Kasey Barcelona

South Africa was an awesomely huge experience for me.  Before the trip, I worried that I didn’t have enough God knowledge, memorized scriptures or Godly words of encouragement.  All I had was the personal experience of God’s grace and how He has molded and transformed me to be more like Him over the past year.  I expected the mission to be a little more difficult for me, but as soon as I arrived, God took those bad thoughts away and led me His way.

Being able to build relationships with the coolest leaders on campus and hang out with the students in Capetown was so sick.  I often thought that I wasn’t doing enough for God, but the responses and relationships that were built just proves how huge God is and how he’ll work through you and pull you all the way.  The way some of the leaders of South Africa would just open up to you in tears verifies how simply hanging out with someone and showing Gods love in a tangible way is so significant in building His kingdom.  It was such blessing to be able to encourage these leaders and meeting them has been the biggest encouragement for myself.  After a few days enjoying Capetown, the whole team was blessed individually with prophetic words from a few of the leaders of His People Christian Church.  Those words of purity pierced my heart and lit a fire in me for what God has called me to be.  God opened my heart and revealed to me how significant my life is, even when I wasn’t living for Him.  That all the mistakes and all of my weaknesses would be used as His weapons and as an encouragement for many women seeking for God’s love.  As I spent more time with some of the leaders, who were mostly girls, I was able to trust God for my words and hopefully be of some encouragement with my actions.  There is one girl in particular that I feel God has placed in my heart.  We have continued to keep in touch and I can already see how God is using me to help her with her struggles.  I’ve never felt anything more fulfilling than doing something that I know God is so proud of.

These students inspired me to be bold for God and reminded me that He is the center of focus in everything you do, especially the worship.  Worship was my ultimate favorite part of the trip!  Being surrounded by hundreds of students singing at the top of their lungs, hands high, fist pumping and skankin’ away was ridiculously awesome.  Worship is all about God and South Africa has let lose that freedom in me in an uncontrollable way.  Campus Harvest held over 1500 students who love God.  It was three days of specials speakers, one of them from Tennessee named Pastor Rice Brooks, insane worship from alternative bands to pure reggae beats, workshops and being able to hang out with the most talented kids in South Africa.  Campus Harvest was a huge production that I was so stoked to be a part of.  Everything about it was awesome, especially for the girls because we stayed in cabins.  All of the boys stayed outside in tents, on the grass, with the monkeys and in 30 degree weather.  That probably sparked up a lot of bonding for them.  Thank you God for providing for your daughters!

Overall, this experience has been life changing and eye opening.  Trusting God and loving people has become such a reality for me.  I’ve fallen so much deeper in love with Him and I only expect more.  Thank you everyone for your prayers throughout the trip!  God is huge.

Mark Younge

First of all, THANK YOU all for taking the time to keep our team in prayer while in South Africa!!God is doing amazing things there!

Before we left for South Africa, we talked about doing 3 things as a team: 1) Each one, leading on person to Christ, 2) each one, encouraging one student, and 3) getting the vision for what God is doing in South Africa. This was definitely obtainable, but it’s always the “How” that I wonder about. But that’s what makes trusting God interesting.

I think a definite “moment” for me was being about to meet a guy named Jack, a student a Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Before we met, he had no interest in hearing anything about Jesus. A few guys who went to the local church (and who happened to live in the same apartment structure as he did) would always invite him to the nearby College Service. His response? He basically wanted nothing  to do with it.

Things changed in Jack’s life in June 2010, when his mother suddenly passed away, on her way home from Zimbabwe. Jack never knew his father. in his family, it was always his mother who strongly encouraged him and his brother to get an education. (without an university education, finding a well paying job is nearly impossible; unemployment in the country is about 50%). Jack said that even though his mother didn’t make much, she would always find a way to help her sons pay for school. This left Jack with more questions than answers in life. Over time, he said that he began to grow critical and judgmental.

When we arrived, we spent about 3 days visiting CPUT and the University of Western Cape with some of the church’s student leaders. We also, spent a lot of time getting to know other students. Ultimately, we wanted to invite as many people as we could to an event we were hosting called a “Hawaii Night”, where we could share culture, have fun, hangout, eat food, and get to know some of the students. It eventually turned out that Jack showed up to the Hawaii Night. It was there that I really got to talk to him for the first time.

I shared a bit about myself and Hawaii and he talked about his course of study in Cape Town (Engineering). By the end of the night, I asked him if he could make it to the College Church Service the next day. He said ‘Yes’. (At the time, I had no idea that people had been inviting him to services for quite some time, but he never was interested…this (unbeknownst to me) was HUGE!.

