Bittersweet Luxuries, a Dream of an Orphan Girl, and Joy Amidst the Love of God

Last Wednesday night, I was spending some time reading, praying, etc. when I drifted to sleep, and for a moment, saw the face of Ammu. It brightened my day to see her in South Africa, and it gave me so much joy to see her again in my dream! The dream consisted of simply seeing her face once more; it contained nothing else, but it didn't have to. Seeing her face again was more than I could ever deserve.

It reminded me of Ammu seated on my lap during the following memory written in a previous blog:
"There's less than a week left before I leave, and there's still so much that needs to be done here! It's been wonderful to be in Soshanguve. It's been wonderful to love hurting people, and to see so much love returned.
I have to admit that I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to come back to the American reality. I'll be returning to comfort, to safety, to family, and to my home, but I'll be leaving behind so many people I've grown to love here. So many children are fatherless here, as I've shared with you before. After seeing my interaction with one little fatherless girl of 5, Ammu, another girl asked me if I was her father. When I replied that I was not, she asked if I loved Ammu like a father. I replied that I did love her (which was lost in translation as a full affirmation), and she asked if I could love herself as a father as well."

I weep as I write.

I may be safe now. I may be living with a family that loves me on their own private island. I may eat the choicest of foods and have access to a reliable car to drive and gas to put in it.
I may not have had the best food in the poor black township of Soshanguve. I may not have been considered safe by the rest of the world. I may not have been living with a family that I knew. I may have walked a lot and used taxis that the vast majority of white people in the country consider highly unsafe. My room may not have had a ceiling and there may have been rats in the house, including one a foot or two away from my face on one occasion when I woke up from sleeping.

None of the luxuries of home can compare to the dream of Ammu, the smiling face of an orphan who loved me like the father she never had.

I love missions. I always have. I am in VA though now. God's will is better than mine. He knows what He's doing. Still, I don't like where God has had me for the past few months. I'd rather be with an Innerchange team in South Africa or Cambodia, living in poverty yet experiencing so much joy as the love of God overflows as I serve the physically, spiritually, and emotionally hurting. What I too often forget is that the Lord has me in VA right here, right now, for a reason.

I looked at "My Utmost for His Highest" devotions (http://utmost.org) from January 24th-26th, which spoke to me as well. Chambers states, "you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine (24th)." "Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him...Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point." I wanted God to lead me MY way, to send me off to be with the poor for a long time. "Every time we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it is because we have disrespectfully thought that we knew better than Jesus Christ...Many of us refuse to grow where God plants us...Consecration is the act of continually separating myself from everything except that which God has appointed me to do. It is not a one-time experience but an ongoing process. Am I continually separating myself and looking to God every day of my life (26th)?"

After this dream, worship and the sermon at Wave Church in VA Beach encouraged me as well. The speaker highlighted that change in our lives and our walk is possible, when I have been so full of condemnation at my inability to progress much amidst the geographical placement and ministry I am involved in now. He spoke about Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3. Moses was insecure about the calling of God on His life, and didn't want to accept it. He had murdered a man in cold blood, and may have had a speech impediment. He didn't feel equipped to lead the Hebrews out of slavery. The speaker highlighted how "change hinges on who Jesus is, not who you were." "Insecurity will overestimate the size of your problem and underestimate the size of your God." He closed with 2 Corinthians 5:17, focusing on being in Christ:
17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Abiding in Christ, He can overcome in us that which we could never defeat on our own.

I have been so dissatisfied at my life in the past few months, much of which has been due to my many failures amidst such an easy, physically blessed and comfortable lifestyle. I wonder how I can effectively serve the Lord in the physically hard places if I can't serve the Lord well in the physically comfortable places.

I often find myself drifting to dissatisfaction at my existence due to my daily failures, but we know that God doesn't look at us through the lens of our failures, but through the blood of Jesus (Isaiah 61:10). Also, how can any of us not be satisfied when we consider the massive degree of grace lavished on each and every one of us? The life of our Creator was given on our behalf! Our God is with the called forever! Even a moment in His presence would be more than we could ever deserve and worth far more than a lifetime of praise!
God doesn't love me for the good things I do! It's not MY performance that allows me access to His presence in this life or the next; it was His performance on a cross! My fallen performance can never merit His love, so I need to stop treating myself like it can!

