A Birthday Present That I Wish I Could Exchange For A Pair Of Socks...

That title might be prompting you to ask 2 questions. Has this kid gone off the deep end? Or man how depressing is his birthday gift if he would exchange it for socks. I am quite sick and I started feeling ill just as my birthday approached. I started praying to the porcelain gods at about 11:30 pm last night and didnt really relent till about 9:00 am this morning. I have a fever probably around 102. Its been a rough birthday to say the least. However I am not going to let a bedridden day ruin my time here so I have some updates for you. About 7 of us youth leaders took a retreat to a place called hanngesburg which is about 80 kilometers from Polokwane. It was an absolutely beautiful sight and we all enjoyed it immensly. We discussed how we were going to approach the youth group over this upcoming year. It was a very productive time. We also saw all kinds of monkey as we were driving up the property. Africa really is like no other place in the world.

In addition to leading the Youth worship band and being a leader in the youth, I have taken on Seminary classes. I am currently enjoying Hebrew very much as well as my English class. For anyone that doesn't know what an English seminary class is, lets just say we dont work on our prepositions. The class teaches the students how to correctly assemble a sermon by picking apart the context and parts of speech used in the verse. It is a class where the students get preached at a lot, but when Mr. Beakley is the one doing the preaching, everyone just loves to listen. The Beakley family are an amazing family and have helped me learn so much about different aspects of being here and of things that I learned that I can take home and apply as well. Mrs. Beakley has been so kind in babying me today as she brought me anything from sprite to noodles. It its great feeling like part of the family down here. But at the same time I miss my family dearly as well.

We have a student here from the Democratic Republic of Congo and he is such a blessing to the seminary. If you have ever heard of "Invisible children" he is one of them. He was recruited to be in the military at 13. He got ambushed many times and all his friends died right in front of his eyes, but by the grace of God, He brought the student here to the seminary to learn and to bring back the truth and good news to the DRC. His name is Lucky and he smiles alot so everyone just calls him smiley.

As far as my personal ministry goes here, I will just use the phrase babysteps. There really is no concept of time down here so the next 4 months could go by like 1 week. Decipleship here is very difficult to get into as the kids rarely desire a relationship with the Lord. There is one kid named Wesly who is a total blessing and has a heart for the Lord. He and I have talked many times and I am encouraged to get to know him.

Ok well that is all for now, except of course I have many pictures to upload for you to see. Hope you all are doing very well. Please continue to pray for the ministry to Christ Baptist Church and seminary here in Polokwane. Also if anyone would ever like me to send them an email just leave a comment on this blog with your name and e-mail address and I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can. God Bless you all!

Benjamin Pierce

This is a picture yours truly near the dam, at the bottom of the retreat property where us 7 leaders went. It was beautiful, and there were bridges and nice little quaint things all around.

This is a photo taking from the retreat property itself looking at the dam. You cant see them in this picture but there are monkeys in the trees.

"whatchu looking at fool"- Bens Assesment of what is going on in this Heyenas head.

As you can see there are plenty of souls to reach. This is the jr youth group grades 1-8. There are on average 50-60 youth that show up on friday afternoons.

This is the kids after bein introduced to "Red Rover Red Rover" If it would have been the guys it would have been called "AHHH" I have never seen more competative boys than here in Polokwane.

Ok well thats it for this time. Hope you enjoy the photos and the words. God Bless!

Grace, Grace, God's Grace

Ok so I haven’t done nearly as well as I had hoped as far as updating my blog. However, I am determined to not let it slide another moment longer. As soon as I posted my first entry I started packing for a weekend towards Joberg/Pretoria. I must share with you that I had a very hard time on the trip down towards Jobgerg. I kept missing home with every mile marker I passed and I kept seeing and hearing things that reminded me of different aspects of home that I was longing for. So as D.A. Carson had said about a week earlier at the conference in Pretoria, “Sometimes the best spiritual decision you could make is to just sleep”. He was indeed right. I knocked out for about 1 hour until I heard a “Boom” and then the car felt very bumpy for about 30 seconds after that until we all realized what happened…we had hit a person…jk…sorry (that is humor actually considered funny here)…we of course had a flat tire. So we pulled off to the side of the road to fix it. This is one experience that I will never forget. God was so good and so gracious to us. We ended up getting a flat tire right next to a freeway off-ramp which just so happened to have a gas station about 50 meters from the off-ramp, which also happened to be the exit we would be using to arrive at our destination even though we didn’t know it at the time. If you don’t see God’s hand in a situation like that, you are blind.

