WELCOME!!

This blog is an account of our lives and ministry in South Africa. Please click on the tabs above to learn a little more about us and what we do.

We hope you enjoy our blog. Please feel free to leave your comments, we love to hear what's on your mind!



(If you got here from facebook or Twitter you can read the rest of our blog at SmithSA.blogspot.com)


Sunday, September 20, 2009

South Africa Video


Check out this video created by Kristie Mundt who went on our Red Rocks Team trip this last summer.

It does a great job of showing what we did on our trip.




~Lincoln

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bana La Modimo (God's Children) South Africa Gala Fundraiser

You are now able to pay online for the South Africa Gala. We'd love to have you join us!!



Saturday, October 3rd 2009
Schedule Of Events

7:00 PM Registration & Silent Auction
8:00 PM Dinner
9:15 PM Live Auction
9:45 PM Music & Dancing





RSVP Info ::
To RSVP, please contact Carol Ammon at:
carolammon@gmail.com or 303.257.6442



Tickets can be purchased by cash, check or charge.
- Pay at the South Africa Gala table after Sunday services
- Or pay now online by clicking
here

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Prayer Requests

A while back we asked for prayer concerning the sell of our house. We need to sell our house before we can leave for South Africa. We have only lived in our home for a little over a year and because the housing market is so bad the house has gone down in value since we bought it.

We have some friends who would like to buy our house at the price of what we still owe on it, but their house needs to sell before they can do so. It would be so wonderful if they could buy our house so that we could avoid having to show it (which gives Jenny a nervous breakdown to think of having to keep the house show-ready with 4 children!)

Please pray that our friends can sell their house at the price they need to so that they can buy our house.

Also, we are starting the process of applying for our visas. We had some difficulty when applying for our visas the first time we went to South Africa (one such difficulty was that the embassy lost all of Madison's paperwork, including her passport). Please pray that everything goes smoothly and quickly.

Another request is for the South Africa Gala fundraiser our church is doing for us. So many people have put so much time and energy into this fundraiser. Please pray that everything will come together and that it will raise the money we need to go to South Africa. Please also pray that God would abundantly bless all that have freely given time, money, donations and energy to make this fundraiser an amazing evening.

Thank you, we can't even express how much we appreciate your prayers!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

"Lerato"

Lincoln recently took a team from Red Rocks Church on a missions trip to South Africa. While there they wrote a song about their experiences. The song has now been recorded and we wanted to share it with you. Click here to listen.

"Lerato"

Verse 1

If one man could change the world

And bring color to this city of tin cans

Rusty blue, helpless but not hopeless hue

Sitting with the answers in your hands

All the lost boys are playing in the street.

Will you come play Peter Pan?

This aint no fairy tale it’s a barbed wire reality

But they’re not losing their innocence


Chorus

So come sail away with me off to the red soil

Step out of your boat and see what I can do

You might think that I’ve called you off to change the world

Maybe it’s the world that’s changing you


Verse 2

I’ve got everything you want but you’ve got everything I’ve been missing for so long

You live and breathe everything I need

Turns out you’re the one who’s savin’ me

Seems the reaper is standing at your door

But all we found was life inside

There’s nothin’ left worth livin’ for but all you want is more


Summary

14 strangers answering a call, nothing special at all

There’s a palm print that’s been left on our hearts

That won’t be wiped away when we depart



*To fully appreciate the song you’ll need some explanations to the meaning of the lyrics:

-One of the team members named the kids playing soccer in the streets of Phokeng, “The Lost Boys”

-In the house next to Martha’s house (Martha is a South African lady that provides care and meals to orphans living in child run homes) there is a little boy that is maybe 2 and everyday he sat on the other side of the barbed wire fence and watched all the kids play at Martha’s. Someone nicknamed him “Peter Pan.” He was so cute and adorable and sad looking as he watched everyone else play.

Books about growing up in apartheid South Africa

I (Jenny) just finished 2 books by Mark Mathabane, a black South African who grew up under apartheid in South Africa. These books are amazing, heartbreaking, shocking, sickening, and life changing.


Kaffir Boy is Mark's autobiography. From Publishers Weekly "In this powerful account of growing up black in South Africa, a young writer makes us feel intensely the horrors of apartheid. Living illegally in a shanty outside Johannesburg, Johannes (renamed Mark) Mathabane and his illiterate family endured the heartbreak and hopelessness of poverty and the violence of sadistic police and marauding gangs. He describes his drunken father's attempts to inculcate his tribal beliefs and to prevent his son from getting an education, the one means by which he might escape from the ghetto. Encouraged by his determined mother and grandmother, Mathabane taught himself to read English and play tennis, and, through the assistance of U.S. tennis star Stan Smith and his own efforts and intelligence, obtained a tennis scholarship from a South Carolina college in 1978. Now he is a freelance writer in New York. In the course of relating his inspiring story, he explains the anger and hate that his country's blacks feel toward white people and the inevitability of their rebellion against the Afrikaner government."


African Women, Three Generations are the stories of Mark's sister, mother and grandmother. From Mark Mathabane's website - "This book tells the true life stories of Mark's mother (Geli), grandmother (Ellen), and sister Florah. All are members of the Tsonga tribe of South Africa and are married under the custom of "lobola," where the man purchases his bride from the bride's parents. These women suffer horrendous abuse at the hands of the men they love and from apartheid, but their strength of will, patience, faith and indomitable spirits help them triumph over adversity."


Before we left for South Africa the first time, Lincoln and I did some research and reading about South Africa. We learned what we could about the history of South Africa while living in the US. Then when we lived in South Africa and met people and heard stories and visited people in extreme poverty, we learned a little more.

But these books have really opened my eyes to what apartheid was like. These books take you into the living hell that black South Africans had to endure under apartheid. The descriptions of severe abuse, neglect, starvation and horror that the children especially had to endure will haunt me for the rest of my life. I know that there is so much more to learn, I have just scratched the surface. I don't think I'll every truly understand what the people of South Africa have been through, no matter how much reading I do or how much time I spend there.

I would highly recommend both of these books for anyone who would like to have a better understanding of apartheid. I do want to give a warning though, both books contain bad language and difficult to read and graphic descriptions of abuse and violence.

Mark Mathabane has also written other books, I plan to read Kaffir Boy in America next.





Sunday, September 6, 2009

Compassion


“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.” Frederick Buechner

Thursday, September 3, 2009

South Africa Gala


You're Invited!

For one special night we will be honoring and celebrating the Lighthouse Children's Shelter in Rustenburg, South Africa. Join us for an evening to remember including dinner, live music, auctions and more with all proceeds benefiting The Lighthouse Children's Shelter.

-Saturday, October 3rd

-7:00 pm

-Red Rocks Church (Heritage Square)

18301 W. Colfax Ave. Golden, CO. 80401

Follow signs to complimentary shuttle service.

-You can purchase individual tickets for $100 or purchase an entire table for the guests of your choice ($1,000 - $4,000 per table - tables seat 10 people.) Each person attending will receive a special gift.

-RSVP by September 20th

-Safari Casual attire

-For more information please contact us at JennyLincoln@hotmail.com or call the Red Rocks Church office at 303-279-0425