Please, keep reminding me of the joy that should erupt from our lives as we live with a God who loves us infinitely, no matter our inadequacy, foolishness, and sin.

Blessed be the name of the Lord, who knew our sins before we were born, yet who took on flesh so that He could shed His blood and die for the blemishes that would have kept us apart from Him forever. He is not disgusted by us even amidst the vomit of sin (Proverbs 26:11, Romans 5:6-8); His love remains even then.
Even while He was being crucified, in Luke 23:34 "Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

One of the one room shacks next door to where we lived.

Soshanguve, South Africa

What Happened? Story of Me Nearly Drowning - My Dad’s Perspective

The following was written following an event around 12:30 AM on November 5, 2010 when I hit my head on the dock at my parents home and went unconscious under water. This occurred after a 40 day fast and the most significant spiritual attack I've ever faced, with many parallels to the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. I was alone when I went beneath the surface.

The following is written from my dad's point of reference:

7 weeks ago I (MY DAD) experienced the most amazing display of God's power, love, mercy & grace....... at about half past midnight, I came home from playing basketball with a bunch of guys even younger than my youngest son (ME) in a local church's gym. It was 46 degrees and drizzling on this Thursday night, November the 4th. The moon and stars were hidden by the clouds, making this an extremely dark night. As I ran the short distance from my truck to my door, through the sounds of the breeze I heard my son out on the pier. I thought nothing of it, since it's not unusual for him to be up late or outside.

The house and nearby water: After taking a shower, I put on sweat pants and was heading towards my computer to catch up on emails, when, unlike almost any other night, instead I walked out in the drizzle to check on my son. As I walked north towards our pier in the York River, I heard something off our eastern shore, not words but sounds, so I quickly checked the pier and saw that he wasn't there, looked back and saw that no cars were missing, and ran to the edge of our eastern shore and started calling out to him, even though I couldn't see him. Something was making a sound of some type and I thought I could see the silhouette of a head and shoulders moving about 200 feet off of the shoreline and called out to him, "Adam... ADAM...ADAM!!!" Now I was shouting, "ADAM IS THAT YOU? ANSWER ME!" I shouted one last time to the top of my lungs, "A-D-A-M!" I got no response, but somehow I knew that it was him, that he was out there, and that he was in trouble.

I ran back to the house, grabbed a high-beam flashlight and a rain jacket, and went back to the cove behind our house, to the only boat that had any chance of getting out because the tide was so low. This was a little 13 ft Boston Whaler, which by the way didn't start the last time I tried to use it. Frantically I tried to get it started to no avail. Since the guy who works for me had winterized it and disconnected the gas line, which was not the normal procedure, I turned around to see what was wrong, reconnected the gas line, and it started almost immediately. With the engine tilted up, I made my way out, dragging the bottom out of the shallow cove. I then went full blast out to where I saw him, which was about 300 feet away from the dock that he had been on that night. Standing in the Boston Whaler, I began turning in circles with the flashlight looking all across the endless water, and saw nothing. I shined the light up on the rocks to see if he had somehow made his way out of the water. Still I saw nothing. Then, way out over 1,000 feet away, the light reflected off of something in the water. But before I made it there, I realized it was only a crab pot marker. It was at that moment that I realized the vastness of the water and the hopelessness of finding him like a needle under a haystack. My son was gone, swept away by the current that runs past our house, underwater and out of sight.

It was at that time that I cried out in desperation to God, "God, take me to my son!" Immediately I felt led to go towards our duck blind, and within 45 seconds, I saw an imperfection on the water's surface just off the bow of the little boat which I almost immediately realized was an air pocket caught between the black liner & his black leather coat against the black water on this black night. It was barely breaking the surface, and as I pulled up beside this "imperfection" I saw the curls of his blonde hair under the water's surface. His feet were dragging on the bottom and he was completely submerged underwater. He was now approximately 500-600 feet away from the pier. I knelt down, grabbed him by his hair with my right hand, and lifted his head above the water's surface. His pale, white, cold head was now face to face with mine, his eyes shut, and his teeth clenched. He was completely unconscious.

