All-
 
With a heavy heart I have to say that our Venture is coming to a close. We just arrived back from dropping off the first member of the team (my roommate Jonathan) at the airport.
 
I have had a lot to learn on this trip and I believe I was able to contribute a little too. Last night we went around the table and everyone said what they thought each person was able to bring to the table by way of affirmation.
 
Thank you all for your prayers during the Venture.
 
Attached are some take aways from the trip:
1. That from seeing the struggles of businessmen and their fights to provide for their families, I can have a much greater appreciation of the struggles my father overcame for 30 years to put food on the table for me and my family, and even more at least a greater glimpse of God the Father’s sacrifice for us.
2. That when I return home I will have a renewed determination to see Christ glorified in all of my actions.
3. That I have a lot to learn about caring for others. One of the things I have thought about is how I have trained myself to survive by taking care of myself.
4. That I can walk into a church in a foreign land and embrace men as brothers because Christ bought us all with the same blood.

Here are five contributions that I believe we made:
1. We called out local business leaders and help to stoke their passion to work together for their community for Christ’s sake.
2. We encouraged struggling businessmen and businesswomen to continue to persevere in the midst of significant financial difficulty.
3. We preached the Gospel to people of multiple nationalities
4. We encouraged people take share the Gospel with others
5. We represented Americans and Christians as compassionate caring people, who are willing to make significant sacrifices to make an impact on the lives and hearts of people.
6. We identified ways in which “repurposed” businesses can continue to improve themselves and how businessmen can glorify God in their businesses.
7. We as a team encouraged each other, and I believe will have created lasting friendships with each other and others in the community we acted in.
 
Thanks I look forward to seeing you all soon and being back in my own country
 
Brandon

Ya gotta love kids.  Know matter where I’ve been, all kids love to be asked “how old are you?”  The kids in this township were no different. 

After a morning of business meetings we had a chance to visit a couple of the local townships.  This is something I’ve been looking forward to since I arrived.  And true to my Cape Town experience we where warmly welcomed.  Our guide was just walking us around the community when a group of kids started to follow us and before you know it the team was playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, a South African version of Duck, Duck, Goose, and enough High 5’s were passed around to add up to $1000 :-)

I don’t know if you can tell from the photo up top but many of the homes these children live in are just shacks, literally.  This means no insulation, running water and sometimes no electricity. When you drive down the freeways in Cape Town you’ll see hundreds of these shacks, like mini cities sitting off the side of the road.

The remaining oppression in South Africa just seems so awful, especially for the people in these townships. Yet in the mist of it all, the kids we met lived in a community, they know love and joy.  The smiles on their faces gave me hope. 

Please pray for the people that live in these townships, for my teammates as they begin traveling back home over the course of the next few days and for the rep leaders that will remain here and continue to service the people of South Africa.

Theresa

Dear Mission Partners,

As of Wednesday Oct. 14, we had an awesome sight seeing adventure going through Simon’s Town to Cape Point. On the way, we saw baboons, blue skies, clear blue water, and mountains.  It was a great team building experience hiking together helping each other go through the “desert”/ white sand beach =-)  and navigating the rocks to hike to the majestic view of Cape Point.  Praise the Lord for good weather and traveling mercies.  I enjoyed learning the 14 books of the Bible from my teammate, during the car ride.  My goal is to learn all 66 books by Sunday.

-Jamie

Today, our team got split up once again to focus on specific company
scorecards.  Our team focused on People and Partnership for the
client.  Two key staff members and the company CEO joined the rep Blitz team to
discuss further strategies, action items, and Kingdom performance
indicators for People and Partnership.  Through the process, our team
was able to ask key questions to help the two key client staff members and CEO
to devise a unique plan of action that will help set a more solid
foundation for the company in order to position it for expansion.
Some of the strategies discussed include implementing corporate prayer
to further foster unity and encouragement within the corporation and
collectively identifying communication needs within the organization.
Through the process, the two key client staff members were given tools to help
propel the company to the next level.

It has been quite an amazing ad(venture)to see God at work in personal
lives and corporate lives.  I was able to see the two key client staff members
come up with creative solutions that can only be attributed to
inspiration from above.  Although we have completed more than half the
ad(venture), there is more to come.  There must be more.  May we have
more inspired stories before the ad(venture) is over.

Khanh

The South Africans continue to spoil us with their hospitality. All of you back in the States have a lot to live up to when we get back.
 
This Monday we led a 10-P Booster session with a client, and we are currently praying for breakthroughs in their business as well as wisdom in helping them cobble together a scorecard and identifying issues that can be addressed to improve their business for Kingdom impact. Also in the evening Doug (the founder of rep, Brett Johnson’s brother) led a shortened version of a Convergence seminar (http://inst.net/convergence.html). It was good to chat with my group about areas where God had brought us through the Desert (one of seven seasons which prepare you for Convergence), or ways in which He had deliberately led us down certain paths in our individual lives. Unfortunately, during the seminar Doug informed us that there are no perfect spouses, and despite my protests, he was unconvinced that my future spouse would be marrying the perfect person. Afterwards it was encouraging to be able to meet with Christians from the area and see that some of our struggles in living out our faith in our work and families are felt by people world round.
 
Thank you everyone for your prayers. Thank you South Africans for your hospitality.
 
Brandon