Update on South Africa

We can't believe it is already nearing the end of October. Our first 2 months here have been amazing! We have not had steady internet access, but it looks like it may be fixed now, so we hope to update you more regularly now.

The last part of September into the first part of October, we were able to participate in a program called Kids Games. Kids Games is designed to reach children ages 8-14 using active games and interactive stories.

The first day of Kids Games, almost 700 kids showed up! It was exciting to see their faces and meet them and play with them. Once the opening ceremonies were finished, the kids were divided into 8 different teams, with each one of our Nomads leading a team. Some teams had over 90 kids on them!

The rest of the week we had anywhere from 300-400 kids everyday. We played our games and then we sat down to hear a Bible story. Kids Games uses curriculum from the story of Joseph in Genesis. They use this story because it exemplifies emotions that Joseph must have felt: betrayal, confusion, unfairness. Kids are able to relate to those feelings. By the end of the week, the children heard the whole story of Joseph, and how God was in control from the beginning, even if Joseph was treated badly and unfairly. On the last day, we had an altar call, and dozens of kids responded! It was amazing! We loved being a part of Kids Games, and walked away from their feeling so blessed!

Once we returned to Mahwelereng, we continued our research. With the help of volunteers from the church we partner with, we completed over 300 surveys. Now, we will take that information and see what ministry we can do in Mahwelereng during the second half of our time here.

We are excited to plan and execute different ministry ideas here. Please pray for us as we plan, that we would hear God's voice, and that we would effectively minister to these people that He has called us to work with.

First Look at South Africa

Our dreams have come true! We are finally in South Africa, after almost 2 years of preparing and fundraising. We have been in our new "home" for a little over a week, and so far we are loving every minute of it!

Our first week was full of training and traveling around the town that we will be working in. We have learned more about South African culture and about the issues South Africans face every day. We have learned several dramas to do for little kids and for high schoolers and adults. We learned how to apply our testimonies to the dramas and make them relevent to the people.

We have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know our interns better. They have already formed strong friendships between the 8 of them (they are all girls) and that has made these first several days enjoyable and entertaining!

On Sunday, we attended the church that we will be partnering with in ministry over the next few months. It was a new experience for most of the team members. We witnessed dancing, incredible singing and worship. We also saw a woman being released from an evil spirit. God's spirit was heavily there, and it was awesome to experience in a completely different culture than what we are used to.

We would like to ask for your prayers as we go into this week. We will begin holding focus groups with the people of a township called Mahwelereng (Ma-hal-er-ing). This is the town that we will be primarily working with. The ministry we do will be based on what we find out from these focus groups and door to door surveys we will do later in the week.

Thank you for your prayers and support! We look forward to updating you further from South Africa!

Until next time,

Josh and Kelly

First Trip-Nicaragua!

Hello friends! We are writing to you from the beautiful country of Nicaragua! We arrived late Wednesday evening, and began ministry Thursday morning. We feel so blessed already, and it has only been one day!

We visited 3 schools today, but each school we visted twice, so we did 6 presentations. We have a youth group team with us from Pennsylvania. The weather is really, really hot, but we have been drinking plenty of water (bottled) and standing in the shade when possible. Today alone, we have distributed 1,454 copies of the Book of Hope! Praise the Lord! This means that today, 1,454 children and youth have a chance to read about Jesus, and begin a relationship with Him. We know that the Word of God does not return void, and we are excited about that promsie being fulfilled.

So far, our Spanish has not improved much :) but we are trying! Josh played futbal (soccer) with some kids this afternoon, and they loved it! He then started shaking their hands in a funny way, and pretty soon, swarms of kids were coming up to him wanting to shake his hand! It is such a joy and a blessing to see the smiles on their faces when we love on them and when we hand them a Book of Hope.

We have been able to enjoy some great local food, also. Josh's favorite by far has been the freshly made flour tortillas! They are really good! Kelly has enjoyed the chicken, and surprisingly enough, she even enjoyed a little "sauce" made up of onions pieces and something spicy. Normally she doesn't like onions, but these were really good!

We have already gotten to know the youth group that is here with us, and they are a lot of fun. They have servant hearts, and have done a great job of talking to and ministering to the kids and youth of Nicaragua.

Please continue to pray for us as the week goes on. We will return to the States on Tuesday, the 18th. We appreciate all of your prayers and your comments!

On the Road!