Then, as if he was trying to breath, water started pumping out of his nose in a rhythmic fashion, which gave me hope that he could be revived. I lifted him higher with my right hand still clenching the hair on the top of his head, and started beating him in the chest with my left hand. Then I drug him into the boat where I laid him in the bow on his back, fully clothed, with 2 coats, gloves, shoes, pants, etc. still out cold. I laid my hand on his chest over his heart, and miraculously felt it beating. The water pumping out of his nose had transitioned to shallow breathing as the complete hopelessness of the situation began to subside. I drove the boat back around to the York River dock where he had been, hurriedly tied the boat up, and ran inside as fast as I could, called 911, and yelled to wake up my wife, Libby to come and help.

As I waited for the ambulance, he laid unconscious, eyes closed, teeth clenched, breathing shallow breaths in the bow of the Whaler as I begged God to bring him back, to let him live, to preserve his brain that been robbed of oxygen. It took me and 3 guys from the rescue squad to lift him out of the boat and onto the dock as they took him to the ambulance where they cut his clothes off and wrapped him in blankets. At that time his body temperature was probably less than 80 degrees. Thirty minutes later, wrapped with multiple blankets in the blast heated ambulance, he arrived at the emergency room where his body temperature had risen to 82 degrees. Libby and I waited directly outside of the trauma unit of the emergency room where 20 minutes later I heard a nurse ask, "What's your name? Who's the president?" They let me come into the room, where our eyes met and he said, "Hey Pops, what happened?" This was the beginning of his recovery. Today he has completely recovered and l am the most thankful man on earth.....

I did not earn this, prepare for this or deserve this .....For this series of events to have happened exactly in this order, in this precise time sequence was impossible. Why did I even go outside in the first place? Adam was 500-600 ft away from the dock & could have drifted in 270 degrees of different directions , and completely underwater & out of sight at 1:00 am on the darkest of dark nights.....I do not even know how to do CPR......If the tide would have been 2-3 inches lower, l would not have been able to get the little boat out.....10 boats with search light could not have found him....Within 5 minutes of finding him, the battery in the one flashlight that l had was dead...... He was probably completely underwater for at least 10-15 minutes.

This was an absolute Miracle !!!!!

May God grant you the Christmas miracle that you need.

Greg Garrett

Amidst a number of people praying for me around this incident, I found out after the incident that one friend of mine, the late Judge Barry Logsdon, felt led to pray for me while standing in the York River near our dock months before, and did not know why he was being led to pray for me or why God led him to be at the event there when it didn't make sense for him with his busy schedule. His widow, Kimberly Logsdon, remembers the incident well. Another friend of mine, Mrs. Mary Ellen Bogert, widow of the late Dr. Phil Bogert, was woken up around midnight the night of the incident, feeling an urgent need to pray for me. While normally she sleeps like a rock, this was one of less than five times in her life when she can remember that she has woken up and felt an urgent need to pray for someone. The only other time that she could think of was when she was woken up to pray for her son around the same time that her son got into a bad car accident. Dr. Jim Rudisill is a second person who reports that he was literally woken up and felt led to pray for me the night of me passing out under water on Nov 5, 2010, around the same time that it occurred, midnight. His wife verifies that he was woken up to pray for me that night. He couldn't go back to sleep, and kept praying for me for hours, almost all night. He eventually even left his boat and drove to a place where he may have been able to see my house, even sticking his feet in the cold water on that cold night (the air temperature was below 50). He had never been there just to pray before. In his prayers, he even says that he prayed, "breathe!" At 4 AM, he reports that he saw a sign for my dad's real estate company lying on the ground with my dad's number on it, and called him, saying that he was praying for me and believing that my life was in danger. He reports that my dad asked him how he could have known, for there is no way that Jim could have except through some paranormal and/or supernatural means. Jim then proceeded to the hospital and prayed for me some more at my dad's side. His wife Mary remembers the night as well. I did a documentary about his life for a documentary studies class at CNU which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkk2QF_Zqo0&list=PLSo6O5wDaQd_x_GmG6DqU6BAWgOi96pVM I also found out afterwards that my hypothermia helped me to survive without brain damage after being unconscious under water for so long. For reference, the address of the property is 122 Sandbox Lane in Yorktown, VA 23692. Because people that don't know me may find this blog hard to believe, even the mere statement that I lived at the pictured property for years, feel free to pull the tax records for the property to confirm my father's ownership from 2004 until now here: https://maps.yorkcounty.gov/York/Account/Logon

Memories of Old: The Voice of the Lord – South African leading: 2008

In my experience, to hear the voice of God, it takes humility. We serve a God who knows everything, who we are relatively stupid before by comparison, no matter how lofty we perceive our finite knowledge and intelligence, yet His voice is an intangible reality too often in America, so we succumb to status quo bias. I’d encourage you to not be satisfied with this.

