Well, as the seasons change and you all wait with anticipation for the approaching summer, we sit anxiously awaiting the harsh southern winter. Yes that is right, we are on opposite seasons down here...July is the dead of winter!! Being so far south in the southern hemisphere we can look forward to Antarctic gales and tempests!!:( We have been watching the beauty of fall come over the land for a few weeks. The leaves have changed, the air has grown crisp, the cobras have gone into hibernation and the 100 degree weather has gone. Today, Mother Nature showed a sampling of her fierce southern winter side with some of the nastiest weather I can remember. The wind is howling, threatening to rip off anything that is not appropriately attached. The rain is falling horizontally giving even the Jackals of the field nowhere to hide from its wet grasp. I half expect any one of the Bridges Academy kids to get blown away anytime they run outside to their room to get something. As I sit in the comfort of the cement and mortar, architecturally sound office looking out the window admiring the beauty of Mother Nature's unrestrained ability to unleash her winter onslaught of wind and rain I cannot help but think of our friends in the townships.

With homes made of sheet metal and cardboard and roofs gingerly laid on top of the box house and held down by brick or tires or whatever else they can find how are they staying warm and dry? They aren't. If the wind has not blown their place down or apart, then the horizontal rain is coming in through the gap between roof and wall soaking the place like a fire sprinkler. If your house makes it past either of these then the rain draining down the hillside or off the streets is running under the walls of your house filling your floor with mud or water or worse.

How in the 21st century is this still possible? Not only that, but how is it still possible for such a large population of the world's human inhabitants? We have to do something. Take Burma for example. A cyclone has just recently hit there killing over 22,000 people with 41,000 more people missing!!! Katrina killed about 1,800 just to give you some perspective. The living conditions of many of the world's population are atrocious. I find that in everything we do here in South Africa my dependence on God becomes stronger and stronger. I ask a lot of whys and I want immediate answers but its not that easy. God usually answers with another question. I know I will be battling with questions like this for a long time coming. I do believe God is working in the people here though and that is very encouraging.

As you enter into the long, warm days of summer (except those of you in Portland...that is a few months more) I challenge you to think about, pray about and converse about the disadvantaged populations of the world who at that present moment may be melting in their home because of a lack of electricity and A/C or are soaking wet and freezing to death because of a lack of proper housing materials. The issues are much deeper than this but you have to start thinking about these things somewhere and once you open the flood gates you will not be able to close them again.