June 11, 2002
Hello everyone,
This tour continues to amaze all of us with what God is doing and the people we are privileged to meet. Since the last update on June 5, much has happened. I haven’t been able to get to email, and I’m writing this while sitting at a garage while the Combi (van) is being checked out because it’s running poorly and we have 300k’s to go today and another 400 to get back to Cape Town tomorrow. In the last note, I mentioned the experience at the poor township school, but didn’t have time to tell you the whole story. I think that I mentioned that since they had no electricity, we did the show without microphones. This was very hard, especially to generate volume while fighting allergies and coughs. We were in a packed large double classroom. It was also our first experience with using an interpreter. The kids understood some English, but in order to make sure that the message was clear, it was decided that interpreting would be best. They’re language was a mix of two of the 11 official languages of South Africa. The songs themselves couldn’t be interpreted, but they understood English enough to get the gist of the message, and before each song we’d stop the show and give a brief synopsis of it. Wendy’s whole talk was interpreted as well. We found that it took some getting used to, but wasn’t too bad. The main impact was that there was no audience energy to feed off of, since we had to stop all the time. It made for the longest show we’ve ever done. However, it appeared that a ton of kids prayed to accept Jesus into their hearts! All the other stuff just really doesn’t matter…it’s just interesting to talk about it.
The next day, Thursday, was an incredible day. In the morning, we went to another poor township school. This one had paid it’s electricity bill, so we could use a simple sound system and the microphones, in a similar sized double classroom. It was also interpreted, but since we’d been through it the day before, we made some adjustments and it was much easier this time. It was truly a treat to bring a ray of hope and God’s love to these kids who have nothing. We were treated to several African songs by the kids after the show. However, the additional time it took to interpret wasn’t planned for, and it made us late to the next engagement, which was at Trinity Broadcast Network, a Christian TV station near East London. They were taping the show for a “live” show called “Praise the Lord” that they do every Tuesday night. It’s a 2-hour broadcast starting at 7:00 p.m. in prime time. The taping was incredible. First of all, we met Peter, the host, who didn’t know beans about what we did. He’s actually an Australian pastor who’s been here for just over 3 years, and a wonderful guy. He and I talked for about 20 minutes and hit it off. The format is a 30-minute interview with all of us, then the show, followed by another 30 minute interview. We did the two interviews back to back so he could leave, and they’ll insert the show during the editing process (it will still look live, except for the sweat that will have miraculously disappeared!). The interview was awesome. The Lord gave Wendy & me peace about it and it was just like having a conversation in a living room. Zac & Ben did great as well. Peter was great to talk with, and since we now have a track record and know exactly what we’re about and our mission, it’s easy to talk about it. We spent quite a bit of time emphasizing the need for Children’s Ministry and the unbelievable opportunity that exists in the schools here in SA for evangelism…a door that is starting to get some cracks in it. Christians here need to get involved. I have the unedited tapes, and we’ll get the edited version when it airs. They’re average audience size is over 65,000 households, but a month ago they were added to the nationwide satellite system, so the actual audience could be quite significant. As far as we know, the broadcast should be at 1:00 p.m. EST tomorrow, so please pray for this and that many will be saved because of it. We won’t be where we can see it.
A few thoughts about the taping of the show itself…I can’t tell you how well it went. There wasn’t time for hardly any retakes, which was scary. However, after a couple of re-starts to get the sound right (they weren’t expecting my shouting J) and for another problem, we did practically the whole show in one take. This was miraculous, but it wouldn’t have been possible in the US because we had never had enough practice to get it down pat. However, it’s amazing what doing 34 shows in 22 days will do for you! There were no kids in the studio to help on Shadrach and WWJD, so a frantic search by the receptionist (the Producer’s wife) commenced. We skipped Shadrach, and despite it going so quickly, we were over 30 minutes past our time and they had to get ready for another live show, but at literally the last second, the Lord brought the kids and they let us record Shadrach! There wasn’t time for WWJD. That was a bit of a shame, but despite it being a 3 minute song, it would have taken 10 minutes to train the girls and get everyone back in place, and they had already been tremendously accommodating already.
It was weird at first to do the show with an imaginary audience. Pat Luffman and Hap Madison were behind the cameramen, which helped tremendously, but since we’ve done so many shows, it was easy for all four of us to pull it off. This would not have been possible without this trip. With the exception of WWJD, it might turn into a video of the whole show that we can use. By the way, it was free – in fact, they gave us a 500 Rand honorarium for coming! God is good! We haven’t seen the tapes, but we’ve been praying for an affordable way to make a full-length video, and just maybe this might be it!
