We’ve kind of settled into a rough routine here (finally!). Most days, we get up early to spend time with Jesus and eat breakfast so that we’re ready for our first session.

8:30 a.m. We have some sort of teaching about church planting, either with a leader from All Nations or a guest speaker.

10:30 to 11 a.m. We have a mid-morning break

11 a.m. Another teaching session, or perhaps meet with our small d-groups to pray or talk about ministry in the community.

12:30 p.m. We break for lunch, which is a wonderful hot meal prepared by Silvia, one of the All Nations staff members.

2 p.m. There will be another teaching session (on Tuesdays or Wednesdays) or we’ll go out into Masi to put into practice what we’re learning.

5 p.m. Begins free time. Some evenings we help cook and clean up dinner. Wednesday and Friday evenings we have Xhosa lessons. One night a week Brandon and I have date night. And the rest of the time is spent resting or spending time with the other CPx students. Or writing for our blog.

The exception to this schedule is Saturdays and Mondays, which are our days off, and the one Sunday a month that we have celebration.

We’re really enjoying that we’re finally getting into the townships and ministering to people! I haven’t been able to take any pictures in Masi yet though, because it can be culturally offensive to come into people’s homes that you don’t know and start snapping pictures. So until I develop relationships and can take photos, here are some photos of Khayelitsha, the largest township in the Cape Town area. More than a million people live in this township. It’s very similar to Masi in the way it looks, but it’s far larger (Masi only has about 30,000 to 40,000 residents) and more dangerous in parts.

Brandon took these photos as we drove past Khayelitsha last week.

You can see homes like this stretch out for miles. The sheer expanse of it takes your breath away.

Things have been pretty intense here though. Moving to another country and having everything familiar taken away was a bit of a shock to my system. Thankfully, the Lord is providing rest and peace to Brandon and I (thanks for all your prayers!).

Yesterday we were able to catch up on a lot of our rest as well. We spent the night Friday night with Mike and Kalyn Arndt, who are on the leadership team from All Nations (they’re from Oklahoma, and I’ve posted about them on our blog before). Then yesterday Brandon and I hung out at their house and read a lot and also walked to Long Beach from their house. (It’s the same beach where we saved the whales when we were here in May.) It was the first time we’ve been to the beach since we got here. Gorgeous, but the water was icy cold, so we didn’t really get in.

Long Beach

Surfers on Long Beach

Me on the beach

A real South African surfer. Notice how he's wearing a full-body wet suit. Because seriously, people, the water is that cold! It's coming north from Antarctica.

Yesterday (Friday) was our first outreach day. I’ll back up a minute — during CPx, every week we have two day of lectures and 3 of outreach where we go into the communities and practice what we have learned. Masiphumelele (Masi for short) is the community that Juli and I will be working in. We are definitely excited about working here for several reasons — for one, it is where we have worked in the past so there is some sense of it that kind of feels like home and for two, it is the type of community we envision ourselves working in long term. This isn’t to say that Masi is the community we will forever work in (for various reasons, we aren’t expecting this) but it is the atmosphere and type of community that tugs at our hearts.

Anyways, yesterday was our first day of getting into the community for outreach and the our first opportunity to practice all that we had learned. We’ve been broken up into d-groups of 6 or 7 for these outreaches, and further divided into 2s and 3s and 4s for the purpose of ministering (a group of 7 is rather intimidating to people — we aren’t wanting to gang up on them!). For this and future trips, we are really focused on planting simple churches and so we were looking for peaceful people — people that would open a community or network of people to the Gospel as well as finding people that would intentionally gather their friends and families for little “Bible Studies.”

This last part is key (and in many ways paradigm shifting). When we’ve been here in the past, we’ve focused pretty heavily on finding as many people as possible and grouping them together. Often the people aren’t in any way relationally connected which makes the groups dependent on the outsider for gathering and providing the special sauce that makes the people stick together. This time though we are intentionally not doing that but rather getting locals to gather their people. For more about this, keep following my blog.

Back to the story of outreach numero uno. I went with two other guys — our coach Munya (who is from Zimbabwe) and Lucas (who is actually from Masi). We went out and pretty immediately found 3 different guys who told us that they (a) were interested in studying the Bible and (b) were interested in gathering their friends and families. And they were interested enough to give us their phone numbers so that we could SMS them to remind them. The last man in particular (Richard) we felt particularly good about. He not only seemed interested but also excited.

