Boom Shakalaka

SOOOOOOOO

I have not used this blog in a very long time.

Its been over a year since my Irish adventure began, and I cant believe the road i have ended up on. So i don't know how many people will read this or not but if you do then you probably want an update on what's going on in my life.

The last two weeks I spent in Ireland (last March) my parents got to visit me and see where i lived for 4 months. It was great to see them after

six months and it was really funny watching my dad try to drive. Our last week of DTS was about what to expect on re-entering America. I should have listened more because I became very cynical and critical of everything. It took a big toll on me spiritually looking back on it. Anyway, it was sad to leave my friends and DTS family and return home. We still talk alot but its not the same of course. I landed in Detroit March 25 and was picked up by my good pal Jared.

Jared and I then went on a road trip to my parents new house in Jacksonville,Illinois. From there we took a trip to Johnson Bible College, which is we

re my dad went to school and Jared was looking at it as well. We headed back to my parents and then went up to Petoskey.

I lived in Petoskey for a month before mo

ving down with my parents in Illinois.

I decided that I wanted to go to JBC as well, and both Jared and I are here. So thats basically my last ten months in a very tiny nutshell.

I still miss Ireland and my DTS family everyday. I'm studying urban studies here at JBC with hopes to return to YWAM Ireland and use my education to further the Kingdom in an ecumenical setting. I want to say thank you to everyone who helped support me and pray f

or me while I was away.

Pics from the beginning of my DTS to now!!!

The last few weeks

  Hey everyone,

   I hope you all are doing well!  

  This is our last week in South Africa and we are all very sad to be leaving such a beautiful and culturally rich place.  These last few weeks we have been back into Burlington and visiting all the wonderful people we have met and spending time with them.  We also had the chance to go into Durban city and bless the people there.  Me and some others spent quite some time talking to a shopkeeper and encouraging him to keep hope and always pray for peace,  it was interesting because he is a muslim, so we had great conversations on almost every topic under the sun.  then we met a man on the streets who couldn't walk, and was living in the sidewalk were he sat.  He spoke hardly any english, so we started off by buying him some food, we then felt like God wanted us to buy him some clothes, so we started a search for clothing.  He was very happy when we actually came back with new clothes for him.  

  we also got to work with a ministry called I Care, which works with street kids, it was quite shocking to go around with one of the workers to pick them up and discover them huffing glue and doing other questionable activities.  Anyway, I Care runs this program that starts out by having a day program for the kids, as they show progress and the ability to behave they are taken to a sort of orphanage, that has a set of rules and gives the kids an environment that they can learn about living a normal life and more about God.  I went to a school that was run by I Care and I was so happy to see this one boy who ran to me and showed me how much he had learned in English and he was so excited that he knew his times tables up to 7 and he was just so happy that he knew so much and was able to share that to me.  It truly was an amazing time. 

  Tomorrow is our last day of official outreach with Ywam Durban, and our last day in Burlington, it will be hard to say good bye to all these wonderful people .  My life has been changed so much by them and I feel that I am a better person because of them.    

                - Cheers, Nate

South Africa

Sawabona (Hello),

Hey everyone, its been a bit of time since my last post so i thought i would catch you up on whats going on.
Last week we moved from Ywam Durban to Missions Ablaze, which is a mission organization focused on feeding the poor. We stayed there a week and did alot of manual work. I spent many days chopping down plants and small trees to make room for a new animal pen, as well as cleaning off cans of food that they give to soup kitchens. I was also given the chance to go into Durban and feed about 100 homeless food. It was a great experience, after the feeding we felt that God wanted us to go with some people to were they slept under a bridge, we talked with them and then prayed with them and gave them hope.
One afternoon on an especially hot day i decided to take a swim in the pool, while having a Canaan ball competition with my staff member Greg, I walked over a hole and ended up in the filter of the pool. When I looked at my leg i found that the side of the hole had punctured a small hole in my leg. It didn't bleed at first, but when i tried to move blood came spurting out like old Faithful. I made the decision to go to the local Clinic to get it checked out since i could look into my leg and see inside of it. Greg and I hitched a ride to the clinic and got it looked after, luckily it didn't need stitches but every day i put iodine on it and wrap it up. After all was said and done I was fine.
Now we are at World Changers, which is an organization that teaches life skills to people in the townships, and they also run leadership training schools at the base. So Monday and Tuesday I woke up at 5:30 to get to the townships by 9, and we taught healthy living skills there. Today we did maintenance work around the base. Tomorrow i will be teaching their leadership school how to be a good listener when people disagree with you.
There is only two more weeks left on outreach and I am excited to see what God will do in those two weeks.
Thanks for all the prayers and support,
-Nate