Some of what it takes includes highly counter-cultural dependence on God rather than self. Many would argue it includes counterculturally long time with God in prayer to listen during time alone and time throughout the day, & not muffling your ears as God calls you to sacrifice amidst time in the Word and prayer. When I met Will Graham a few months back with Brian Millard, he said that his granddaddy Billy told him that what he regretted the most was that he did not spend more time in prayer and more time in the Word. Keep in mind that he spent far more time in the Word and in prayer than most pastors. Please pray that I would not merely be yapping in my remembrance with this blog, but live in light of the reality of what the Lord has done time and time again in my life.







In most of my life, I have been unable to say whether something was merely my own desires or the Lord’s definitive will. Most of the time, I don’t know His voice. My level of intimacy isn’t strong enough, and too often my ears would rather be muffled to obedience, even if they might be open to knowledge that I want to know. The Lord would be doing me a disservice if He were to tell me anything in such a state. In the following account I share an example of God speaking to someone where there's statistical improbability involved for someone to say that it was just you. Today, as well as in much of my past, such as the first dozen mission trips I went on, I could have never said that any decision that I made was definitely directed by the voice of the Lord, and not just me and my own desires, notions of wisdom, instruction, etc.





For the email below, one may ask, "why don't we see more things like this in the church?" For me, that question can be answered with ease through the story of my own life, and I may have already told it to you. In the end, we don't depend on God enough. In “Forgotten God”, Francis Chan elaborates on the tragic neglect of the American church regarding the Holy Spirit. I’d highly recommend his book, as well as “Crazy Love”.



While I have never had the clarity of confirmation before that I did for the mission trip before this to India, in comparison to any directional questions in life that come to memory, I also never petitioned God for direction as I did soon before going to India. It was during the time in my life where I was praying more than any other time. My walk with Christ, giving Him legit time in prayer, continued after India, into the time before South Africa. Please pray that I would continually increase in dependence on Him, and that I'd see John 3:30 worked out more and more in my life.





This is the majority of an email that I sent to John Hayes, slightly revised; if it was not for God working partially through him, along with many other people and events that I believe God divinely orchestrated, I would not be going.



I believe that providence may surely be at work. God did quite a few things to place John Perkins out of Mississippi and into a meeting room in Chicago to meet with a class of mine on a field trip last Wednesday. While before you spoke to me, I had little idea about what one could do to effect racial reconciliation besides in befriending non-whites and making sure they were treated as equals in my arenas, Perkins' talk with our class greatly solidified and deepened the discussion you and I had. Your and Perkins talks individually, and especially together, separated by only a little more than a week, inspired me to racial reconciliation like I've never been before. These stories were the greatest stories of tangible racial reconciliation I believe I’ve ever heard.



A week ago, I was sitting in on a "Leadership and Evangelism" course, and the selection of this course under the professor that taught it as well as the date in which it occurred are key to my recent decision to go to South Africa. This course is the only one in the masters program that I'm taking this semester. The accelerated masters program for leadership and evangelism is the only program on campus that I'm aware of that regularly meets in a modular format (thus for less than a week but for long hours during those days). If it was not in this format, there's no chance that I would be in the accelerated program. I even dropped one of the two classes I was going to take in Leadership and Evangelism, which could have easily been this one since the one I dropped was a shorter class than this one, and right now I could use all the load-lessening I can get!

The very fact that I was able to sit in on the class rather than taking it as planned is notable because of the fact that for everyone who took the class for credit, this class was around 2,500$.

There were very few undergrads doing the accelerated masters program, and I was certainly the only undergrad who took that class. It's also somewhat strange that I was even accepted into the program, much less actually going through with it, since I had an incomplete last semester, the first I've ever received at Wheaton. For someone who was only taking slightly over the bare minimum of coursework to be considered a full time student, and getting an incomplete in just that, accelerated doesn't seem to look like a very good idea. I was so behind last semester that it took me a very long time over the summer to complete my assignments for my incomplete (but the long time that it took is essential as apart of another long trail of providence I won't even get into!). Going into this year, starting the Orphan Helpers Club here for the first time on campus, and playing club lacrosse again, I shouldn't be taking an extra class. In fact, going into the evangelism class I was (and still am) very behind.

