Jace, one of our Twenty4Seven interns, loves teaching LaunchPad. She recently shared a testimony about the openness she’s been experiencing with her students.

“When I am teaching, I feel like I can let my students know how safe they are to honestly share their hearts when they’re at class.The lesson we were teaching a few weeks ago was about how God should be their primary relationship and that God comes first. I was teaching that in order to have that relationship with God we must first have a clean life and ask Him to wash away all the dirty things (our sin) through salvation.

“I asked the students to think about what it was that they are struggling with and to feel free to come talk with us after class if they wanted further prayer or counseling. After class I didn’t really think that anybody was going to come to talk to me. But praise God - I had 4 students come talk to me about what they were going through and how they can they get through it.

“One boy in particular stood out to me the most. He came up to me and said, ‘Jace, I have a serious problem with smoking. It just makes me look cool, and I crave it all the time.’ I respected him so much for being honest and telling me this. I told him to bring his cigarettes to class the next week so that we could help keep him accountable to quitting. Also, his best friend comes to class with him and can be there for him as well.

“I just really poured my heart out to him and shared with him how important it is to get all the dirty things out of his life. The next class he didn’t bring his cigarettes but he said that he didn’t smoke anymore, and that it is a thing of the past that is now out of his life! I was so happy that I almost cried because he was able to get rid of that problem so quickly.

“It’s amazing to see how these kids come to our classes and feel safe to talk to us not only about questions about Christianity but also problems that they are having personally. LaunchPad is a safe environment where they can be open and as much as I share my heart with them, they share their hearts with me. Praise God, dude!“

At our first-term LaunchPad graduation, we had a time for students to share testimonies about what God has done in their hearts and lives in the past few months through the classes. Jody’s class is usually very quiet and slow to respond to any invitation to speak or to share their thoughts, so she wasn’t expecting anyone to be excited about talking in front of the whole class.

But to her surprise, Isaac, an elderly gentleman in the class, quickly raised his hand. He walked down the aisle to the front of the class, visibly eager to share something. They were astounded by what he said. “Because of this class, I now go to the hospital and pray for people, and I go to the prisons and talk to the men there. When I go to my friends’ houses, I bring my LaunchPad material and Bible, and I tell them what we are learning. So I want to praise God, but I especially want to praise God for this class.”

It is so exciting to hear how our students are putting their faith into action!

After graduation, Jody was talking to one of her most consistently involved and dedicated students, Pat. When she asked him what he was going to do now that class was over for the term, he simply said with a huge smile on his face, “Preach!” Jody was floored as she listened to Pat describe how he had joined a “preaching team.” He’s really taking his faith to the next level!

All of our staff and interns who teach LaunchPad classes are making a huge impact on so many lives and communities!

Our interns are involved in many different things during the course of their year with us. In addition to their classes, they teach LaunchPad, train coaches, run pastors’ conferences, and work behind the scenes in various departments of the ministry. Jody works for Kelly in the LaunchPad department, and recently got to do something she’d never done before.

For my Behind-The-Scenes job, I work in the LaunchPad Department. A few months ago as we prepared for the second semester of LaunchPad, I had the opportunity to help write a short curriculum for small group leader training! I appreciated the chance to pour out everything I have been learning into the curriculum. I learned a lot myself as I dove into the idea of leading a small group and what the Bible says about it. I completely enjoyed the entire process of creating a curriculum—from researching, to writing, to collating and binding it. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of training leaders in Qwa Qwa that will bring change to their nation!

It’s been a crazy, fun-filled month; we’ve celebrated many birthdays, and met many family members we’ve been hearing about for months! Enjoy reading about what we’ve been up to!

September 2008 - Intern Newsletter (PDF)

Jace teaches the Love, Sex and Relationships LaunchPad curriculum in Boitsebelo. Here’s one of her favorite testimonies from what has already happened in the 5 weeks we’ve been in class.

So far in LaunchPad I have loved connecting with my students and have been enjoying teaching them as well. One girl in particular has stuck out to me: Maditaba. Maditaba has come to every class so far, and after the second class she came up to me and told me about a situation going on with her and her boyfriend. She explained that as a Christian, she wanted to save herself for marriage, but always felt like if she said no to her boyfriend, that he and everyone else in her village would look at her differently. We kept talking, and she told me that she hasn’t given into him yet, but that she doesn’t want their relationship to end because she loves him very much.

I encouraged her to talk to him about her feelings, being open in telling him why it’s so important to her to wait. I also told her that I would love to meet him and talk to the two of them together, and that I wanted him to hear what we were teaching in class as well. At the beginning of the fourth class she came running up to me hand in hand with a boy she introduced as her boyfriend. I shook his hand and we talked for a few minutes, leaving with the promise of more conversations to come.

