deedeehuey - Beat The Drum

Wow where do I start......We got back from a week of Beat the Drum this past Saturday. It was an amazing week to say the least. God did so much work in the hearts and lives of not only the students but also the community that we were working in. We arrived to Somerset East, South Africa on Friday, October 10th. That day we got settled in to the places we were staying. We all stayed with different host families. It was so great to get to know the families we were staying with. They were gracious enough to give us a place to stay and provided food for us everyday. We also broke up into teams by what schools we were going to.

Saturday we did a lot of training, going over the curriculum we were going to be teaching in the schools all the next week. God broke so many of the student's lives wide-open all week long. Sunday we had a huge youth rally where we had hundreds of people show up.

Every morning we would come together as a group and spent time in praying and reading the word. We would have someone give a devotional every morning. Then we would split up groups and headed off to the schools. On Monday we showed our school (Johnson) the movie Beat the Drum. My teaching team (Melissa & Beth) taught 8th grade. We taught about the HIV/AIDS virus and abstinence for the rest of the week in the schools. We were introduced to the whole school on the first day. They screamed and hollered for us. They were so excited we were there. Everyday they were so excited to see us. In the classroom it was hard to get them to talk the first few days. On Wednesday morning we prayed that the students would open up and be more responsive to us. On Wednesday it was like a different school, they really started talking and opening up their lives to us.

We also had a team that ministered to the community and farms. Over a hundred people came to know the Lord that week. So many people committed to abstain from sex until marriage. On Friday we had free AIDS testing at the youth center. There were hundreds of people that came for that. It was a very emotional time to say the least. God really did some amazing things in so many lives that week. I think that community will remember that week for a long time. We were very blessed by the support we had from different churches in the community along with the people of the town. They would just come up to us and thank us for coming there and sharing the truth and the gospel.

Here's some pictures I took in Somerset East, South Africa.