The Speas Adventures
We are currently living in Pretoria, South Africa working with the homeless and a boy's shelter.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Today was a crazy mixed up day for us. Our normal schedule was changed and we switched so that we could go to the boys shelter one more time. Adam gave a devo in the morning on sin and did a great job, once again. I think that people have come to expect him to give the devos. During the afternoon, we were on prayer duty and we helped cook breyoni (a traditional Indian dinner). During the evening, we went to the boys shelter and had a...
Inner-City Outreach
Monday, September 29, 2008 Today we enjoyed a great off-day. We choose to go to the local pool with the boys from the shelter. It looked more like a hotel pool than a local swimming area, but it was very nice and relaxing. It was funny though because they had a sign when entering that read, please no swimming allowed in underwear or boxers. And, it only cost 37 cents American for us to swim. Some things are a great deal. For the evening, we watched a...
Sept 8th-12th
Friday, September 12, 2008 Today was our last day of
leadership/discipleship. We got the opportunity to put what we learned
into action. We played a game at the mall where there was a leader and
a follower. The leader could go wherever they wanted and the follower
had to follow. The follower was not allowed to talk and the leader was
not allowed to talk to the follower. So there was no communication
between the leader and the follower. I (Jo)...
Aug 25th-Sept. 6th
Saturday, September 6, 2008 Today, Jo and I helped to organize a group to go to a nearby Lion Park. What turned out to be a few people became 16 in total. The park had a few Zebras and Giraffees, but mainly a few lion enclosures. It was much better than a zoo, though not quite as cool as our game park experience. We did however have the opportunity to feed a giraffe and to take pictures with a few lion cubs. Jo absolutely loved both. It was cool to see her...
Aug 18th-24th
Sunday, August 24, 2008 I (Adam) woke up this morning anticipating to preach at a church in Lavumisa, but around 9 am our coordinator, Elizabeth, came to inform us that an election was now being held and church was cancelled. This was the election that was supposed to take place yesterday, but the ballots were incorrect. Only in Africa! So, we made a plan B and joined another team for church about 20 minutes away. After 15 worship songs and I am not joking, they called on...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008 Good day everyone! This morning was spent in a class that taught us how to prepare a message. It was pretty basic, but that is what we needed. They say that most men will be asked to preach in Swaziland and often they are not given more than 5 minutes to prepare…so it is best to go with one. This afternoon, I opened my salon. As I was giving Adam a haircut, an older lady on our team asked if I would cut hers as well. This was my...
Thursday, August 14, 2008; Wednesday, August 13,
Thursday, August 14, 2008 We had a relatively relaxed day. We had our traditional Thursday morning prayer meeting and then our Swaziland outreach orientation. Both Jo and I are extremely excited about the ministry that we will get to partake in. Apparently, my driving last weekend to the game park has made its way to the leaders on the base, because they handed me the keys to the kombie (van). I don’t know if it was a blessing or a curse. For example, after...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
For the second day of our Aids training, our main focus was the medical side of the disease. We learned that there are of the 3 ways to contract the disease—sex, mother to child, and blood; 86% of people contract it through sex, 13% mother to child and less than 1% through blood (in South Africa). Though it is mainly a disease of choice, quite a high percentage acquire through unfaithful marriage partners, rape and at birth. I (Adam) was shocked to...
Monday, August 11, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008 Today we began Aids training. We were very excited because the need for HIV/Aids awareness and ministry is very close to our hearts. We have heard many statistics that have just broken our hearts. Even today, we were reminded of why we choose South Africa to spend our year. In 2006, the most recent sensis, Sub-saharain Africa claimed 2.1 of the 2.9 million deaths related to Aids. Some rural areas of South Africa have ¾ of the population...
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008 We have arrived home safely from Pilanesburg National Game Park. The weekend outlived our expectations. We drove around and stopped at a few really nice resorts that were a little pricey and a few sketchy bed and breakfasts. But we were prepared to camp and it ended up being much safer, except for the random warthog and herd of impala that ran through the campground. By the way, something crazy went down last night because there was a dead...