She thanked me several times that day, and I realized just how much this class will affect both of their lives. I smiled as the impact of the lives that will change finally settled in my heart. It makes me want to become better in teaching as well as put forth more passion and grow stronger in the things I’m teaching. God’s working through every person in every class, whether it’s obvious or not, and I’m so thankful for that.

It’s an exciting time of year.

The Twenty4Seven interns have been here in Africa for almost 9 months; and we’ve missed a few things while we’ve been gone. One of those greatly missed aspects of American life is about to be restored. Each year, Thrive gives parents of Twenty4Seven interns the opportunity to visit their children in the place they’ve called home for the past several months. We call it Family Days: the opportunity to spend our days focused on our loved ones for a little while.

Family Days is rapidly approaching, and each one of us is starting to look forward to their arrival. Even the interns that don’t have a family member coming are getting excited. While ones that do have loved ones soon to be on their way are thrilled for the opportunity to spend quality time with them after such a long absence, those of us who aren’t going to be welcoming members of our own family are anxious to meet those that we’ve heard so much about.

While they’re here they’ll have the opportunity to go out on relationship evangelism, get an inside look into our LaunchPad discipleship classes, as well as the classes we take on base. There are 9 family members coming in total, and will be with us for two whole weeks! I’m excited to see the fruit that their arrival will bring, as well as the smiles on my fellow intern’s faces.

If you’re interested in our year-long internship, take a look here to find out more information.

Charlene, our Outreach Staff Director, recently shared this testimony in her newsletter. I loved it so much, I just had to share it here.

“Our summer interns spend time in our local village, Intabazwe. They are encouraged to really get to know a few families by continuing to spend time with them in discipleship and prayer. Several interns became friends with an elderly lady named Rosalinda. They met Rosalinda the first day of ministry and learned that she had suffered a stroke two months before, which left her partially paralyzed on her left side and unable to walk. They prayed for her healing that day and saw little change.

“As a group they decided that they would make sure someone visited Rosalinda everyday and prayed for her. After three weeks of persistence, they not only told Rosalinda about the love of Christ, but they showed it. On the last day of ministry, they knocked on the door and for the first time, Rosalinda walked to the door and opened it proclaiming ‘Praise the Lord!’”

The last thing we would have thought of doing on sunny Friday afternoon was hand out knitted hats to the Hope House kids, but that’s just what we did.

Megan Irwin, a 2007 Twenty4Seven intern, had her heart set on impacting the kids at Hope House no matter whether she was still in Africa or not. When she left the internship at the end of 2007, she decided to undertake a huge project: knitting 40 winter hats to give to all of the children. We were ecstatic to receive a package last week busting at the seams with 40 knitted hats just like she’d promised. We left for Hope House that Friday with anticipation brewing in our hearts, and were not disappointed with their reactions. She’d included a card that we read to them, and they erupted at the mention of her name; clearly she had not been forgotten. When we handed out the hats, there wasn’t a dull face in the bunch. The kids were absolutely squirming with joy, and their excitement was contagious.

It turns out that the hats came at just the right time. This past weekend the temperatures dropped considerably, enough to encourage wearing scarves outside, and all I could think about was how perfect her timing was. Because of her dedication and our delivery, the kids spent the chilly weekend with warm heads and even warmer hearts.

We spent this past weekend redefining passion.

The Passion Conference came to Johannesburg, and we were lucky enough to be a part of it. The entire day was electrifying, and the shadow of it still impresses itself on our hearts and minds. We were with 6,000 other students praising the name of our Lord, and the best part was that we weren’t even in our home country. We had the opportunity to unite ourselves with thousands of South African students in the Name of Jesus, and it was absolutely breathtaking.

In case it wasn’t clear enough, Passion’s purpose is to ‘glorify God-uniting students in worship and prayer for spiritual awakening in this generation’, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Passion is uprooting students all over the world and bringing them to a point of awareness where they can begin making a monumental difference even in their generation, and the excitement is catching.

We said another goodbye.

Amidst many tears and heavy hearts, our Outreach Staff left Monday for debriefing and will soon leave for the States. They served alongside us for these past two months, and have impacted us and the many teams that came through more than they’ll ever be able to understand.

Your servant hearts have made this summer’s ministry possible. The early mornings, late nights, and hectic days have all come to a close in a bold and passionate statement of God’s love. Through your works He has been made evident in every aspect of life and ministry, and I’d like to hand-deliver a heartfelt and genuine thank you from all of us here; each one of you has made a lasting impression not only on us, but on this ministry as well.