We started CPx today. It was both exciting and at the same time emotionally exhausting. Exciting because we heard more about what we’ll be doing during CPx, and exhausting because we’re still jet lagged and the energy it took to fully engage really wiped us out. I actually took a nap after our final session this afternoon. While I napped, Brandon built a small replica of the Hancock Tower in Chicago out of Legos. Yes, we brought a Lego set in our suitcases.

This morning Floyd McClung, the director of All Nations, talked to about 45 of us CPx students about the core values of All Nations. They are: Worship. Mission. Community. For those who attend Norman Community Church, these values should be familiar. They are exactly the same as NormCom’s core values of Up, In and Out, just with different names and in a different order. Fabulous. Brandon and I felt right at home.

We’ve begun to settle in here and figure out a number of things, including how best to reach us. I thought I’d make a quick post (since I need to be getting to bed because CPX starts early tomorrow morning), and let you know how to contact us if you would like to do so.

We now have South African cell phones! To call my number from the states, dial 27-79-324-6809. Brandon’s number is
27-79-445-0312. You could text us for a small charge (I think about 20 cents) or call us from Skype for a pretty cheap rate.

Speaking of Skype, that’s an excellent way to get in touch with us. If you call us on Skype from your computer to our computer, it’s free! My Skype name is JuliannaHJones and Brandon’s is mbjones25. Look us up! But you’ll probably need to schedule a time to Skype us since we won’t be on all the time. Also, we’ve discovered that until we get our own place (and are paying for our own internet), we won’t be able to use the video chat aspect of Skype. But we will still be able to hear your beautiful voice!

E-mail is always a great bet to stay in touch with us. We’ll probably be checking our e-mail daily (at least) while we’re here in Cape Town. Send a message to julianna.h.jones@gmail.com or mbjones@gmail.com. You can also check us out on Twitter at twitter.com/jazzyjuli or twitter.com/mbjones. Facebook is a good way to see what we’re doing, but we’ll have less frequent access to facebook that we will to e-mail or twitter, because we can’t access facebook from the team house (we have to go to an internet cafe for that).

Finally, you can send us snail mail at
P.O. Box 1606
Sun Valley, Cape Town
South Africa 7985

Finally, we had a funny experience the other night with some of the other girls from Norman, but at the risk of copying Rachel Hailey’s blog post entirely, I’m going to direct you to her Web site to read about it by clicking here. Read the story she wrote at the end of her post. It was pretty hilarious that the first day in South Africa I found myself singing “Ooooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!” to police officers.

Greetings from Cape Town! As I (Julianna) write to you, I’m sitting in the living room at All Nations’ main property, called the Africa House. This is where we’ll be staying the next several months. Our room has the most wonderful natural light. We slept with the windows open because there’s no air conditioning, but it was quite nice.
We arrived in Cape Town late last night after about 30 hours of airport travel. The flights weren’t bad, but neither Brandon nor I got much sleep. We’re still not caught up — once we woke up this morning at 8:30 a.m., we couldn’t go back to sleep because of nervous excitement (“We’re finally here in Africa!”). Please pray that we get our rest and get over jet lag quickly! It’s eight hours ahead (of central standard time) here. Strange that as I write here, where it’s about 11 a.m., the clock on my computer reads 3 a.m.
We’re just meeting our fellow CPXers today and unpacking and getting things we need today. CPX starts Monday morning.

We have just arrived here at the Africa House in Cape Town where we’ll
be staying. The flights were fine, but neither Brandon nor I slept
more than about 5 hours the whole time, so we’re pretty exhausted and
ready to sleep now. The food on KLM was surprisingly delicious though!
We have a small bedroom here at the same house where the other Norman
Community girls are staying. I am told six other couples arrived
earlier today and are staying in a house across the street where most
of the married couples will stay. So we’ll be living it up in the main
house with the singles. Great news though, the bathroom is right
outside our bedroom door.

Well, it’s T-minus one day until we leave for Cape Town. I’ve waited until the last minute to do this, but I’ve finally made a video out of the film we shot when we were in Cape Town in May. Enjoy!

Cape Town 2009 from Brandon Jones on Vimeo.

And finally, thank you all for your love, support and prayers as we’ve gone through the long process of preparation to move to Cape Town. Brandon and I are so thankful for the community of people who have shown us so much support over the past months. We pray that God blesses you, returning the blessing you gave us a hundred fold!

Watch for updates on this blog from Cape Town. We’ll try to update as frequently as is possible, but we don’t know how often that will be during CPX.

Good news, everyone; we received our visas in the mail today! The South African government has allowed us to come to South Africa (with multiple re-entries!) for the next three years. That was the final logistical detail to us getting to Cape Town, and I tell you what, we are so glad to have visas in hand.

We’re only one week (seven days!) out from our BIG MOVE! Brandon and I feel ready to go. We’ve been in this limbo time for a bit too long. It’ll feel really great starting out in Cape Town in eight days. There’s just a few more things to do here in Norman before we leave. If anyone has any great tips on strategic compression packing, please share! Also, anyone had any luck getting out of an AT&T contract early without paying the penalty fee?

We spent the past several days in San Antonio saying goodbye to my family. Now we’re back in Norman, but getting iced in as we speak. We’re sincerely hoping that our final week in Norman isn’t spent inside the LeBeaus’ house (where we’re staying) eating chili (although Brandon’s chili is excellent).

