Rock Harbor South Africa

Hello, all!!  Emily here filling you in on a few of today's events....

My job for the day was to play co-host (along with Di and Peter - Academy Director and Principal) to a group of leaders from Common Ground - a local Cape Town church (and my home church here!) with growing ties Rock Harbor.  Rigby Wallace - Common Ground's lead pastor - played host to a group of RH pastors a few months ago, and is very excited about the burgeoning relationship with RH, as well as our ministry partnerships here in South Africa.  Steph Cowell - another long term RockHarbor-ite serving here at Bridges Academy - has been attending Common Ground for a couple years and approached Rigby a few months ago, inviting him to come see the ministry at Bridges Academy.  So today, Rigby came for a visit with a few of the local outreach staff from Common Ground.  It was such a pleasure to show them around the Academy and Retreat Center, brag about our kids, and talk about the in's and out's of doing ministry here.  Di and Peter gave amazing perspective and history of the Academy, and I got to speak to Rock Harbor's partnership with Bridges and the experience of short and longer terms RH missionaries here.  The conversation was fluid, easy, and natural, and many ideas for partnership were discussed.  My prayer is that Common Ground, along with other local churches, begin to feel a pull to the Bridges ministry, seeing the many opportunities that there are here to invest in the lives of children and youth.  In addition, Rigby and the others are excited to visit the community development staff in Philippi at some point to see that side of Bridges' ministry.

Overall, it was an incredibly encouraging time of meeting and growing, sharing vision and heart, and spurring one another on with love and encouragement.  Please join me in praying that more relationship is birthed out of today, and that ministry partnering with Common Ground can soon become a reality!  They are definitely the sort we want on board here :)
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Bridges Staff appreciation luncheon.

Also today we put on a luncheon of sorts for the Bridges Staff at the Academy. We just wanted to take a little time here to show the staff (administrators, teachers, house parents, grounds keepers, the ladies in the kitchen, etc.) that we appreciate how much they do for the students here on a daily basis. Often times we come with the idea in mind that we are here to serve just the students, but we have tried to make an effort to serve all those we come in to contact with and bless them, even if only in a small way. We were able to use Steph Cowell's classroom and with all the tables pushed together for the staff to sit in one space and be able to enjoy each others company for a little while. We were also able to share kind words the students had written about each of them in an effort to show that although the feelings are not always vocalized by the teens, they really do appreciate what each of these  individuals do for them. Please pray for the Lord to continue to bless these individuals (the staff at Bridges)!
 

There's a storm coming...

We're trying to get to bed a little earlier tonight since the vast majority of us (our team and the students) will be participating in a 5k Fun Run in Paarl tomorrow morning. There are only two concerns we have....we have to leave at 6:15 am & it's a 100% chance of rain tomorrow at race time. We'll fill you in tomorrow on how things go. Thank you for praying for us...it really does mean a lot to have your support! ❤ keira