My teacher … just happens to know a man whose mentor is John Perkins, Wayne Gordon. Perkins “just happened” to be coming to town from Mississippi to meet with his mentor as part of an annual meeting for Gordon's medical ministry through his church. Gordon was adamant about making it clear that he didn't agree to meeting with the Wheaton Class because it was a Wheaton class; he came for my professor who he had been in Bible study with for years. He even talked about how he kept saying no to Willow Creek about preaching at one of their Wednesday night services because of lack of time until finally caving in.

What Perkins said moved me deeply. One of the things he talked about was how he himself had been tortured by white police officers, including them sticking forks up his nose, and that his brother had died in his arms after being shot by a white sheriff. He told us about how he set up a tent in his yard at one time in his life to preach due to very high rates of crime at that time in his area. He also told us how, even though he was openly kind towards a sheriff who kept coming to his preaching, it was a mere formality of his in order to keep up appearances as he was preaching. In fact, he told us how he still harbored intense hatred towards white policemen amidst all this. Yet this sheriff demonstrated that he cared for John. He was the first to come as Perkins set up his tent, and the last to leave. He even had his deputies help Perkins take down the tent on nights. He out-loved Perkins, and this deep demonstration of love won Perkins over to being able to love the sheriff back. This gave me a picture of how deeply people's very 'natural' inclinations towards whites in South African townships must be filled with such deep wounds, even among the strong evangelical Christian communities there. This greatly reinforced what you told me about how I could do something about the situation in terms of reconciliation as well, for people's hearts can change tremendously by demonstrating love towards them. What impacted me the most from our discussion was when you talked about how you were preaching one day to black men and you felt the Lord leading you and told them that you were sorry. Even though it was for mere indifference, and for the race and people that you couldn't control, you said you were sorry, and it meant so much to those people who knew that you meant every word of it because you had been with them and demonstrated your love and care for them. As you told me about how some of them broke down in tears, I myself was fighting the tears back (and did a pretty good job, unless you saw a little water in my eye briefly!).

While very clear further providence (although that's another story!) has made it highly apparent that God wants me to look at work with South-East Asian sex slavery in the future, the functional urgency involved in the mission to South Africa is not present in Thailand or Cambodia. You are planning on going for the first time this summer, and I know that first impressions on something that no one's ever done before are a big deal. The ministries in Thailand with Remember Nhu and International Justice Mission have already been established, so I can go next summer, or the summer after if God calls me elsewhere.

I learned tonight that my own father has been a part of racial reconciliation since the third grade, when his dad wouldn't let him have a black friend from school over to his house. I have known that my father has been a good friend to African Americans for some time, being a white president of his public high school after receiving 80% of the vote facing a black candidate in a 60% black public high school.

I'm very glad that you took the time to engage me when I simply said hi that day in the lower level of the Beamer Center! When I said hi, it took me a second to register that I had just said hi to the chapel speaker because my vision's not great and I sit in the nose-bleed section of chapel. I don't remember almost anything about your ministry from the chapel service, which I think I mostly slept through, and there's very little chance I'd have even considered meeting with you otherwise. Thank you

I wanted to send this to you a week ago, although it would have been without a final decision then, because I knew I would need to get into further prayer before making such a momentous determination. I wanted to get back to you within a week, so I've been focusing prayer on this matter since that Wednesday night. After a little one day fast on the last day of the week of prayer, God put the cherry on top when I found out that I wouldn't have to ask you if you knew who John Perkins was, because at a quick glance at your book while doing a little cleaning up (I still haven't really cracked it open!) I found that it was he who wrote your foreword! Isn't it awesome to work with a providential God who isn't restrained by the barriers of time?!



Thank you,

Adam Garrett



In South Africa, God confirmed my long term calling to minister to those involved in sex trafficking when the only published film that we saw as a team was “Not for Sale.” I had no voice in this decision. I had wanted to see this movie for about a year, as I began to feel a call to minister to those involved in sex trafficking. At the time, and maybe still today, “Not for Sale” was the most well-known documentary in existence about human trafficking worldwide.

