The prayer letter

Hey everyone,

Wow, only tomorrow I'm going to be flying to Cape Town. Things are in a bit more disarray than I would like (see next post), and it looks like I'm not going to be able to put together the email list before heading out. For the moment, here you can find the prayer letter that I sent out in May.

On to the next post!
Carl

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May 22, 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

This June, I’ll finally be graduating from Stanford. Or perhaps “finally” is a poor word to choose: time has flown by. One of the joys of my time at Stanford has been participation in Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). My friend through RUF and current roommate, David Scudder, is organizing a group of around six Stanford students to travel to South Africa. Last summer, David worked with Young Ohm, a Korean missionary working in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, with the support of the missionary and pastor-training organization African Leadership. This summer, we will work with Pastor Ohm and minister to the people of Khayelitsha and the surrounding areas.

Khayelitsha, established during the days of apartheid as a black settlement, is now the largest township in the Cape Town area with a population of about half a million, primarily of the Xhosa people. Though apartheid is officially over, the township still faces serious residual issues resulting in poverty and crime. African Leadership has been working to make God’s love real to the people of these areas. Pastor Ohm has been in Khayelitsha since 1996, working for the Kingdom through all sorts of ministries: daycare, sports ministry, English school, business development, and a school of theology for training pastors.

With my fellow Stanford students, I will be spending around four weeks, beginning on July 14, living at the African Leadership mission house and working with Pastor Ohm in Khayelitsha. During my time there, I intend to learn what I can of the culture and the ministry going on there, and to serve the local church and Pastor Ohm with the hands and gifts that God has given me. It’s my hope that God will be just as active in me as through me. There are several ministries that I will be involved with. African Leadership runs a youth soccer ministry, in which several hundred teenagers play in a soccer league, conjoined with Bible lessons from their coaches. There are also Saturday schools where over 1000 children come to hear the gospel. Because Pastor Ohm prefers to expose short term missionaries like us to all of the things that African Leadership does, I will also work in rural areas of the Transkei region, where most of the residents of Khayelitsha came from. There are certainly many challenges present during this time in South Africa, a new language and culture among them. I hope that through these challenges I can see a way that God’s Kingdom is growing, both in me and in the people around me.

I would love to have your support in prayer for my time in South Africa. You can pray that

• My friends and I would be safe in our travels to and time in South Africa;
• In foreign or challenging situations I would learn and have strength through God’s grace;
• The Kingdom would advance though this work;
• The work we do would be a blessing to the people we encounter and our church homes.

The entire Church participates in missions, whether it is by going, sending, or praying. I need your support in this endeavor, and I also want you to share in the blessing of the work.

• The wonders of email will be very helpful for this. Please let me know if you would like to receive email updates of my time in Africa. You can email me at cwerickson-at-gmail.com or write to me at the address at the top of the page.
• If you would like to support me in carrying the financial burden of this effort, which is approximately $3200 including airfare, you do this through a donation to African Leadership, a registered non-profit. Checks may be made payable to African Leadership and mailed to my parents, Brent and Jean Erickson, at 4876 N. Sheffield Ave., Whitefish Bay, WI 53217. Please put “Carl Erickson” in the memo line.
• Finally, while I am in South Africa, drop me an email with encouragement, response to my writings, or testimonies from your life or whatever you like. This is great way that we can be working for the Kingdom together.

If you are interested in learning more about these ministries you can check out the African Leadership website (www.africanleadership.org) and Pastor Ohm's website (www.africanleadership.org.za). I look forward to sharing stories of what God does.

Now, as they say at African Leadership:

For the Kingdom!

Carl Erickson