell from people’s looks that outsiders are not normally there). Literally, the homes were filthy shacks, falling down and unmaintained. Some kids showed up without shoes at all, and very few kids had soccer shoes. Each intern led a group of about 12 kids (except for myself as I was coordinating) and spent about an hour doing soccer training then 20-30 minutes sharing a Bible lesson, and then a few minutes scrimmaging. The day started a little late, so we didn’t do everything planned, but we ended the day with a skit to present a brief gospel message and a bit of an explanation of why we were there. Overall, I think things went well.