In addition to having a gas station very close to where we pulled over, two highway maintance employees stopped and changed the tire for us. It truly was a time where you just sit back and thank God for being so gracious to us. We ended up getting Josh down to the Airport just fine. After we delivered Josh to the airport we headed for Joel James (seminary grad and pastor of Grace Fellowship) in Pretoria where we stayed the next two nights. We enjoyed a nice thunderstorm in Pretoria before going to bed. We made our way to Joel’s church where we all barely survived awake. We already had made lunch plans however so we went over to our hosts house. They needed to go shopping so I stayed at the house and “kept watch”…Yah right…I fell asleep so hard that when I woke up I didn’t even know that the Beakley’s had left to go to the store…but in reality…they had gotten back already. From there we went back go Joel’s house and spent another night. The next morning Mr. Beakley and I awoke early (6:25) to go look for a tire to replace the spare we had put on the combie. We ended up putting 4 tires on the combie and off we drove to Die Oog (it’s a resort) We enjoyed a day full of swimming and going down a slide that would be labled at best “hazardous” in America…Literally I can see someone being killed on the thing. But it was still fun. Then we spent the night under the most amazing looking sky singing choruses of worship songs. Then we hit the sack..thats about what the bed felt like and awoke the next morning to once again hit the road and come back to home sweet up Polokwane.

Since we got back not much has gone on. We had youth group on Wednesday which went very well and then we had Sunday services tonight. This week I have been working really hard on rehabilitating my right bicep. Its quite challenging but its all part of learning patience. This week will be a challenge as well as I start engaging in seminary classes. 5 Seminary classes is my load so far but we’ll see what it ends up being in about 2 weeks. Tommorow I will work out in the morning and then get supplies set up to give to the new seminary students and then I am off to watch the Patriots rock the Colts (hopefully). Ok well its late. I will post pictures later. God bless everyone.

This is a picture of the typical scene here in Polokwane. A kid who is not with his parents, who probably dont see their child for 5 days or so. The thing that absolutely blows me away and that might shock you, is the fact that you might find this kid with his baby brother on his back walking down a street on any given day.

This is literally a typick sunset here in South Africa. I can't explain to you the color differential between sunsets here and in America. What I wish I could take a picture of is the stars. At night you feel enveloped in stars. Satellites are also very often found crossing eachother in the sky at night.


AHHH yes...the Combie. This is the vehicle that the Beakly + benjamin + Stephanie clan operate in every day. This is also the car that you have just read about as breaking down in Pretoria. You can easily fit about 18 people in the car...of course about 4 of those would be sitting in the trunk but that is not uncommon here in South Africa. This is also the car that I learned to drive on the right side of the road with...The combie and I have become quite aquainted with eachother.

A typical day in the village. This is the village of Venda. It is quite a bit north but the people up there are lovely. I will be going there in about 2 weeks time.

Well that is it for now. Goeie Dag en lekker slaap.

In the beginning

So about a month ago I had the chance to hang out with some students that had just arrived home from their trip to Israel. They all told me that updating a blog is difficult. I thought they were wrong, until I actually started to try to maintain one. I arrived here about 2 weeks ago and have experienced so much in such a short amount of time. I arrived when the Beakley's were at a conference in Pretoria which was being taught by Mark Dever and DA Carson. It was quite a blessing to hear their messages, but at the same time I was so sacked from being jet-lagged that I wasn't even sure that I knew which direction was up or down. After the conference was over we came to what i now call "Home" here in Polokwane. I love the house and the surroundings. I like something Mrs. Beakley said after I had a very scary ride on my first night here through tambiesa (the only comparison I could make is the worst spot of south central los angeles) "its the same as anywhere else, but you really feel it here...Your in the Lords hands now" How true it is. It is so different here than in the states in so many ways. There are really no rules...The crime rate is astronmical, and the way crime is conducted is almost business like. This is a place that needs God so badly, and that brings me to my ministry here. I will be working as the worship leader for the high school band, as well as a leader for the high school group, as well as a teacher and activities coordinator for the jr youth. In addition to working with the youth, I am taking 1. English 2. Greek 3. Hebrew at the seminary as well as dediccating the next 5 months to learning the language here. I am quite busy but am thoroughly enjoying myself. Mr. Beakley has passed on so much knowledge to me about life and especially how to read my bible (techniques). They have spoiled me rotten while ive been here, taking me to see lions and a beautiful waterfall which I will post pictures of in just a few minutes. However, it is midnight and I do need some rest. I hope everyone is doing very well back home. I miss you all and God Bless!

Verse of the week: Acts 5:41- And the rejoiced knowing they had been considered worthy to suffer shame in his name.

Benjamin Pierce

this is a monkey at the resturant we ate at in Tzaneen (i was sitting at our table when I took this picture...he later literally stole a crape right off of our table...and he wasnt to big on sharing either...selfish monkey.. Me in front of the Debengehni Falls He might look cute but he already knows that in 2 months you could be his dinner. The way that a cub looks at you as though you are still its prey, is quite humbling. But he was fun to play with, and at this cubs age i actually let him bite my finger..its fine at first, but when he starts tugging is when you know that his time of becoming Mufasa is not so far away.. If you would like to know what its like to stand 8 feet from a male lion...this picture wont help you because he looks so cute and cuddly, but when you know that he could literally jump on top of you without taking one stride, your words are not so much AWWW and lot of AHHHH hehe.

Well I hope you have enjoyed these pictures so far, I will post pictures of Polokwane next time I post a blog. God bless everyone!