Our next door neighbors in their one room, one bed metal shack

July 23rd 2008 South Africa Update

Hello again from South Africa! There's less than a week left before I leave, and there's still so much that needs to be done here! It's been wonderful to be in Soshanguve. It's been wonderful to love hurting people, and to see so much love returned. I have to admit that I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to come back to the American reality. I'll be returning to comfort, to safety, to family, and to my home, but I'll be leaving behind so many people I've grown to love here. So many children are fatherless here, as I've shared with you before. After seeing my interaction with one little fatherless girl of 5, Ammu, another girl asked me if I was her father. When I replied that I was not, she asked if I loved Ammu like a father. I replied that I did love her (which was lost in translation as a full affirmation), and she asked if I could love herself as a father as well.

On the 18th, our team was among a group of 30 or 40 who watched the documentary entitled Not for Sale. I cannot help but highlight this seemingly insignificant activity that could be done anywhere in the world. Recently it has seemed as though everywhere I go, this ongoing tragedy of immense proportions highlighted by the film haunts me. I truly hope that I can be of some service to at least a few of the many enslaved people of the world highlighted in this film, particularly those in the bondage of sexual slavery. The documentary described many of the people trapped in this particular brand of slavery as men, women, and children with only death in their eyes. We learned that as the third largest criminal industry in the world (next to drug and arms trafficking), and fastest growing, human trafficking currently enslaves more men, women, and children than any other time in human history.

I did not hold back from weeping throughout much of the film. While objective callousness is a cultural norm, whether it be emotional callousness or apathy towards ever changing one's normative activity when called upon to do so, I did not revert to maintaining a cynical distance on this occasion. For such a horrific abomination as this, destroying so many lives even as I write, it simply seemed too inhuman to hold back my tears.

After the film the people present prayed. We prayed that the film portraying many others' everyday reality would not simply touch our hearts without ever penetrating our lives. I believe that helping the enslaved is a large piece of my future.

The night of the 17th was a night of celebration. There was finally a working toilet in the house next door to us on the left, after 3 years of Ezekiel, the landlord on our left who rents out some rooms of his home and a few shacks behind it, desiring one. He had been working for close to two weeks, first spending days trying to find the pipe buried underground by digging in various places around his yard, then digging trenches for the pipe, getting the materials, beating a hole through the wall, etc. The last piece of pipe, which he hadn't thought he would have until the next week due to running out of funds, was something that Kevin and I were able to surprise him with as a birthday present, for the 17th was also his birthday. I worked with them digging, beating, brick throwing, and even playing with some of the kids that lived there, from all but an hour of two PM to nine.

After the toilet was working with all of the leaks in the pipe repaired, Kevin came in about 9 with a cake and some neighbors, and we began to celebrate. People's favorite activity seemed to be coming at various times to smear pieces of cake on Ezekiel's head! He was so happy, and kept saying, "This is too much!"

In the new bathroom, we saw a list of goals that Ezekiel had for 2008. Included in them were things like "stopping my bad drinking habit", "getting better morals", etc. It was very encouraging to see.

After the festivities died down, Ezekiel, I, and another man who I met that night talked about God. The other man believed in many gods, and was fairly confrontational because he knew that we were missionaries. Ezekiel came to my defense, saying that "Jesus is King", as he says sometimes when I'm around. It was very encouraging to hear from Ma Selepe, that he had indeed been doing better since we came, and I pray that he continues to grow in Life and Love after we leave Sunday.

July 15th 08 South Africa Update

Hello again from South Africa! By now you can't tell that I had bronchitis for the most part, and I'm doing very well! Once I introduced some of the kids to boxing with the big gloves I brought, they immediately got hooked, and I'm afraid that they're addicted! After the first time, which went til it got too dark to see each other well, they were at our house asking if they could box the morning of the next day, and have asked many times since then when I haven't had time! Thanks for the suggestion to bring them Dr. Buis (a South African professor I had at Wheaton)!

I've been learning and seeing through many more experiences since my last update, too many to cover in an email! We have weekly mentoring sessions, and in my mentoring time with Paul Nix, the US co-team leader here, he told me how he had had an encounter with one man who said, "Thank you for being brave enough to come here… Thanks for not being afraid."