So as soon as I arrived to Service, the next day, I immediately saw Jack walking down the hall! Yes!! He was pretty excited to be there. It turns out that Kalae shared a great message during service about how much God loves us despite our shortcomings. And  following the message, Jack made a decision to commit his life to Christ…no more running. Immediately following the service, one of the student leaders, Sergio, spent some time talking to him about what it really means to follow Christ.

A couple days later, I had chance to have lunch with Jack. This was the last time that I would see him during the trip. He basically shared how grateful he was that the team came  from Hawaii. I told him that it was such a huge encouragemnt to us to get to know him.  As we talked, it felt like we really knew each other a while, even though we just met a few days ago. This was defintely the “God-moment” for me. I think God reminded that his desire is to set the “solitary” in to families. (Ps. 68) God is a God who works through Communities of people just so that even one person, like Jack, can come to know HIM. Everyone counts.

I think God has changed my life, by reminding me of how great His love is for people. It’s God’s desire that whether you are in Hawaii, Mongolia, Japan, South Africa, etc. that no one would live their life apart from Him. (2 Peter 3:9). It actually reminded me about how my life was before I knew God, and how much joy I had in really knowing Jesus Christ. I think we all have people like “Jack” in our lives, and we don’t have to travel halfway around the world to find them. I think what I am left with is a stronger resolve to continue to do what the Bible says to do…make disciples. Why? Because everyone counts.

Experiences

Hello! Since there was a lack of updating while we were in South Africa, we’ve decided to do “post”-updates. We’ll be posting entries about what God was doing in our lives and others during the trip. We hope you are encouraged and blessed by our stories! And once again, thank you for all the prayers and support. We appreciate it so much!

Mahalo!

Return Home!

Good Morning!

Today we are headed back home to Hawaii. We’re sorry for not updating much, but we didn’t have much access to internet. God was doing amazing things in the meanwhile, so don’t worry! We had our Hawaii night on July 31, Saturday. We had about 150-160 students attend the very first Hawaii night on campus. They loved it and it was a great success! We were able to connect students to the Every Nation church in Cape Town (His People Church) and build relationships with the student leaders. This past weekend was also the Southern Africa Campus Harvest in Magaliesburg. It was jampacked full of God’s presence with around 1500 in attendance. God met us there & more personal stories to follow once we can post pictures. God is amazing! Thank you again for all the support! Mahalo!

Totsiens,
Team Cape Town

Aloha!

Aloha family and friends! I am writing from the internet cafe in Tyger Valley. For the past few days we’ve been having a lot of fun meeting new people and visiting new places of South Africa. On Sunday we went to the His People N1 church morning service where we; Charde’, Iwa, and I performed our hula. At first we were a bit nervous because we didn’t have much time to practice, but everyone told us that they loved it. We were so grateful that everyone appreciated our dance that they wanted to learn how to dance too! Everyone here is so friendly and the worship is indescrible, the team is so pumped up and ready to praise God. I hope that we can bring the energy back to our services. Later that day we went to the youth service at UWC which was super awesome! We performed again and Mark spoke that night about Being the Change. Iwa gave her testimony and it was wonderful to see how encouranging our stories can be.

We went to Table Mountain and the Waterfront on Monday and will be visiting Robben Island this coming Monday because of it being closed for the day. Sorry I’m skipping ahead, but I think you can read also what Iwa has to say :]

Last night we got to be apart of the first His People Chruch Eersteriver planting. That was the first midweek service, where the church has been meeting at different houses prior to last nights service. The OFFICIAL church launce will be on Sept. 1st. Like always the worship being great, it was especially touching last night because everyone was so excited and you could really feel God’s presence in the room. The people are so friendly, like I said before, but everyone wanted to spend time and talk to us. It makes you feel really good when people want to share their country and are always asking how we like it here. South Africa is truly an amazing place and God is doing wonders here. You can tell by the way people inter here. There is such a fire and yearning for God that is just so amazing.

We are off to campus again to reach out and invite more students to Hawaii Night. Continue to pray for us and be blessed!! :]

-Chanel

Aloha!

Aloha family and friends! I (Chanel) am writing from the internet cafe in Tyger Valley. For the past few days we’ve been having a lot of fun meeting new people and visiting new places of South Africa. On Sunday we went to the His People N1 church morning service where we; Charde’, Iwa, and I performed our hula. At first we were a bit nervous because we didn’t have much time to practice, but everyone told us that they loved it. We were so grateful that everyone appreciated our dance that they wanted to learn how to dance too! Everyone here is so friendly and the worship is indescrible, the team is so pumped up and ready to praise God. I hope that we can bring the energy back to our services. Later that day we went to the youth service at UWC which was super awesome! We performed again and Mark spoke that night about Being the Change. Iwa gave her testimony and it was wonderful to see how encouranging our stories can be.

