R & R

On Wednesday mornign we headed out to the beach front for team orientation. It was great to sit outdoors and listen to Drew telling us about the history of Hope Church and how things are progressing. We heard how the racial melting pot of the Rainbow Nation is represented in the church and listened to Drew's vision of a rainbow church that lives in the power othat comes from brothers and sisters working together to reach their city. Drew enthusiastically introduced us to a number of people who work for Hope Church, including two people who are working on their Hope2educate programme and one of his elders. Between them they represented Zulu, Indian, Coloured and American members of the church. It was good to be reminded and inspired again by Drew's words; 'The spirit of man seeks to hold on but the Spirit of God seeks to release.' How exciting!

We had the rest of the afternoon free to relax and explore. About half of the team stayed on the beach, enjoying the sun, sand, waves and gentle breezes of the Indian Ocean and the other half headed towards uShaka Marine World to enjoy the water slides and stunnimg aquarium. This is a place that had been recommended before we came and was well worth the visit. Nothing beats plummeting down to almost certain death then wandering round looking at giant turtles, sharks and octopus.

Wendy and ZoeJoy twice passed the same lady in a wheelchair on their walk. She started to ask them for money for food but they followed local advise not to give out any money. They were reminded of the passage when Peter and John said; 'Silver and gold have I none...' so they walked back, noticed she had 'God is King' written on her wheelchair and offered to pray for her. The lady immediately said yes and asked for strength for her muscles and emotional strength as she has an unbelieving 22 year old daughter. ZoeJoy expressed to us how different it felt to praying for people in the U.K. She said she felt her heart for the poor really kick in and that compassion for the woman overtook any desire on her part to see healing for its own sake.

In the evening, the team went en masse to the church prayer meeting. Karen, Ingrid, Jon Dawe and ZJ went to meet with the church musicians so they could practise together, only to discover that they are now leading worship on Saturday morning rather than supporting@ It was a really special time for them as they started playing new songs together and ended up meeting with God, singing out and enjoying the Lord's presence together. Anticipation is rising for a great conference!

The rest of the team joined in with the weekly prayer meeting and were prayed over by the local church in ten different languages. Drew felt that this was a significant thing to do as he felt that Hope could impart something to us of multicultural church.

During the meeting we had the chance to pray and prophesy one to one with the church. Amanda shared some words with a lady whose life has become very tangled and she told Amanda that she was believing for healing at the conference.

Kirsty had a word for a lady who said that it wasn't the time she had received that word.

Wendy prophesied over a girl for pioneering, adventure, leadership and pressing through into new dimensions of the supernatural. She was drunk in the Spirit, laughing and falling over within seconds of Wendy starting to pray for her. Afterwards, she said that it had been spot on and that it was a good start to the conference for her.

After arriving back at St Phil's, we surprised John Balding with a chocolate cake to celebrate his birthday! We decided to bless him with encouraging words and prophecy which was a great end to the first day as Team South Africa.