Train-ing chugga choo choo

 

Auntie Charlene taking Raph on the train

Our boys, Raphael (4) and Vincent (2) are obsessed with trains.  Vincent thinks all trains are Thomas (if you don't know why, you probably don't have little boys around you enough).  He can successfully identify the letter "T" everywhere we go because of trains.  The boys get so excited every time they see a train (or the letter "T"), screeching "Thomas! Thomas" which is often a few times a day (especially now that grandma made them Thomas the train pillows).  Vincent can actually see the train from his bedroom window, which makes nap time challenging.

Raph & Mike going on the train!

   

Turns out trains inspire me (stay with me on this thought).  Most of the time, trains have a purpose and they get the task done.  They stay on track (well again, most of the time), they move ahead, they move on, they move people.  How often as people do we loose focus, stop moving ahead, forget about people around us and have no purpose?  So trains inspiring me because I want to keep my focus on Jesus, I want to always improve myself, always MOVE people because of the Spirit that is inside me (call it steam if you want) and carry on the work God has set out for me: Love God, Love people.

Train-ing is part of the work God has set out for us to be doing here in Capetown (see how sneaky I can be with that train word??).  And training we are doing (when I say we I mean Mike) until I got all sicky, but we are not going to be talking about that right now.  I (Marie-Eve) am part of the support team headquarter here in South Africa, even though most of our cheerleader squad is in Canada.  You think I am joking with this cheer-leading business???  It's for real people!!!!  Red and white prayer warriors, supporters and friends, cheering us on in this and taking interest in this ministry.  You are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!  (Give me an A, give me a M, give me an A, give me a Z................)

If you are on Facebook, you saw the pictures of Mike getting ready to speak to the group of pastors September 26th, looking rather strange in his suit and sandals, pretty much making me a liar after I told you about his new shinny black shoes!!!

South Africans like signing!!!  And it's always a treat for us to listen to them.  It's so beautiful I had to share it with you all. 



Mike got to teach on discipleship, the topic was, "What is a disciple?"  This was a fun topic to teach on, and he used a lot of material from www.followtherabbi.com to learn more about what it meant to be a disciple in 1st century Palestine. 

One of the illustration he used was about how (in Jesus' day) Jewish boys & girls aged 5-6 yrs old would go to school for the first day at the local synagogue, it was common for the local Rabbi to put honey on each student's slate.  And as he did this the Rabbi would say, “May the words of God be sweet to your taste, sweeter than honey to your mouth” (Psalm 119:103).  He would teach his young students that the words of God are the most pleasurable, the most enjoyable thing you could imagine, sweeter than honey!  So Mike brought a "slate" from the kid's toy stash and well... the group laughed at him as he licked off the honey (I did too)!!

A few different people volunteered to read Scriptures, but we later realized that most of them didn't have English Bibles with them at the session!!!

On October 10th, Mike had to speak again, and with me in the hospital, this was really a challenge!!!  This time the topic was "What is a disciple maker?"  They looked a lot at the idea Paul talked about a number of times in the N.T. of "follow me as I follow Christ."  For each of you reading this, I also encourage you to consider your life and think to yourself if you are you able to say like Paul "follow me".  Because if you "follow me", you will be following Jesus?  What a challenge for you, me, and every other believer in the world!