I have been thinking for a while what to put in this report. In a short time I will have been here in Africa for 6 months. Over the time since my last report many more things were shifted in my life. When I look back to the day that I arrived I no longer have the same culture, I no longer have the same values, I no longer have the same mindset, and I am no longer the same person. The old Cameron is long gone. I’ve seen God do too much for me not to be a different person. In the past months there have been two major projects that we have been working on. One of them is the Beat the Drum Campaign and the other being School’s Outreach.
During Beat the Drum our team ventured to Zambia, Swaziland, and Lesotho with the intentions of reaching out to high school level students and exposing the problem of HIV/AIDS and how it is a result of a lifestyle that is destroying this generation of young people. While in these countries we spent countless hours in preparations and then made our way too many different schools. In the schools we were allowed to take over the classrooms for a set period of the day and teach our lesson plan that we had prepared based on Beat the Drum’s layout and aim. In each location we would spend roughly one week in the schools where we had a full range of reactions from the students themselves. Some classes held students that seemed to not care about anything you say or do for them and other classes were so interested in help that they didn’t want you to leave. After spending a full week with these students, we presented them with a school party at the end of the program which consisted of live worship, preaching, dramas, dancing, and prayer. The party acted as a cherry on top for the lessons that we taught throughout the week. It offered the students a chance to share testimonies about what they were learning as well as receive prayer and healing. The prayers were powerful in these sessions! This is where you see spiritual warfare become physical, when demons begin to manifest and the flesh becomes so upset because of the change that is happening in the student. Hundreds of students would come forward for prayer, all of their faces wet with tears. I pray that the students of these schools remember their convictions as we are not there to lead them anymore.
The second project, School’s Outreach, took the same experience we had in Beat the Drum and multiplied it greatly. This outreach, I can say, is something that I will remember and cherish for my entire life. I discovered passions that I didn’t know I had and the Father/Son aspect of my relationship with God was deepened. During this outreach all of us students were put into teams and sent out to many different schools across South Africa. During this time we were responsible for preparing our own lesson plans and discussions for the different schools we were assigned to and were essentially placed into a full time teaching role. I remember the first week of our journey was spent at a high school of 2,600 students where I spent most of the days teaching my own classes for 7 school periods as if I were the regular teacher there. It was one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling experiences of my life. Beyond the teaching, the most memorable part of this journey was how clearly God made so many things happen. There were countless stories every day of unexplainable blessings and provisions made by God. We all had personal stories of how we had met someone along the way that needed to hear our exact life story, and people constantly flocked to us for prayer and assistance. We went out there not knowing where we were going to get our meals from or even if we would be eating every night, but we found ourselves even having 7 meals on some days from so many people bringing us food to eat and just wanting to bless us with something. The families we were able to touch and the students God was able to change were worth every bit of stress and hardship during the preparations. We came back home having taught many and feeling like we weren’t done yet. Each one of us felt as though we could go on forever teaching in the schools and traveling by faith to the next locations, not knowing where we would lay our heads or eat our meals, but knowing that God had a plan.
Beyond these outreaches we have been very involved with projects and ministries in our own community of Jeffrey’s Bay. Recently we went to the neighboring city of Port Elizabeth, dressed as clowns, and stood at the traffic lights raising money for our upcoming projects and expenses. It drew much attention, so much that a national radio station based in the city invited us to speak about our ministries and goals on the air to about 5 million South Africans across the country. Lately our focus has been on our personal ministries here at home, mine being Taletha Koum (The Library Dream Project). We have recently branched out into 3 different areas of teaching. One area focuses on playing instruments and worship, another focuses on vocals, and the last focuses on the English language. I am currently part of the English portion of this ministry. Since this is a new development in the ministry we are starting from scratch, this means finding kids that are interested and gaining their dedication to learning. I share the teaching responsibility with a fellow LXP brother. We have been averaging a class size of 6 to 9 students, which is actually pretty ideal for creating relationships with them while teaching. This is really the heart of what we are trying to do. We want to build their English skills while forming relationships and beginning discipleship with them underneath it all. Please be in prayer for the hearts of these students. We spend much time in preparations and prayer for them trying to find creative ways to bring them closer to Christ while still teaching a school subject. As I am writing this I have just begun having a small breakthrough with some of the students, them sharing a bit of their personal life and being willing to listen to my advice and wisdom on different topics.
Furthermore, beyond everything that is happening on the LXP schedule I have also had a few clear visions from The Lord. At this time I don’t need to give too many details but I will say that I have a very clear direction of where God wants me to be after LXP and what He wants me to begin doing. I am very excited to share this vision with everyone soon but I feel as though it is best kept to myself and the men walking with me at this time.