As we were leaving Richard’s place, we passed a house where a woman called out to us. She had heard about us (or people like us) and had some questions about faith and wanted prayer. We shared with her about Jesus and answered her questions and told her testimonies of His love in Masi. We then prayed for her and it seemed incredibly impactful — she was in tears when we got done and immediately asked us to come back to study the Bible with her (and that she wanted to do the same as the guys: gather friends and family). So we were quite encouraged by this point. I wasn’t expecting quite this response. I knew Masi as a spiritually hungry place, but expected a bit more resistance to the gathering concept. And we may run into it — we’ll find out next week if anyone is “gathered” but I have a lot of hope.

I know I would have probably been thrilled if this was the end of the story for the day but it wasn’t. Our next encounter was with a man named Eddy. He was also from Zimbabwe and was just passing through Masi. We still got an opportunity to share with and pray for him though. And he was another person left changed by the love and presence of God. He’d been struggling with pretty serious neck pain for several months. When we first met him he actually couldn’t move it at all. But we prayed! And Jesus healed! And the pain went away and he could move it again!

And this isn’t even the end of the story — we had two more significant encounters with people! They both revolve around a Zimbabwean house church that meets in another part of Masi. Susan, a woman in it (but who lives elsewhere in Masi) took us to her home and had us pray for her pregnancy. I felt like the Lord was asking me to pray Isaiah 40:31 for her (which I did) and she was really touched. She is even wanting to try and gather her neighbors to start a Bible study (which we were all surprised and excited about since she is already a part of the other). After this, we got to teach the Zimbabwean house church how to facilitate meetings and pray times without us which is significant — prior to this they had been reliant on us outsiders for meeting times and facilitation.

Anyways all that said and done — we were really excited about our first trip into Masi and can’t wait to see what else God does with our time there.

“Molweni! Ninjani? Ndipilile, enkosi.”

Translation: “Hello! How are you all? I am fine, thank you.”

I have been taking Xhosa lessons from one of the other students in CPx. Nceba (his name means mercy in Xhosa) is an excellent teacher, even though this is his first time to teach anyone Xhosa. He has had two evening sessions already with several other CPx students. Brandon and I are praying for the gift of learning other languages quickly– especially because this one’s got clicks in it that are hard for Americans to learn!

Xhosa is what many of the Africans speak here. It is only one of the 11 official languages in South Africa, but is the predominant one spoken in Masiphumelele (or Masi, for short), the township where Brandon and I have worked in the past. Oh, and we found out last week we’ll continue working there during CPx!

We’ve now had a crash course in the basics of church planting, and will begin outreach to those in Masi tomorrow. We will meet the local people, looking for a person of peace, someone who is eager to hear about Jesus and obey him and connect us with others in order to start a Bible study. In all this, Xhosa phrases will come in handy. Our goal isn’t to become fluent in the language — so many people speak English here that we can get by with that alone. But our goal is to open up doors to people’s hearts by showing them love. One major way to show we love the Xhosa people is to spend time learning their language even before we meet them.

I’ve often heard it said that short term trips are a waste of time. Some claim that those on them just tend to “get in the way” by distracting long-term missionaries from their mission, whatever it might be. Others have said it’s an excuse for comfortable Christians to take a “vacation” while masquerading as mission focused individuals. Other people tend to make up other stories and excuses too.

I don’t buy it though.

I mean, sometimes it might be true. There are times I wonder with some of the trips I’ve heard about in my days. You’ve probably heard of those I’m talking about too — the ones that sound like wild and crazy adventures that might include a bit of evangelism (or might not). But by and large I think many times when we pull out the “waste of time” card, we do so erroneously.

So why do I say this?

The biggest reason is the overwhelming amount of evidence that lives are forever changed by short term teams. My church in the states, for example, has sent short term teams to Cape Town, South Africa the past 3 US summers (it’s actually winter then in Cape Town). On those trips we saw God move in many incredible ways. Lots of people professed HIS name for the first time. Many of those (and others) were healed of infirmities as serious as TB. Still others saw God move into their lives in ways they have never experienced before.

On those trips, we worked in a particular township called Masiphumelele (Masi for short). And if you are reading this blog, you likely know that my wife and I are currently in cross cultural church planting school called CPx which started a week ago. We were so encouraged upon arriving to find out that their are 3 people from Masi actually in CPx! One woman was led to Christ by a few women on our short term trip 2 summers ago. The other two also have less direct but ties none the less to our short term trips. And it’s so exciting to see that fruit matured and so encouraging to know that God can and will mightily use short term trips. They aren’t just sightseeing ventures for Christians and definitely will, when walked out in the right attitude, radically affect the kingdom.