Ok, we’re now back on the road…they adjusted the carburetor, told us to tell the owner that he’ll need a new one soon, and we’re off again.
Friday we stayed over an extra day in East London to recuperate and to stay at a home near the ocean for a day. It was owned by the parents of one of the children’s pastors that we met earlier in Cape Town. We’ve had wonderful hosts all along the way, but a night by ourselves (there was enough room for all nine of us) was great. On Saturday morning, we walked the half mile or so to the beach. We had a blast – it was too cool to swim, and the shore was too rocky, but we had fun jumping on the rocks and exploring the beach. We had never seen such an unspoiled beach with so much shells and other things on it. We even found a dead shark – it was about 15” long.
We drove to Grahamstown on Saturday afternoon and set up for a show at the Presbyterian church the next morning. What a neat town it was – it’s a college town that also has many private high schools, so it looked very much like home. The show at the church was interesting – we gave them quite a shock compared to what they’re used to J, and since it was a cold night (no central heating), at 9:30 a.m. it was only 55 degrees at best in the church. However, by the end they loved it, and over 8 kids came forward and another 8 or so raised their hands to accept Christ and prayed but didn’t come forward. 2 adults did as well!
We were staying in the guest rooms of Kingswood College, which is really a private junior and senior high school. College here means high school, and university is where they go after college! Our host was the chaplin there, and Sunday night we did the show for their junior primary chapel. These kids were elementary and middle school aged, and we saw a wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit! It was hard to say, but over about 60 kids came forward!
Afterwards, the senior high chapel was scheduled for 45 minutes. They hadn’t planned on us doing that, but earlier we had talked and decided to give it a shot. We’d found out that teenagers have just loved the show here, so we weren’t afraid to give it a try. However, these kids were very sophisticated, and many of them were outstanding musicians and singers. So Wendy sang a couple of her adult songs to start, and then we did 3 fast songs – Come On (with all the motions), Shadrach and Do You Know God Loves You (with the beachballs). They were jumping all over the place! Shadrach was especially hilarious, because I asked the chaplain to give me the names of 2 of two of the boys that the rest of the kids would get a kick out of, and unbeknownst to me, he picked the captains of the rugby and the cricket teams – the two biggest jocks on campus. The kids roared when I called their names, so I knew that this was going to be something special. I wasn’t disappointed – you had to see it to believe it. It was so loud and so fun. We had never tried to do anything like this in front of just teens, and God worked it out better than what we could have dreamed! Wendy did a more adult version of her talk, and it appeared that many kids prayed. 3 girls came up to me afterwards – they were 10th graders. One said that she accepted Christ that night, and the other two said that they were VERY close but were having problems doing it because of peer pressure and other issues. We talked quite a while, but please pray for these kids. This is a private Christian school, but the kids who are Christians appear to be underground because of the tremendous pressure on them.
Monday morning was our last show in Grahamstown, at an all-boys school. Like the others, they went very well. We’re really in top-notch form and have continued to improve the show since coming to SA. Two things of note – one is that since we didn’t have girls for cheerleaders, 3 freshmen-aged boys begged us to let them be cheerleaders. It was hilarious! Also, because it was boys only, Wendy asked me between songs to do the Invitation. It was my second time, and I loved it and it went very well, considering that I didn’t have time to prepare. The Lord gave me the words to say. I need to come up with my own illustrations, but it’s a tremendous confidence booster for me to be able to do this and pray with kids to receive Christ! It is truly an honor to serve Him in this way.
My laptop battery is about dead, and it may be a few days before I can send this, but we can really feel your prayers. The harvest here has been tremendous, and there is so much that we wish we could do. After every show, we get numerous requests to come to other places, but we’re totally booked up this time.
There’s so much more to tell you, but this has been too long. We’ve done 38 shows, with three more left to go, then on to Kruger National Park. It’s a time of mixed emotions – the shows are so much fun now and so many kids are responding, but we’re looking forward to a break as well. We are looking forward to coming home, but sad to leave our team and friends here. It’s amazing how the common bond of Christ creates immediate “family” no matter where you are in the world.
God bless! Ron & Hap have been wonderful, and our team here has been tremendous. There are nine of us, and I can’t tell you how great it would be if we could create a similar team for touring in the U.S. Something to pray about. Anyway, Ron, Hap, Wendy, Zac & Ben all send there love, along with yours truly. Thanks again for praying. If I didn’t believe it before, I truly believe in the power of prayer now. This tour has been one miracle after another.
With love,
Dave