In other news, I saw the movie Invictus this week with my parents. I highly recommend it! It was an interesting historical piece set in Nelson Mandela’s first year as president of the newly integrated South Africa in 1994-1995. Plus, I saw one of the restaurants we ate at in Cape Town in it. If you wanna know more about what things are like in South Africa, I think it gives a pretty accurate portrayal.

Despite more than a dozen international conventions banning slavery in the past 150 years, there are more slaves today than at any point in human history. Slaves are those forced to perform services for no pay beyond subsistence and for the profit of others who hold them through fraud and violence. While most are held in debt bondage in the poorest regions of South Asia, some are trafficked in the midst of thriving development. Such is the case here in Africa’s wealthiest country, the host of this year’s World Cup. While South Africa invests billions to prepare its infrastructure for the half-million visitors expected to attend, tens of thousands of children have become ensnared in sexual slavery, and those who profit from their abuse are also preparing for the tournament. During a three-week investigation into human-trafficking syndicates operating near two stadiums, I found a lucrative trade in child sex. The children, sold for as little as $45, can earn more than $600 per night for their captors. “I’m really looking forward to doing more business during the World Cup,” said a trafficker. We were speaking at his base overlooking Port Elizabeth’s new Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. Already, he had done brisk business among the stadium’s construction workers.

Read the whole article. It’s heart-breaking but worth it. We are all fools who choose not to see the brokenness in the world. And we are utterly heartless should we decide to do nothing.

Two summers ago whilst in Cape Town, the team I was with helped staff a seminar focused on human trafficking. A local South African group was seeking to raise awareness because they were already beginning to anticipate and see the trafficking problems that the World Cup would bring. This past summer while there, it was mentioned to me that at least one child a week goes missing.

I don’t know what exactly we’ll be able to do whilst there but I know both my wife and I hope and pray that we’ll be able to do something. At the very least we know and accept the call Micah 6:8 lays before us: to love justice and mercy and to walk humbly before our God…

Brandon and I have been back in Norman for less than a week, and things are both more peaceful and busier than I expected.

Work. I quit my job before Christmas, so thus have been a woman of leisure the past several days while Brandon slaves away for his last bit of time as an employee of the University of Oklahoma. His last day will be Friday. I kind of wondered what I’d do all day while Brandon was at work, but have quickly learned to fill my time with productive, organizational bits as well as a plethora of social engagements.

Friends. Brandon and I are trying to fill our last few weeks in the States with as much time with the people we love here as possible. I’ve managed that a bit better than Brandon so far, as I’ve been able to hang out with dear friends on winter break during the day while he’s been at work. Our calendar is filling up rapidly, however. We would love to hang out with YOU (yes, you, gentle reader) before we leave. Give us a call or drop us an e-mail and we’ll set something up.

Community raising. Brandon and I have felt so supported and provided for on our journey towards moving to Cape Town. That’s continuing this month. Our father has provided for all our needs financially so far. We’re still far behind our goal of monthly pledges for after the church-planting training ends this summer, but feel very confident God will provide for those needs in his perfect timing. I’ve realized that we really put off community raising here in Norman until the last minute. (Probably because we already felt very supported by our community here at Norm Com.) Most people know of our plans in general, but we’re trying to get together with many people that we haven’t actually met with to share the details of our plans. If that’s you, again, let us know and we’d love to share with you and answer any questions you may have.

Getting ready. I am very thankful that we sold and gave away our stuff and moved out of our apartment last month. It would be a huge headache to try to do that now. However, there’s still a lot of things to be done in preparation of our move to another country. Not least of which is the visa. Brandon and I’s goal is to send all our paperwork for the visa in the mail tomorrow to hopefully hear back within a week from the consulate. I’ll keep you posted how that goes.

As of today, Brandon and I have one month until we leave for Cape Town (whoo hoo!). We would appreciate all your prayers as we begin to tackle our enormous to-do-before-we-leave list, as well as say goodbye to friends and family that we love. Brandon, who thrives on change, is doing much better than I, but we definitely need the Lord’s grace to live this strange phase of our life well. Also, if anyone in Norman wants to hang out, please let me know. I want to get all the time with people here in the states that I can! Brandon and I head back to Oklahoma from D.C. tomorrow.

Wow, a lot has happened since my last blog post, which is why, of course, I haven’t posted anything. The bane of the blog existence is that when I have time to post there’s nothing to say and when there’s lots to say there’s no time.

Things were pretty busy and exhausting as we sold and gave away 85 percent of our stuff and moved out of our apartment. I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to deal with all my stuff disappearing and moving out of what has been our only home as a married couple. But God is so faithful to remind me of his good plan and why I’m doing all this.

After quitting my job Dec. 17, we flew to San Antonio to spend time with my family before Christmas and then up to Washington, D.C., Dec. 22 to spend two weeks with Brandon’s family. That’s where we are now. We’ve spent a refreshing and relaxing time with Brandon’s parents the past week. We’re looking forward to Brandon’s brother and his family are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Brandon wrote our long-overdue e-mail update and we sent it out to many in our community. If we haven’t added you to our e-mail list, you can read it at the bottom of this post. If you’d like to be added to our (semi-)monthly e-mail list, please shoot Brandon a line at mbjones@gmail.com.

_______________________________