Light on the Red Hill

I want to tell you what God has been doing here in Cape Town, especially in CPx and Red Hill.

We have 70 outstanding students enrolled for six months IN CPx, our leadership training program. Actually, they are not students in the normal sense of that word. All of them are leaders with varying degrees of experience. They come from 15 countries, 43 of them are Africans.

Every single student feels called to be involved in some way long term to make a difference in Africa or the Middle East. It has been a big faith challenge for us to hold this school. It takes a lot of money to rent housing, provide good teachers, organize transportation, feed, and do set up for so many students. We don't have permanent facilities so we have had to work hard to find temporary housing.

The students are fantastic! And we are very encouraged by the fact that more than half of the student fees have come in through the a few sponsors, but mainly through the students themselves working and sacrificing to cover their own fees. We still need a big release of finance. I would appreciate your prayers as we need another R250,000 to pay for the remaining housing, food, and tuition costs. Tuition, board and room for one student costs about R10,000.

It is a worthy investment. These are emerging leaders that will change nations. God is using CPx to impact their character through teaching on servant leadership, their understanding about simple church and church planting movements, and their skills to be more effective leaders. We are empowering them to advance God's kingdom in every sphere of life. Quite a few of them feel called to the Muslim world. All of them are learning how to do church in a holistic way.

Regarding the work we are doing on Red Hill (wild fires burned down the shack homes of 78 families a few weeks ago and we have gotten deeply involved), a lot of progress has been made. We have completed "Phase one" of our relief efforts. That involved helping everyone who lost their home to rebuild at least a one room simple home. We have been able to help several families rebuild a complete "beautiful shack" which costs about R20,000 plus labour. We are trying to hire local guys from Red Hill to provide jobs and job skills through the project.

We are busy now making sure everyone has windows built into to their home, and new galvanized metal sheets for roof and walls. Next we will try to make sure everyone has concrete floors. We are hiring guys who live in Red Hill to build beds and cupboards. We begin skills classes this Saturday teaching carpentry and other skills. We are studying how to turn this into along term sustainable endeavor.

We are also very focused right now on visiting every home in Red Hill to make sure everyone has a personal presentation of the good news of Jesus and what he has done for them. Without the transformation of a person's heart, they will not have the spiritual and moral strength they need to overcome addiction to alcohol, drugs and abusive relationships in their families.

About ten days ago we held a big celebration on Red Hill with pap and chicken and lots of music and dancing and celebrating. It was the first time since the fire destroyed the homes of the people that they had time to rejoice and be happy. We presented new soccer uniforms to the "Red Hill Attackers" soccer team because their uniforms were all destroyed in the fire. Since then we have held two football tournaments with our CPx guys and teams from Ocean View. This has brought a lot of life to the men.

Would you pray about helping us meet the big financial challenges we face right now? By investing in a scholarship for one of our students, you are investing in the people of Red Hill. Our students are involved daily in people's lives in that community. We will be grateful for anything God leads you to do. And please pray for a spiritual breakthrough on Red Hill. The spiritual atmosphere is changing - but we are longing to see a huge breakthrough that results in a new church born there. It will be a light on the Red Hill!

Yours for the lost,

Floyd