Wrapping Up…3rd Word

Tonight was one of those bitter sweet nights (there’s been lots of those lately). I, along with my friends Chris & Nick, wrapped up a year long experiment with 3rd Place. The experiment was asking the question “how do we translate Nieu Communities DNA into a local faith community… and then how can [...]

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God of Chaos?

There’s this saying that God is a God of order not of chaos. I still believe that, but I want to define my terms a little more tightly. What I think most of us mean by “order” is control, and what most of us mean by “chaos” is disorder that God is missing [...]

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The Next Chapter for Nieu Communities (part 2)

A Strategic Move
For some time, and from many people throughout CRM, we have come to feel God is calling us out of the Northern part of the city and more towards the heart of it.  This is going to be a long process of praying together as a community and looking at neighborhoods that will [...]

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The Next Chapter for Nieu Communities (part 1)

Clarity of Our Mission
Over the past two weeks, Rob Yackley, the founder and director of Nieu Communities (the division in CRM we work with) has been in town.  In many ways, I don’t think any of us really expected to get as much done as happened these last several days.
It all started with a 3 [...]

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God is up to something…

I realize I’ve been very ambiguous on this blog lately… and spotty in posts as well. The director of Nieu Communities has been in town for almost 2 weeks now. We had an amazing retreat with him as we sorted out quite a bit of things from our past as we begin to [...]

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joy and sorrow… community

Tonight we hosted quite the event for our friends Bryan & Daleen. They have been a huge source of comfort and help for us in the last year as we’ve transitioned our family over here. Tonight we said farewell as they move to what God has for them next.
I’m not good [...]

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What’s Developed Since We Last Spoke…

Friday afternoon, I (Joe) had a really great meeting with our friend Maxie (who is the director of Pure Hope) and a chap named Deon (who is the head of business development for Pretoria University).  We were discussing some of the tangible pieces each partner will bring to the table next year to implement a [...]

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when the purple flowers fall

This is the time of year when the Jacaranda trees of Pretoria bloom their beautiful purple flowers.  Every day, it seems the trees produce more flowers than they can hold, and the purple flowers fall to the ground leaving a purple carpet on the city.
But with when the purple flowers fall, so does the energy [...]

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the kid’s and Jesus

We’re getting into that phase of our kid’s lives where they’re starting to understand who Jesus is.  Well, at least Ezra’s getting there.  Yesterday at church, he made a cross with red string on it and said, “This is how Jesus died”.  Then it somehow turned into a rocket ship.  We think this might be [...]

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October Update

This month’s update involves a few key things.  First, we briefly describe (and show) what we’ve been busy with.  As we’ve written about here, Natalie and I have been working pretty closely with a partner ministry here in SA called Pure Hope.  We’re working hard on plans for next year and our big goal for [...]

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