Andrew and Aimee leave today to both go back to the UK. Andrew is studying to receive a masters in disaster management. Aimee is studying to be a doctor, and spent quite some time while here with Petunia and the NGO she works with which visits homes to help treat them for sickness, much of which starts with AIDS. They'll be greatly missed, by our team as well as those who they impacted and who impacted them in return. Last night we had a parting dinner for them, which their host parents attended. Pastor Sampson, who Andrew was staying with, spoke about how he had been serving in Soshanguve for 30 years, but had never known of anything like what was going on in Soshanguve with our team. He said that he's seen white people come into town to do ministry, but they always leave at night. Seeing our team not only doing ministry, but playing soccer with locals, sitting down on concrete to have conversations, and essentially living with the people here meant so much to him. He now considers Andrew like an adopted son, and hopes to see him again, because he's family now.

Ma Selepe and Pa Selepe (as we call them) have opened up more and more to us. Pa Selepe told us about his experiences in 1976, when he was in 8th grade. I asked him if anyone he knew had gotten hurt. He responded by telling us how he was beaten and stomped on by a white cop simply because he was available. He told us how walking alone could get you shot, for no witnesses might be found, and walking in a group of 2 or 3 you could be accused of conspiring, then beaten. He told us how in effect all white people were cops, because they could all get you arrested for nothing. I learned about tires being burned around black people's necks prior to coming here, but Pa Selepe telling me about what someone had screamed amidst burning was different entirely. He told us, "I saw everything."

So many people want to come to America. So many struggle to find a decent job, and commonly ask me to help them find one. The landlords who live and rent space on our immediate left are both jobless, although they've been thankful to recently find part time work for a little while helping to build a house nearby. I'm afraid the house will be built too soon, and they'll be jobless once more. The man of the house of my next-door neighbor on the right, Dikaledi's home, is jobless. A vendor here called to me and said something I don't believe I've heard before. She said, "please come, I need business." While I don't believe it sounds that meaningful in writing, her expression and tone conveyed far more than I can on paper. Too often we forget how blessed we are to be born in the land of opportunity (for those born in America reading). It can be easy to ignore the pain and struggle of others who aren't so fortunate.

Thanks again for all of those among you who have been praying for me! I so appreciate it, even if I won't have time to respond to practically any of your encouraging emails until I return. Ma Selepe knows the power of prayer as few do; in fact, the effective power of prayer is actually one of the primary reasons why she went from ancestor worship as her family had done for a long time to Christianity. She told us how her payers to her ancestors never worked, but when others prayed to Jesus, "this, and this, and this" all happened. Members of her family couldn't believe that she had become a Christian at first, for it appears as though she was involved in witchcraft.


Please pray:
For Aimee and Andrew as they go home to the UK today. Pray that they would be able to process the experiences they had while here, and that God would put into places those people who could best help them process things when they do process with others. Also pray for those they leave behind, those they ministered to and lived with while here.

For John Hayes, the leader of Innerchange and the man who was essential to my being in South Africa now. Medical complications made him unable to come and visit, encourage, and serve with us as he had planned. Please pray for his mother as well, for she is also suffering medically.

For Pastor Selepe: She so wants to help the people here that she sees physically and spiritually hurting. Kevin was comforting her that she has something to offer that many rich churches don't have, true love and compassion. Pray that sustainable support would arise that would enable her to help people more, including building an orphanage and finding staff who would love the children that come to her as she does. Pray that she would feel better physically as well; she has had difficulty sleeping as her teeth have hurt greatly while Pa Selepe probably would have difficulty coming up with the money to pay for a dentist while so much of their finances are used to help the less fortunate. Love expressed in such a manner seems ludicrous to the world, Her body aches as well now, probably due to lack of rest.

Thank the Lord: For what He is doing through our time in Soshanguve; For the impact of this time on the lives of those that Andrew and Amee came into contact with, as well as the continued impact on their lives; For those that are giving to the people here, such as Pa Selepe, who works so hard, some night shifts and some day shifts, providing for his family, the church, and the hurting people here. He is the primary reason that Ma Selepe is able to give what little she can. In a place of few fathers, a father like him is a rare thing to find indeed.

Thank you all.

July 8th South Africa Update

Hello again from South Africa! I got back to Soshanguve last night after spending time resting for a few days, mostly in solitude and some with my team near the beach! It's been great in helping me to recover from bronchitis.