Durban...thus far

Hey everyone,
We had some free time today so i thought that i would make a blog update.
We have been here in Durban for a few days but have been traveling for a week. Two Sundays ago I went to London while we were staying at the Ywam base in Harpendon, it is a huge city and i only had a few hours there so we walked by Big Ben and then down to London Bridge (tower). We left harpendon, bound for London early Monday afternoon. We waited anxiously for Jose and Arietta to arrive from the South African Embassy, hopefully with Jose's visa for SA. When they arrived we were sad to hear that they didn't grant Jose the visa, but jose was allowed into the country for 30 days.
So we left England and flew to Madrid, Spain. Shortly later we boarded the plane to SA. Once we arrived, we stayed in the airport for a few hours until our bus arrived to take us the 10 hour journey to Durban.
So since we have been here, i have swam in the Indian ocean, shopped at one of the biggest malls i have seen, worked with children in a slum near Durban were 45% of the populations has HIV/Aids and TB, Cleaned a woman's house who has spent her life being treated horrible by the white people she worked for, and i went to Church.
Cleaning the house was amazing, I'm pretty sure that the Gogo (Zulu for Grandmother) was in shock that a bunch of white people cleaned for her.
Its been amazing so far and i cant wait to see what Gods going to do here.
Cheers! Nate

Ohh PS, today Jose went to the home affairs office and got an extension for the visa so thank you to everyone that was praying, God really came through.

Cork

Hey everyone,  

   Im not sure how many more times i will update before i go to South Africa, i will probably not be able to update at all their.  So... Cork is real cool, its cold and its a busy city.  We have been volunteering at a coffee shop and Book store, and been working with a church in Cobh and here in Cork.  Sunday we led the worship service at Cork Community Church, it was a very cool service and the members and God enjoyed it.   We have also been prayer walking and doing alot more stuff.  Its very exciting.

   Update on Jose's (hosea)  visa,  we called the embassy in London, and they said that not all the right documents were given to them, however the embassy thought he was applying for a different kind of visa.  Corrections have been made but it will still take awhile and we leave in a few days.  So please keep praying, he really appreciates the prayers.  

      Two more months!!!

    Cheers Nate

Christmas

    Hey everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas,  here in Closkelt we went to a christmas day service, then in the evening we had a nice dinner and watched Christmas Vacation.  Yesterday we watched all of the Lord of the Rings, we started at 10 am and didnt finish till 11:30 pm.  

   Anyway, this is the last Saturday I will be in Closkelt, we leave for outreach on Monday, we will be in Cork for 10 days, London for 2 days and South Africa for two months.  We are all super excited about being able to apply everything we have learned in the last three months.  

   My team and I would appreciate all the prayers you can send our way,  please pray that one of the students gets his visa for South Africa soon.

   Thanks so much for giving me this opportunity to be here,  I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas.        

                              -Nate

These last few weeks

  Hey Everyone,

      I thought it would be good to update everyone about what's going on here in Closkelt.  It is very cold, I woke up this morning and it almost looked like it was snowing but it was just really foggy.  

      This week we are learning about how to tell a Bible story accurately in ten minutes, we have a speaker from Storys for All ministries, and the base purpose for this is to be able to relate the bible to Illiterate people.  It is a very awesome tool to have as a missionary because you never know if you will run into an illiterate people group.  

      This week we are also doing a thing called scripture union, which is basically were we go into a school and spend time with school children, teaching them bible stories and playing games with them.  My group is doing The Good Samaritan, and we go tomorrow (Thursday) for a few hours. 

      Last week we had an awesome week of lectures about Discipleship  and what it means to be a disciple and methods to be a good disciple and disciple some one well.  Our speaker was really awesome, he had been with YWAM Argentina for a decade and he showed me a few Argentinean Hardcore bands, it was really cool.  

       Over the weekend I went to Belfast, and went to a rugby game, it was really fun, but very cold.   The Mascot for Ulster, made fun of me because of my American accent, then he went around the field and when he came back he asked for me by saying "Where is the Yanky Doodle", it was a great game though.

So yeah thats what is going on right now with me.

                      Thanks again to all my supporters and also thanks to everyone who is leaving comments on this blog its really great to read them.   

                                                      Cheers!   Nate