What's up everyone.  Things have been pretty calm this week.  It was our first week without our fellow Jeffreys Bay teammates.  We do miss them a lot (I hope the 14-hour drive between us doesn't bring too much distance).  This week the Lord has used to grow me spiritually.  When I arrived in South Africa, my thoughts went something like this.  If I don't bring like a thousand kids to their salvation than my time here would be a waste.  Friends that is lie from Satan.  The truth is if only one child came to the lord during this trip it would still be very glorifying to the Lord.  As it is I am an unworthy servant of the Lord, and it is ONLY by the grace of Jesus Christ's sacrifice that God sees me as his son.  I have gained a lot of fellowship with my brothers here at Alabanza.  This will be an interesting email because I will be attaching some pictures to this email.  I hope y'all enjoy a little taste of what South Africa has to offer.  Here are some cool things happening this weekend.  We are going to a lion park on Saturday to chill with lion cubs and come to a place where we can find some good quiet time.  Friends I hunger for quiet time here.  Everyday I get like an hour, but it is never really enough.  Lately just being in His presence is the best moments in my days.  I spend my quiet time on the roof of the house we live in.  The roof overlooks the mountains and since it is spring there are beautiful flowers of all colors growing in the bushes and trees.  I have a spot that I sit under a tree up there, so it is quite a nice view and shady as well.  It seems everyday this week I spend my free time up there in the early mornings.  Our team has grown a lot closer lately and I can honestly say that we are starting to become a family.  This has been a week that the Lord is growing me more than I could have ever guessed.  It seems everyday that just simply asking to love Jesus more each day is increasing my faith.  I feel the power of holy spirit when I speak of the gospel in the towns we are ministering in. 

            This week has been an awesome week.  From Monday through Wednesday I worked with my discipler, Wilson, and one of the locals, Joshua.  We layed brick at a township called Escom.  The task we needed to complete was building a 2 layered brick wall about 20 bricks high.  The hole was maybe 9 feet tall, 6 feet length, 4 feet wide.  Wilson and Joshua layed bricks while I was in charge of making the mortar and bringing them the bricks.  I got a pretty good idea on how to do it and soon might be building a brick house for one of our ministries pretty soon (I haven't yet perfected it though).  We had little space to work, but we did have some divine intervention happen to us on our last day of work.  So on Tuesday we ran out of bricks and were wondering where we were gonna find 150 bricks to finish the job.  The place we were working at is called a Cresh.  It is a place children go to school while their parents are at work.  One of the ladies that worked there knew where we could find some free bricks.  So on Tuesday we went to a place the locals were tearing down and got a little over 100 bricks in the Sprinter.  The bricks had all the old mortar on them and we were planning on chipping it off on Wednesday morning.  When we got to escom the tools we had were inefficient to remove the mortar.  So back to square one right?  A few moments after we realized we wouldn't be able to finish the job that day the Lord sent some bricks our way.  A truck pulling a trailer pulled up out of nowhere and delivered about 200-250 clean bricks to us.  Wow God sure knew what we needed huh...I love the God I serve.

            As we studied the bible the other day I learned an interesting fact about the disciples that Jesus sent out.  They ranged from 13-27.  The youngest was 13 years old and he left everything behind to be a follower of Jesus.  The biggest excuse I hear in the states is I'm not old enough to understand God's word, or this is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.  Well I've learned here that

worldly opinions are not pleasing to God.  Romans 8:6 says the "The sinful mind is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace.  Can you imagine a 13 year old going out to spread the gospel of Jesus.  I was pumped when I read that.  I was 22 when I became a Christian, and my life has never been the same since.  I have found that every question I have is answered by the word of God.  That means that if what you think doesn't match with God's word, then it is false.  I hope to receive many emails from you about what the Lord is doing in your life.  I miss you all, but I love it here so much.  The Lord has begin to plant my heart in Africa, and I could see myself serving the Lord long term here.  I'll be praying about it in the mean time.  Please get into the word this week, and please keep this ministry in your prayers.

            Some things I've figured out in Africa:  I love African babies, I enjoy the sports soccer and rugby, it cost more to live here than in states, I love eating mangos and avocadoes, everybody wants to welcome you in their shacks as their guest, everybody here knows at least 4 languages (this guy Sam I talked to knew 8 or 9 languages), don't get in the habit of traveling much at night, wild animals aren’t everywhere- only in game reserves, people here are hungry for the lord Jesus, open markets are quite fun places to shop at and do ministry, the pipes here are super lame, hand washing clothes is my new hobby, and country music is not big around here ;)  Well anyway I hope you enjoyed the update, God bless and you'll hear from me again in a week.  Pray that the Lord begins regenerating the hearts and that all the glory goes to him.  Love you all.

Marcus