Snippets of the place I call home...

These are the beautiful, wonderful, amazing, special, incredible, God-loving people I have the privilege of living with. In no particular order:

The de Haan family: Simon (28), Marieke (29) and Noah (2). They are from Holland. Simon worked in multi-media and Marieke has been at home raising Noah. They feel called to missionary work in different nations and want to begin this journey in South Africa...





The Kisteman family: Jos (28), Christene (27) and Joel (2). They are from Holland. Both Jos and Christene are teachers; Jos, a high school maths teacher and Christene, a primary school teacher. They want to implement everything they’re learning in South Africa back home in Holland, and see many people come to know and love Jesus.









The Classen family: Conrad (36), Marlese (34), Jeanelle (12), Emile (9) and Maruche’ (6). They are from South Africa. Conrad and Marlese owned a fast food franchise and they have recently given all of that up in order to follow the call that God placed on their hearts.










The Guys (who live in an adjacent flat) from left to right: Eric (South Africa), Mike (Zambia), Bruce (Zambia), Willy (Zambia), Sydney (Zambia), and Minoza (South Africa) who was away when this picture was taken. The guys are also passionate about raising African leaders for Africa and they are at CPx to learn how to do this.


And finally, but definitely not least:

The Girls

(from left to right): Shannon (Hawaii, 24), Sarah (USA, 28), Christine (South Africa, 26), Linda (Zambia, 24), Joanna (Northern Ireland, 24) ,Bethany (USA, 21), and me (South Africa, 28). Each of us have different stories about how we came to do CPx in Cape Town with All Nations. But one thing is common for each of us: we love Jesus, and we’re passionate about people and seeing them come to know Him.

That's it! We cook together, eat together, clean together and sleep under the same roof. Most days are filled with fun and laughter, but we won't pretend that it's not been hard at times too. Dying to oneself, sacrificing your personal space and your "rights" is never an easy thing. But we understand the higher purpose to which we've been called; we realise that the primary expression of the gospel is through community, and that if we cannot get it right ourselves, we cannot expect other communities to be transformed by this powerful message.

In living together and learning to love each other we are fulfilling what Jesus spoke of when He said "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35

CPx - the Church Planting eXperience

I’ve been at CPx for four weeks now. My experience thus far has been a mixture of meeting new people, learning to live in community with 16 – 24 other people, coping with having moved away from family and familiarity and taking on a new direction in life. Quite a rollercoaster ride, to say the least! But at the core of this experience has been a deepening sense of trust in the Lord regarding my future; as well as joy, peace and utter excitement about the people I’ve met who are becoming my new family.
CPx is a church planting school. We are learning to plant simple churches, which are easily reproducible and serve as a platform for discipling African leaders for God’s Kingdom. Our mission in planting these simple churches is to teach people how to plant house churches in their own communities and to disciple and reproduce leaders.

The team I belong to has been placed in Ocean View – so called because of the beautiful view they have of Noordhoek Beach. It is predominantly a Coloured community, in which Afrikaans is most frequently spoken. Our first few days in Ocean View left us feeling somewhat unsure about what exactly we should be doing and how to go about doing it. We initially prayer-walked around the community, asking God to lead us and speak to us. We met a few of the local residents and through various contacts, my particular group (comprised of me, Nicki and Emmanuel) eventually came across a young family who are longing to know more about the bible and wanting to change their lifestyles. Praise God for His faithfulness! Chazlyn and his girlfriend, Lana, and their eight month old baby girl, Chaznay have welcomed us into their home. They are both struggling to find work, and are in quite a bit of debt, and after our first chat together we prayed for God to bless them with work and help them out of financial trouble. Chazlyn received a telephone call regarding an interview to work in a bank a few days later, and we await the result.

Since then, we have had a second, very encouraging visit with Chazlyn, where he expressed his desire to be changed from the inside so that he can follow God wholeheartedly and not fall away again. He has become weary of empty religion which brings about no inward change, and also no strength to withstand the temptations of worldly success and living without purpose. Our sense as we left his home was that God has great plans for Chazlyn and Lana. We plan to meet with them weekly, to encourage them with God’s truth for their lives, to teach them and to support them as they begin this journey.

Ocean View is a community where alcoholism and drug addiction is rife. There is a high level of gangsterism which affects not only the youth but older members of the community too. Broken families are not uncommon. It is an over-evangelised community where the presence of the Church has not seemed to make a difference. We are praying for God to change the hearts of people, and raise up strong leaders who will influence the community. And we are prepared to be the answer to that prayer.

Please will you stand with us in prayer for Chazlyn and his family; and also for the Ocean View community. Thank you.