In Full Swing

[Rebecca Clendenin]

Friends,

The rainy season has begun in southern Africa!  As I'm typing this, we are experiencing a massive thunder and lightning storm overhead, the kind of storm that we now expect every afternoon/evening.  While it's made hanging laundry on the clothesline a bit challenging, the cool rain has been a nice counter to the heat of the approaching summer, and our tomatoes and spinach are happily being revived each afternoon.

We are now in full swing on our projects.  Here's a brief update on the classes we're teaching, but first, please help us spread the word that Africa Revolution is now accepting applications for the 2009-2010 internship--

Calling All Revolutionaries!  AR Recruiting for 2009-2010 Internship

If you know anyone who is interested in the life-changing experience of serving for a year in South Africa, we ask that you please spread the word that Africa Revolution is calling for applications for the internship program next year.  This is truly an awesome opportunity for a young person and a very unique kind of internship/ministry experience.  For more info, check out www.mamelodistories.org/2008/11/10/be-a-revolutionary-ar-now-accepting-intern-applications/ or more specifically www.africarevolution.org/internships.htm .

Small Business Development Class
Will and I are thoroughly enjoying teaching a class on entrepreneurship/small business development.  The six-week class covers quite a bit of material: everything from the theology behind why we work/our unique value in God's eyes; an overview of small business principles/business flow/recording an income statement and basic bookkeeping; personal finance (based on Crown Financial Ministries materials: www.crown.org ); marketing/advertising/branding; developing a business plan; running an experimental business for two weeks; etc.  It's been really cool to see the minds of our students expand with a greater framework of understanding business practices.  Our students, 15 in all, each have ideas for starting and managing their own businesses-- everything from selling cookies to selling shoes to being a real estate agent to operating a public phone service to selling dishes to being a caterer to... the ideas go on.  Most of all, our hope is that this class is helping our students build the courage and confidence necessary to handle the risks/mistakes/sometimes failures associated with owning and operating a business.  For me and Will, we are finding that we are the biggest students of all, figuring out as we go how best to develop a meaningful curriculum/how best to teach, and of course navigating all the cultural nuances of how things work in the township.  We are looking forward to the "grand-finale" of our class this coming Saturday, as we take our two classes on a field trip to Operation Mobilization's campus for the same hands-on business class/game Will and I participated in a while back.  We look forward to resuming this course again in January and hopefully having one of our students eventually be trained to take over teaching this class.

Web Design Class
Nate continues to enjoy teaching and developing a class on web design at the Powerhouse computer school (www.mamelodistories.org/2008/10/06/teaching-web-design/ ).  As of this week, his students have more or less wrapped up their websites (which we'll be featuring on our blog soon), and in the final two weeks of class, Nate plans to teach blogging.  There are two computer school teachers in Nate's class now, so next term they will co-teach with Nate to be prepared to take over teaching of this class.

Upcoming Photography Course: Consider Donating A Used Digital Camera!
Beginning in January, Nate will also offer a basic photography class.  If you have a used digital camera you're interested in donating for student use, please let us know!  There will be more specific instructions/guidelines featured on the blog soon.

You might have guessed it, our weeks have a routine to them now.  This routine will soon change, though, as the township more or less shuts down and goes on holiday in December.  Graduation for our classes is Saturday, December 6, and thereafter we are likely going to take a trip to Swaziland for a week or two to check out a ministry there (www.bulembu.org ) in the town of Bulembu, operated by a classmate of Allan's from seminary.  We are also very much looking forward to the holidays, African-style!

Finally, Prayer Requests:

As always, we ask for your prayers:

• Please join us in giving thanks for a second vehicle!  This is something that we have been praying for and needing.  We found out this week that AR will have another vehicle -- "a bakkie," or a truck -- by month's end.  Praise God!  
• Please give thanks that God is blessing the food pantry/feeding scheme ministry.  Visiting families each week continues to be a highlight (www.mamelodistories.org/tag/feeding-scheme/ ), and from week to week we are experiencing some really neat stuff as well-- God exposing the real issues behind people's situations, which means the people we are loving each week are beginning to trust us with what's really going on.  Please pray for strength for this ministry team to know how best to love and pray for the people we visit.  
• Pray for the final weeks of our classes and that our students would be well-equipped to put into practice that which we're walking them through in the classroom.  Pray for confidence and determination on the part of these bright individuals, and that most of all, they would understand how much they are loved by their Maker.

As always, as we send out these updates every so often, know that all past updates are available to read at http://groups.google.com/group/mamelodi-stories if you're interested in following along month by month.  As always, for more frequent updates, stay tuned on the blog: www.mamelodistories.org .

Thank you so much for all your continued prayers.  We can truly say, we are feeling them!

With love from the other side of the world!

Rebecca & Nate

Rebecca Clendenin

reb...@clendenin.name

www.mamelodistories.org