3-18-08
10:02am – South African Time
Update by Megan Eastland

The surprises never stop in South Africa! Yesterday evening, about 6:00 pm as we were preparing for our 7 pm meeting time, we found out that there was going to be a power outage from 6-9 pm. In surprise, I asked one of the camp workers about it, and he said that there is not enough power in South Africa for everyone, so there are regular power outages so that everyone can share. My jaw dropped in shock, and then I noticed that he didn’t seem too disturbed by it. Schaun told me that when he was talking to another South African friend and the friend said, “it’s not too bad,” and Schaun asked, “What’s not too bad?” And the friend said “once or twice a week.” I can’t even imagine if in America, certain cities would go without power for a few hours twice a week!

The power outage then allowed us to improvise our evening. It was a great wake up call for me. I had spent hours setting up power points and fixing some sound system issues, and reworked our CD set lists for worship, and was frustrated that their ipod connection didn’t work… and suddenly, God gave us the opportunity to do what He wanted us to do, not just do what we had worked so diligently to plan. It was probably the most incredible night of our trip! We found lanterns and placed them on the stage. The team was very haggard by this point from a crazy trip to the beach with 96 kids whom most had never seen the ocean before (one even asked, “how big is the ocean?) and so Tom took the team outside while Schaun stayed in our meeting space with the kids. Tom encouraged the team and prayed for them while Schaun was working mysteriously with them.

Soon the team went in to the meeting space and Schaun surprised everyone by having the African children sing two of their worship songs to us. It was the most beautiful and incredible sound! It brought us all to tears. Instead of blaring music with headset microphones and wild motions, we had beautiful African children’s voices worshipping for us. It was far more beautiful than anything we had planned! Tom then spoke on sin and salvation. During this time, Schaun whispered in my ear and asked if I could play a song on the guitar at the end. I thought of the first song that popped in my head, and agreed. As Schaun prayed, I prepared, and then performed the song for them. Partway through the song, I realized that the song was all about sin and salvation! I couldn’t even believe how beautifully God had orchestrated the evening! The power outage freed us to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead and the results were of course, astounding.

The power outage also served to help calm the whole atmosphere of the camp down. We are so used to the American way—we believe that everything needs to be high sensory, high energy, and fast paced. In doing so, we believe now that the African kids were so overloaded with new experiences that the energy level was frantic. Kids had been crazy, running everywhere, and not knowing how to be or what to expect. This quiet, lamp-lit evening allowed us to relax a bit, allowed the kids to feel safer to open up, and to calm everyone and draw the focus more acutely to Jesus and what He was doing in our hearts and lives.

That evening we had small group times, put the little ones to bed and let the teens have a late-night acoustic worship time. Everyone on the group loves having sweet one-on-one time with the kids. They are getting to dig deeper with their groups. They get to put the little ones to bed in bunk beds 3-high, some sharing beds, with their little camp shirts, and their sleepy eyes. It has been a blessed time for all of us to get to know the kids and to let them know that we truly get to love them and want know them and care for them!

This morning, apparently God still thought we needed to calm down a bit because the power went out by surprise again right before our morning session and of course came back on shortly after we adjourned! We quickly adjusted. Schaun got up and spoke to them with a heavy heart.

During breakfast that morning, some of the kids went through the breakfast line 2-3 times, which then made those at the end of the line not have enough food. He spoke to them passionately about greed and how it’s the problem with the world. How there is enough food to feed everyone in the world, but those that have access to the food can be greedy, and say “me first,” and take two or three meals and leave someone without food. He said that it is wrong and he doesn’t understand it. He said that there was enough food to feed everyone, yet some “stole” the food from others because they were being greedy and saying “me first!” He then told them about Nelson Mandela… who saw the problem of all of this. Saw the problem of the white South Africans taking and taking and keeping the black South Africans down. And how Nelson Mandela, a man like them, who came from nothing, who had people tell him that he could never go to school, that he could never make a difference. A black, poor, South African like them, who said, “I don’t care what you think! I don’t care who tried to put me down! I don’t care who takes the years of my life by putting me in prison. I don’t care! I care that there is a problem in South Africa, and I, one person, will do something to change it. He said that he laid down his own life for the lives of his people in South Africa. And how that one man changed South Africa. That one man worked for the end of Apartheid. How that one man has changed the world.

Schaun then encouraged them that they, the poorest of the poor South Africans, the orphans, the AIDS victims, the rape victims (we just found out that one little girl was raped 3 days ago by her uncle) – these South Africans can make a difference. They can put away greed. They can put aside their own lives for the lives of others who don’t have. That they won’t take—that they will give. That they can change the world too. He prayed over them and we sang “Here I am to worship” and their beautiful voices carried so powerfully.

It’s another beautiful day in J. Bay and we are so excited for the day with the children. Please pray for God’s continuing work in our improvisation, that we get out of the way and let Jesus lead, that the South African kids’ hearts are opened, that they feel safe to share, and that hearts are changed permanently for Christ, that they can hear God’s call loudly, they respond, and are changed deeply from the inside out.

Pictures: Click to enlarge