Well, we are officially on our way to start our new career as missionaries! We began our trip by driving to Ohio to visit Josh's grandparents. From there we drove to Nashville, on our way to Alabama. In Nashville we were able to spend some time with Josh's uncle. Finally, today, we made our way down to Birmingham, AL where we will spend the next few days being a part of a conference at one of the local churches. We are looking forward to spending time with our collegues and learning more about South Africa and our work there.

So far we have learned a few things about South Africa that we did not know. First, the AIDS virus is spreading very quickly throughout South Africa. The need to educate the people about the seriousness of the disease and how the disease is spread is so great. OneHope missionaries are often called upon to teach teachers about the disease so they can teach their students. There is so much misinformation going around about AIDS, and the effects are devastating.

We also learned more about the place where we will be living. It is a lodge on a game reserve, and it is large enough to host many interns at one time. It sits on about 2500 acres of land, and is in a rural community. The closest small town is at least 30 minutes away. We have seen pictures, and we are excited to see it in person.

We will leave for South Africa on August 28. We will fly from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Atlanta, GA. From there we will fly straight to Johannesburg (15 hour flight!) Then, it is just a 3 hour drive to the Hope Lodge.

For now we will sign off. It is late and we have been traveling all day and are looking forward to a great night's sleep! We will keep you posted!

Let the Countdown Begin!

It's hard to believe that we are leaving St. Louis in 20 days! Time is flying by and it seems like we have so much to do in so little time. But, we know that the Lord will be with us as we prepare to make this transition, and that brings us comfort.

In order to downsize our things before we leave, we are having a garage sale this Saturday, July 11 at Kelly's dad's house. We are hoping to sell a lot of things, which will make it easier to pack in the upcoming weeks.

We have had 2 family weddings to attend over the past couple of weeks, and it has been so much fun to see family. We were very blessed to have the opportunity to say "See you later" to family that we won't see for some time. It was hard to leave them, but we must go where the Lord leads, and every one of our family members has been so supportive. We are truly blessed!

Please pray with us that the garage sale goes well, and that we will be well organized as we pack and prepare to head to Florida on July 26th. Thank you again for all of your support! We appreciate all of you so much!

God is Good!

It is with great joy that we report that all of our support has been raised! And then some! God is so good! We are excited as we looked toward the next few weeks that draw us closer and closer to South Africa.

That being said, these next few weeks we are at home will be very busy with packing and planning and sorting through everything we have. We are planning on having at least one garage sale to sell whatever we can. Since we will be gone for 2 years (with the potential of more), we don't want to rent storage space. We can't go to South Africa with much, so we'd like to sell as much as we can!

We plan to leave St. Louis the last week of July and begin our trek to Florida. We will have a few days there and then we will be attending General Council. After that week, we will be on our way to South Africa with a group of young people. Once we are on the field, we will begin on the job training. What better way to learn than to jump right in, right? :) We can hardly wait!

We know that when we leave St. Louis, it will be a bitter-sweet departure. We have wonderful family here and close friends and co-workers, but we know that we have to go where the Lord calls us. We go knowing full well that we are in His good will. We are extremely blessed to have family that supports us 110%.

Recently I (Kelly) was talking to my mother-in-law, and she was telling me how she heard from someone who lived in South Africa, that the hospitals there are wonderful and the staff treats the patients so well. This really eased her mind about if we have children while overseas. It eased our minds too! That thought was always in our heads, and we knew that if the Lord blessed us with children over there, that He would take care of us.

Thank you again to all of our supporters who made this possible for us. We serve an awesome God, and we are ready to get to South Africa and minister to their youth and children.

In the beginning...

Welcome to our blog site! Our goal in creating this blog is to keep you updated on our fundraising process, our transition to South Africa, and to let you know how things are going once we are in Africa.

As of today, May 21, we only need $200 in monthly support before we can make the big move! The Lord is so good! We have a tentative and hopeful departure date of the end of July. This would put us in South Africa by the middle of August. We are so excited to work with OneHope as we get the Word of God to every child and youth in the world!

OneHope is an organization based out of Ft. Lauderdale, FL, whose ministry is to get the Word of God into the hands of every child and every youth in the world. This is a goal that is taken very seriously by every staff member of OneHope. We feel called to partner with this ministry and we are ready to take that step of faith!

If you have more questions about OneHope and what our role will be with them, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are more than happy to talk to you about the call God has placed on our hearts. You can reach us by commenting on this post or by emailing us at: joshsalazar@onehope.net, or kellysalazar@onehope.net.

Thanks for reading!