Please...let us enlighten you with a few examples we've come across...from the most obvious to a few surprises...
It's June and it's winter -- Hello, Southern hemisphere!!
The steering wheel is on the right side of the car.
We drive on the left side of the road.
The outside lines on the road are yellow and the center line with spaces in between are white.
The safe place to go for a run is on a highway.
There are pedestrian crosswalk signs accompanied by horse crosswalk road signs as well.
Baboons cross the road. HA!
Vans are combis. (That's right..we've been cruising in the "green machine" aka...a green VW microbus!)
Trucks are bakkies.
Yielding to pedestrians is not an option.
You pay for plastic bags at the grocery store. (Not to worry...we've invested in the "go green" bags...we just forget to take them to the store EVERY time.)
Places close EARLY.
We live in the mountains and I ran for 25 minutes ending up at the beach.
An item on a menu at a restaurant included monkey gland. (vom)
"Take Away" is the same as "To Go".
Fries are chips. (South Africa was once a Dutch colony, then the British invaded...can you tell?)
Welcome to the metric system!! 1 kg = 2.2 lbs -- Thank you, 9th grade physical science. I'm forever grateful.
No central heating!!
The normal "nice to meet you" handshake isn't a firm shake, hold and release. It's more of a loose shake, move your fingers up over the hand, then back to the normal shake and release. (3 step process. hahaha!)
The rugby world cup packs out the bars like OU playing in the national championship.
(the green machine!! and trying to capture the backwards road...)
These are just a few things we've noticed so far...we'll keep you posted of new findings as we continue on our journey here this summer (aka winter)!! Our first two weeks here was spent with the EQUIP team. We partnered with an organization called All Nations, here in Cape Town, shared the gospel in multiple townships and at the University of Cape Town. We had anywhere from 15-19 adults, 6 kids, a microbus, and God's voice directing us where to go. Here are two, of many, testimonies from our time here…
We met a woman in Red Hill (township we’ve been pouring into) who had a very swollen ankle with a very significant scar. She told us she had fallen four years ago, and had a metal screw in it, and when we looked closer, you could see the metal pushing against the inside of her skin on both sides of the ankle. When we put our hands on her to pray, we felt movement in her knee, and felt the screw shrink. By the end of our praying, our teammate couldn’t feel the screw touching the skin anymore. When we asked her how she felt, she starting rolling her ankle and said, “I can move it!!” She was overjoyed by the goodness of God. We shared the good news of Jesus with her, which she stated she already believed. When we went to Red Hill the next day, we saw her out and about. We asked how her ankle was and she assured us by her words and actions (as she was doing laundry) that she had no pain and had work to catch up on! Haha! We can’t wait to meet with her again and see God not only transform her life, but her whole household!
Our team went to a township called Ocean View, split up into teams as usual, waited on what the Lord had for us during our time and went after it. Tommy got a picture of a specific type of tree, so naturally when we looked up across the street, there was an open park type area with the same tree God gave him a picture of. So, off to the park we went. There was only one man at the park, so we went for it. We told him we loved Jesus and asked if he knew Jesus or needed any prayer for anything. Talk about the right kind of soil! This man (we'll call him Bill) and another man (we'll call him Bob – he came out of nowhere when he saw us talking to Bill) were HUNGRY. Desperate, really. Bob started with, “Well…to be honest…there is.” You know it’s going to be good when anyone starts with that! We were so excited! Yes, please be honest! As it turns out, Bob currently smuggles drugs and Bill used to. Bob had just gotten out of jail two days prior and just wants out of the drug world. He used to desire it, but now he just wants out and is, for various reasons, tied to it. Bill got out of jail two months ago, but has promised himself he’d never go back and hasn’t up until this point, but is obviously feeling weary and struggling as he can’t find a job to provide for himself. It was incredible how open and honest these two men were and how God was speaking His love for these men through us. We shared the gospel with these men, explained how the Holy Spirit wants to talk to them, shared some of the character of God so they can distinguish the voice of God from the voice of the enemy. We got to share pictures, scriptures and words for how God sees them. We got to share with them that God looks down on all of us the same way!! We’re all His children!! No matter how the world treats us, that is the truth. They are valued sons of their heavenly Father. Ahhhhh!! It was so fun!! God is after their hearts. He deposited so much hope in us for them! They were so grateful for us and we actually got both of their information as they’re both open to a discipleship relationship this winter! Pray for transformation in their hearts and that they would open their ears and eyes to what God has for them! Jesus sets the captives FREE!!
We live in community, spend time in His presence every day, worship together, eat together, pray together, serve one another, share Jesus everywhere He tells us to, and through it we've seen people come to know Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, baptized, encouraged, and healed!! It's literally a backwards life from what we’re used to, but absolutely beautiful and the way God intended it to be. It’s been incredible so far and we have big hopes for what God has in store for the next seven weeks!!
Tommy & Arian