I've gotten into the swing of life here, and have seen quite a bit. The church that Mrs. Selepe pastors is composed of sheets of metal primarily, what most in the US would consider a large shack. The congregation is composed of the poor, although many want to contribute a significant portion of what little they have to help serve others. Mrs. Selepe's home lacks quite a bit, such as a ceiling between the rooms and the roof and no running water in the kitchen, yet she too wants to give what little she has to help serve others.

Pastor Selepe goes to various poor people's homes to pass out food and pray with, and counsel people, and I've been blessed with some opportunities to join her. We've visited one mother sick with AIDS, giving her some food. We've visited and aided a few other homes with orphans and abandoned children, one with a jobless grandmother trying to care for 5 young children, which isn't that unusual it seems.

Promiscuity here combined with lack of education has created quite a problem not only with AIDS, but with effectively fatherless children. Fathers impregnate girlfriends while having little impetus to marry the young ladies even after the fathers find out about their children. This came close to home two Saturdays ago, when a close relative of the Selepe's chose not to see his prior girlfriend who lives next door or his brand new daughter after Dikaledi gave birth 1 month prematurely to his daughter early that afternoon. With so many fatherless and motherless children here, by abandonment or death, it reminds me how thankful I am for a father and mother who love me dearly.

On the 25th I was spending time with 2 brothers in their mid thirties for the first time who are some of our neighbors next door to the left of our house, and was greatly encouraged . In conversation, one brother said that my living next door to them, and hanging out with them at that time, was a dream come true. In a place where I can remember seeing only 2 other white people versus probably in excess of a thousand black Africans, and with lawfully enforced segregation still effecting the culture to a large degree after the laws have ceased, I can begin to comprehend why, and it was a moment that I will cherish. The fact that God can use our mere incarnational presence within this place to jumpstart the process of racial reconciliation to such a high degree in the life of two men is astounding to me.

Ezekiel, one of the brothers, who went 3 and 0 boxing in the past, is pictured below. We boxed, playing around, just once! When he drew a bit of blood from a nice hit on my nose, his brother made us stop, so we switched to no face hits!

Please Pray: For the poor in this township, including more care for them from the outside world that would mostly rather ignore what they believe an ugly and dangerous place;
For Pastor Selepe and her church's ability to meet some of the needs of those hurting in the community. After she didn't distribute chicken heads, a cheap form of flavor, for a few weeks, one girl we visited was sick from the paper she had become addicted to in the mean time.
That fewer churches here would preach doctrines that include that one must be doing something wrong if they are physically and emotionally hurting;
For a father figure's presence in Dikaledi's life for her baby;

Thank the Lord: For the healthy birth of Dikaledi's little girl;
For my bronchitis that has hindered me little, and modern medicine which allowed me to suffer far less than I would have without it;
For local men and women in Soshanguve like Ma Selepe who sacrifices time and money in the service of the hurting poor.

Thank you all,

Adam Garrett

South Africa 2

Greetings from South Africa! Sorry for the delay; internet access can be very difficult to come by in Soshanguve! We've been doing various team-building activities thus far in preparation for the coming weeks, and have moved into our respective homes with the locals. Pastor Selepe that I'm living with came as a surprise, as I had assumed that it would be Mr. and not Mrs. Selepe who would be the pastor in the house.

Bucket baths take me back to my first mission trip in Nepal, where there were showers, but the water was so cold, and warm bucket baths served as a much better alternative!

Please pray:

For my bronchitis that I discovered I had late at night the day before leaving for South Africa. I'm medicated and believe I'm slowly recovering, but it makes things difficult like a simple game of tag today with some neighborhood kids in the back of Luke and Petunia's yard. (I've now recovered!)

That you, my team, and I would be able to rest in the grace of the Lord more often no matter how rough our physical circumstances. For the Christian hospital in India and for the leader there. The hospital was attacked by a mob of radical Hindus around a month after I left after I spent 5 weeks there last summer. The evangelical nature of the hospital and the desire to celebrate the Dhalit (untouchable caste) people were the main reasons for attack. http://christiansincrisis.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=720&Itemid=39 Please thank the Lord: For the aboundance of medical supplies available in the 21st century, and my ability to acess them prior to getting to South Africa; For my need to miss very little through my bronchitis. Thank you all for your support in prayer. Adam