We went to Table Mountain and the Waterfront on Monday and will be visiting Robben Island this coming Monday because of it being closed for the day. Sorry I’m skipping ahead, but I think you can read also what Iwa has to say :]

Last night we got to be apart of the first His People Chruch Eersteriver planting. That was the first midweek service, where the church has been meeting at different houses prior to last nights service. The OFFICIAL church launce will be on Sept. 1st. Like always the worship being great, it was especially touching last night because everyone was so excited and you could really feel God’s presence in the room. The people are so friendly, like I said before, but everyone wanted to spend time and talk to us. It makes you feel really good when people want to share their country and are always asking how we like it here. South Africa is truly an amazing place and God is doing wonders here. You can tell by the way people inter here. There is such a fire and yearning for God that is just so amazing.

We are off to campus again to reach out and invite more students to Hawaii Night. Continue to pray for us and be blessed!! :]

-Chanel

Hula and Testimony

On sunday morning we visited His People Church of N1 City. Chanel, Charde’ and I (Iwa) shared a hula titled Aloha no Kalakaua with the congregation. The song is about how King Kalakaua restored hula back to the hawaiian people after it was banned because of the foreigners. The people really enjoyed it. They want to learn how to dance hula! It was great to be able to share our culture with them and ultimately share God’s love with them through our warm aloha spirit. Smiles and warm hugs were shared among everyone. We got to chat with some of the people there and it was great to hear more about their culture too.

On Sunday night we attended the youth service at the University of Western Cape. Mark gave the message that night entitled “Be the Change.”  I shared my testimony about my cancer experience and how I needed to deny myself and take up my cross. I’ve never been comfortable talking about my cancer experience and how I was ridiculed and teased all my life. I have always battled with the insecurities of not looking the same because of having a fake eye and having people always looking at me differently. So sharing my testimony that night with the youth was a huge stretch of faith and I’m glad that God gave me the strength and the words to speak. I was very nervous but the Holy Spirit was definitely speaking through me and it was great to hear that my testimony touched many lives that night. I expresed that the most important relationship that we can ever have is with Jesus Christ and that the more you chase after temporary hypes your life will not have meaning and it will be empty. It isn’t until you experience the full love of Jesus Christ that you can be made whole and enjoy all of your other relationships. After the service one of  the leaders of the church who is involved with community ministry commented that by me sharing my testimony that night was a very big break through for the people there because it is not customary for women to have a part in speaking. Being able to speak out about my struggles and how the Lord has helped me through them is a very big step in the right direction. Women are seen as being more quiet and aren’t really looked upon as being strong in that they can’t handle things on their own, but we know that God gives all of us the strength to handle what ever situations come up in life. In God’s eyes we are all equal, no matter what our gender, or race, or skin color. I’m very gald that we were all able to chat with the youth after the service and get to build more relationships. A lot of the students are looking forward to our Hawaii night this coming Saturday. They are keen to learn the hula and learn more about our culture. We will use this opportunity to share with them the warmth of God’s love through our aloha spirit. Many of them greet us on campus by saying ALOHA! They have quickly adopted this greeting and are very excited to learn more about our culture as we are also excited to learn more about theirs.

Totsiens (goodbye Afrikaans) Iwa

CPUT Campus

It is Tuesday, July 27. Yesterday we went around Cape Town & visited Table Mountain. It is a national park that overlooks all of Cape. It looks amazing! Definitely a sight to behold! Today we are on our way to Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). We are believing for divine opportunities on the campus with the students. Please, partner with us in prayer. We are trying to update as much as we can (but we have no internet at our flat). Photos soon, we hope! Leave comments, it’d be great to hear from back home! We love you all & God Bless! Totsiens! (Goodbye – Afrikaans)

Team Cape Town

His People Church

Good Morning!

We are here in Cape Town, South Africa. We landed yesterday afternoon. This morning, we are at His People Church, getting to know the leaders/elders here. Worship rehearsals are going on right now. It is AMAZING! However, it is really cold for our Hawaii blood. Please continue to pray for us as we are still a little jet-lag. We’ll try to update as we can. Love you all!

Team Cape Town

Hello from Singapore!

Aloha friends and family!
Our team is now in Singapore waiting for our 18 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. God has blessed us tremendously along the way. While in the Phillipines, we were having some difficulties with overweight baggage. Most of the folder paper that we were taking to Thembalitsha weighed so much that we wouldn’t be able to take it (P.S. THANK YOU to all those who generously donated supplies! We received more than enough) After talking with the agent and explaining that we were trying to take the paper to an orphanage, she told us about a local church that could use it. So, we removed what we needed to & put it i a box to donate to the local church. Instead of the paper going to waste and being thrown out, we were able to bless not only Thembalitsha, but another group of people who are in need. God is so amazing and it’s wonderful how he works through us.

We will continue to update along the way. Until then, please continue to pray for us & keep updated!

Aloha!
Team Cape Town