Febuary 2010 official prayer letter
My time back in Canada had come to an end as I boarded a very small aircraft on the first leg of my trip to South Africa. First though there was a stop in Germany for a preparation conference for all the new OMer’s. We had almost two weeks of Bible teaching, info about OM and many other learning experiences. It was a experience in itself just to be around people from so many different countries and cultures
Many people worked hard to make this conference happen and we were put through many different experiences. The most unique was a simulated trip to another country complete with a fake flight to the “country” and a immigration area set up to look like Russia in the early 80’s. I even ended up in fake jail! But no more, it would take a short novel to properly explain. We were also experienced an afternoon in a classic European city, Heidelburg. It was a very nice place to walk around and see. Overall the conference helped prepare me for the many different challenges I have had and will go through while living in South Africa.
Many of us who were here arrived a week before the actual program started because of the timing with the GO conference. It was good to have the time to adapt to the climate and the area in general. We did some work around the property and had some time to rest. The first day that they took us to the mall was one of the first time I actually got a good look at the country I was in. It is very strange in many ways from any other countries I have visited. When they take us shopping we go to a nice mall and it is all in English and everyone speaks English. It is really hard to think of being in Africa while sitting down eating a burger and fries while drinking a Coca-Cola and enjoying the fact that I was able to buy Heinz Ketchup. The Africa that we see on TV in North America is very real and we will be going to see much of this on our various Outreaches but there are also some very nice places. South Africa is the wealthiest of the African countries but there is a small percentage of the population that has most of the money and so you can find a huge difference between the rich and the poor. This can create many problems as you can guess.
So the first week of actual classes started with the rest of the trainee’s arriving and the property became very crowded. In the end
there are about 80 of us from at least 16 different countries. This really does create a very interesting cultural mix, which has the potential to be either very enjoyable or very difficult. We jumped right into a full schedule that includes waking up before 6 am to go have a short morning devotion from a leader and then we get until 7:30 am for personal devotions. The quality of this time is very dependant of how well you slept the night before. Because of this they want in our rooms and getting to sleep by 10 pm. On a regular basis we have classes in the morning and rotating afternoon activities. Monday night is our prayer night that everyone attends.
There are more than just classes as we will be going to many different places for outreaches in the near future. These will range from
going to very small communities in rural areas to the middle of the big city. We will also be helping out a country wide outreach during the 5 weeks of the World Cup Soccer. OM hope to take the opportunity of there being so many people from all over the world spending time in this country to show them the love of Jesus. There are all kinds of different ministries planned and they will have all the trainees sent all over the place to help with many of them.
I thank you all for your prayers and support, things are really still
just getting started here, I am learning lots and will soon get some more practical experience. Not everyday has been easy but God has been good in helping me learn from the difficulties.
-Trevor Robinson
first update
Well I decided to do a small update before I actually head out to South Africa. It is a good thing to do with the fact that I will not have any regular access to the internet (other than e-mail) unless I want to pay an aparently high price for it. I am going to try to put my prayer letters on here so they can just be read by anyone even if they arn’t on the list. I don’t know how it will work though because I will have to get my Dad to do it as far as I know with the way the internet works down there.
For the last week and a half I have been in Mosbah Germany at what they call the GO conference. As you can guess it is about getting the new Omer’s ready to go to their field of ministry. People from all over the world came to the conferance. There has been much singing, many messages and some pretty differnt exeriances. Some of these I have mentioned on Facebook. It was awesome to meet people from all over the world, with so many differnt native languages and cutlures, but yet still Christians.
Saturday I night I fly out for almost 11 hour flight and then I will spend a few days at the bace before the actual program starts. I will likly have an official prayer letter hopefully not too long after I get there once I know more about what life will be like there and what we will be doing. It is hard to beleive that it is actually about to start, but it is also good to know that it is about to start. I am happy to be going to South Africa, I feel like God has confermed that it is the right thing this week.
People have already started to leave, the people who are going to the OM ship Logos Hope left at 4:00 AM, I would say last night but it really was this morning. Some of us stayed up to say bye, so many of us are a little tired now. People will continue to leave over the next day or so and soon we will be spread all over the world again.
Thank you all for your prayers.
