Sweet Home men's event

When I posted the pictures I didn't have time to write any of it up.  After I uploaded them we were out until late creating a connection between Common Ground church and Bridges/Sweet Home.  That went very well and I think it was a good seed that was planted and an agreement to keep pursing some local outreach for their church.

What I really wanted to write was about our first day in Sweet Home.  It had rained all night and was partly cloudy, clear and very cool in the morning.  It reminded me exactly of the night and morning weather for our first ever visit to Sweet Home back in 2007. One of the top needs in the community that our leaders in Sweet Home have expressed (there is a list of 10) was to have more outreach to men.  The leaders have said that the men see the CHE program as a woman's thing.  So they setup a men's event. That and they wanted us to speak on Leading as a team was all we knew going into it.

When we arrived there were at least 40 men milling about in front of the only brick building in Sweet Home.  This is the newer one that we have never been allowed to use on any of my trips.  It is controlled by the local mayor and he want's us to pay for it so we use other facilities.  Amazing that it was open to us.  We went in the building and spoke briefly about our team then Darin McWatters shared a 15 minute message from the bible.  Then Andre Schey shared another 15 minutes.  As Andrew was finishing I really felt compelled to ask them what they wanted. I mentioned to Steve Carter who was going to share next that we might be bringing water to someone who was hungry if we didn't at least ask. He agreed to encouraged me to share next.

I told our story of being volunteers who help bring teams to the community.  That we have brought 8 teams over the past 5 years.  That this was my 4th time in Sweet Home.  That we wanted to see great transformation in the lives of the residents of Sweet Home.  I said that we couldn't do it without them and asked them to tell me how we could help with our teams in the future.  I was speaking all this through our translator Thobella.

One man tentatively raised his hand.  He said that all these men were here mid-day in the middle of the week because there are no jobs.  How could we help with jobs.  I responded that we wanted to help them with training and with creating businesses if that was possible.  That we had already helped the Creche (pre-school) and Sewing business.  That the sewing business was still small, but still a work in progress we were still wanting to help succeed.  That these business were all started by women and why we called this event was that we wanted to also see men getting trained and starting businesses.  We do this through this program called CHE.  I asked Thobella to explain to them how CHE worked in the community.  I thanked them and said we would be sending more teams and looked forward to continuing the process of helping them transform the community of Sweet Home.

Then I think Pete Shambrook shared and during that time Tim Taber asked if he could share about running a small business.  It was powerful to hear and everyone listened intently.  Then Chad Halliburton shared the final message.  It was what a life walking as Jesus Looked like. He asked them if anyone in the room wanted to make a first time declaration to walk with Jesus as we had been talking about all morning.  If you would like that, please raise your hand.  Thirty men raised their hands.  I think we were all in disbelief.  So he repeated the question about this being a lifetime commitment from this day forward and if you were sure to stand up.  The whole room stood up.  He lead them through a prayer which they repeated back through Thobella as he interpreted.  What solidified that this was a true understanding was when a number of men came forward and asked Thobella what this meant for their ancestral worship.  They really did understand that this was a big deal and I'm still just trying to wrap my head around how big this really was. Huge doesn't even begin to describe the event that happened in Sweet Home yesterday.  Over 20 men signed up for CHE training and gave their cell phone numbers to Thobella.  If our CHE leaders wanted more involvement with men in the community I think we are off to a good start.

We walked a long way through Sweet Home for a home visit with McCloud and his family.  In their home were two framed pictures of our first OVC camp back in January 2011. It had a picture of the team that I actually took. We took two pictures, one with Jared in it and one with me in it. This one had Jared.  I asked who went to camp and they said he wasn't there.  They have 10 children and only about 4 were in the house during the visit.

If you look the team picture from yesterday you will see who was hanging out with me. Edward. We also saw Sosa who is getting so big.

The rain is brutal in Sweet Home. I had never noticed that there was a sewer. I didn't think there was anything like proper plumbing in Sweet Home, but this time we all noticed the sewer manhole cover that had water flowing up out of it and into the street.  While I can now see that there is proper plumbing I now know that it doesn't work very well.  I'm looking forward to the day when the rain is just a regular day in Sweet Home. Based on what we saw, that day is definitely coming.

One of the other top needs is to create partnerships with local church. Todd has been instrumental in getting us connected with Common Ground Church here in Cape Town. There was a big meeting here and we also met with Chris Veenan who is visiting here from Brea and has a strong connection to RockHarbor and the churches here.  We met with the leadership of Common Ground last night and it looked like we planted some great seeds for a future partnership.

It rained all night and is windy and raining now.  The team is recording a video message for this weekend's service.  If you go to church this weekend the message will be of us sharing from our trip. Pray for the weather to lighten up at least a little.