There are other readily apparent benefits too. Short term trips can do wonders to encourage long term missionaries. They can allow for a more targeted, direct and focus mission that might normally take a long term team a while to get into. They often can allow long term workers to rest for a period (particularly in the case of the AIDs orphanage I worked with 3 summers ago). And they often allow for individuals with specialized skills to briefly provide services to those that might need them.

I’m definitely for short term mission trips and encourage everyone to go on one at some point in their life. If you are looking for a place to go — I heartily recommend Cape Town, especially after the World Cup finishes in July.

Snake Attack! from Brandon Jones on Vimeo.

So I was sitting down to finally write a blog post about my first week when something happened that trumped all the other things I was initially going to write about. I heard squeals and screams coming from down the hall. It sounded like a fun game, so Brandon went to investigate. He came back a minute later. “Stay in here,” he said. “There’s a snake in the kitchen.” Then he put his shoes on and ran back to help.

I hate snakes. So I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but eventually my curiosity won out. I put on shoes and hesitantly went for the kitchen, making sure to grab my video camera first. (Video is forthcoming, but it’s taking too long to upload, so I’ll have to post it later.) A Cobra got into our kitchen. Fortunately, Paul and Lee and others herded the snake outside where Lee held it down with sticks while Paul cut the head off with a knife. It was very dramatic! Here is the snake after it was decapitated, about four feet long:

Cobra, post mortem

Paul walking off with the snake in one hand and his knife in the other. He's heading to Africa House to show it to the other students.

Needless to say, we will not be keeping our kitchen door open any longer.

Which is unfortunate, because keeping doors and windows open here is really the only way to keep cool indoors. There’s no central A/C or heating here. That’s really not a problem though, because the weather here is so fine. It’s been in the 60s at night and in the mornings and evenings, 70s in the day time. Much warmer in the sun or if you’re running around, but very pleasant in the shade. Pretty delightful if you ask me.

Pretty delightful is how you really could describe our first week here. I have so much to catch you up on! I haven’t posted all week because we’ve spent a lot of time in orientation sessions about different things, including one on safety where we were told to be wary of snakes! We’ve also been just spending time with the other 40 people in CPx. It’s really been a joy getting to know the other people here, all with interesting and encouraging stories of how God brought them to CPx. There are a bunch of other young married couples, so Brandon and I actually feel quite at home. We’re not even the most newlywed! There are four couples married a shorter time than us, three of which were married three months or less when they came to Cape Town. There are people here from all over the world, representing 12 different countries.

Here are some pictures of Africa House, the headquarters of All Nations in Cape Town:

Brandon in front of Africa house, shortly after I trimmed his hair and beard

The inside lounge area of Africa House

The view of Africa House from the prayer room

Inside the prayer room

This is the prayer room behind Africa House

Whitney (from Norman) and George (from South Africa) relaxing on the Africa House grounds.

This is around the back of Africa House, where we eat our lunches with the other CPx students.

Now, we were originally placed in a room at Africa House. It’s where all the singles are staying, and two married couples. But one of the married couples asked if we would mind switching with them so they could live next to the other couple they came with, so as of Friday Brandon and I have been staying at the house with all the other married couples. It has a much more distinguished name: Silver Palms. It just sounds swanky, right? Brandon and I feel like we fit right into our new home. I mean, now we get our own shower en suite! Definitely moving up in the world. Here are some pictures of our new home:

Inside our room (see the flowers Brandon got me for Valentine's Day?!)

Outside of Silver Palms

Yesterday, we took some pictures of the environs on our walk over to the mall. We walk to the mall a lot, because it’s basically the best thing within walking distance. It’s very much like an American mall, and has a great little coffee shop and sushi place, as well as a grocery store and other shops.

Parking lot at the grocery store, with gorgeous mountains in the background

The view on the walk from Africa House to the mall

So Brandon and I are settling in well. It’s still pretty exhausting though. Everything is new and different and we’re getting to know so many people and getting so much information in our brains, that we’re exhausted by the end of the day. I’m still adjusting, I think, to such a major life change as well by not sleeping really well. My body will sometimes just refuse to relax, instead setting my pulse racing so it takes me forever to get to sleep. Brandon and I would really appreciate your prayers for rest and peace here!

One restful thing we’re doing tonight is celebrating Valentine’s Day! With several other couples here, we’ve rented one of the All Nations vehicles and will head to Cape to Cuba for dinner. That’s a Cuban restaurant that those on our May mission trip to Cape Town will remember– it’s a very fun place with excellent food. So us couples are driving there together, but then have all made separate reservations for our own tables. Then we’ll meet back up to drive back together. Ah, the joys of community living!

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.