My Testimony

Sunset from Lion's Head over Cape Town -->

Hello again to everyone! Thanks so much for stopping by the blog. Today what I’m writing will be a little different than normal (and much more lengthy!). I was reading Donald Miller’s blog the other day and he mentioned a little contest, so I have decided to give it a go. The winner of this contest gets to attend a conference run by Don. The purpose of this conference is to learn how to live a better life/story. One may win the contest and attend the conference for free if they are chosen. Don and his staff will choose a winner based upon a blogger’s personal story and what he or she specifically wants to do with their future as well. This is what I plan on writing about today, so I hope you all enjoy! The video about the conference is below.

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

And here is the link to the website: www.donmilleris.com/conference

People remember stories. People are much more likely to remember a story which communicates a certain truth as opposed to simply a list of facts. It’s no wonder the Gospel is saturated with stories. These stories range from the Jesus’ many parables to the legendary history found in the Old Testament. The Bible is filled with stories because we can relate to them, because we can put ourselves in the place of the protagonist(s). We can cry, suffer, and rejoice with the character as the great stories of their lives play out in front of us. People read and hear these stories and are touched but too often people overlook the fact that our lives are also stories. Sometimes, we just become content with our day to day current situation and life. But lets try looking at our lives as stories instead. Stories that that people will want to tell others about and most importantly, stories that will point others toward the overarching and ever relevant story of the Gospel. This conference, as I see it, is about helping seemingly “normal” people strive to lead blessed and story filled lives that ultimately point towards the story of Jesus dying on the cross for all. People will hopefully look back on the story of our lives and see, not how we personally created our story, but rather how God worked through us to show his glory.

This is what I believe the famous stories of David and Goliath, Job, Esther, and Daniel all do. If you look at all of the heroes of the Old Testament, most have flaws. Moses was disobedient to the Lord’s command. Noah had trouble with alcohol. Samson and David were easily tempted. These examples go on and on. It all seems to say that even ordinary people can be used by the Lord. The stories of these peoples lives were so great that it was obvious the Lord worked in their lives. The more flawed we are as people, it seems the more God can show his glory through us.

At first, after looking at the number of comments already on Don’s blog I seriously considered just ignoring the possibility of winning. There were already 188 people that had entered and I thought that what I want to do with my life would be relatively boring compared to all these other people. But then I got to thinking about the purpose of living my life as a story. No one, including myself, is going to care about my story or remember my life if I don’t take risks and try things that aren't guaranteed. The foundation needed to live my life as a story to be remembered is to take risks, it is to do things that I would normally not do if I wanted to stay comfortable. But nobody tells the story of the dude who just sat in his room stuffing his face with Chinese food, playing Call of Duty while Facebook chatting with some other dudes playing Call of Duty stuffing their faces with Chinese food. So I decided to take a risk in writing this little bit of my personal story by putting it out there for others to read; and I decided to take a risk to be sitting where I am sitting right now.

I have been in Cape Town for about 9 weeks now. This is my second time out of the country (I had travelled to Mbeya, Tanzania with my father in High School but that’s a story for another time ;) and it was a fairly quick decision for me to come here. One day in the caf at my university, I heard my friend Justine talking about a mission trip to South Africa for the World Cup and I knew immediately that I was interested. I looked in to it a little more and I discovered the trip with my church was for only 10 days. I felt as though this would not be worth the amount of money I was paying for plane tickets for this short amount of time so I just decided to go for as long as I possibly could (this ended up being just over 10 weeks). I decided to go for 10 weeks so my time here would give me an opportunity to develop relationships with the locals and create not only interesting, but meaningful relationships and stories throughout the summer. Something I certainly would not have done a year earlier. Let me tell you why.

College.

Its a time of new beginnings and new ideas. I knew coming into college that I wanted to go into the ministry, as well as pursue a relatively easy major, so I decided to become a Religion major. Meaning I would focus on Biblical studies and dive into theology and become the perfect pastor kind of thing...

My first semester Sophomore year I began taking Hebrew and I took a class called “Studies in the Prophets.” The first day of the class I got into an argument with the professor about how Genesis 1 must be taken as scientifically accurate and it must be literal. You see, I thought the world must have been created in 6 days and that the world was only about 6,000 years old. I thought every word in the Bible was spelled correctly and everything about it was perfect in terms of grammar, science and chronology. Needless to say it was a very challenging semester. In fact, it was the first time in my life I began to care about my education and my understanding/view of the world. I began reading the Bible more closely (in Hebrew and English) and I also began considering what scientists were saying. I had always thought that science was set against Christianity and that the goal of modern science was to prove God non-existent. I read a lot of C.S. Lewis, some Stephen Hawking, a little Darwin, a little Einstein, and a bit of Augustine. Now, for those of you that know me well, you know that C.S. Lewis is my role model (aside, of course from Christ) and that I deeply respect all of his writing. I was reading Mere Christianity one day and something he wrote struck me.

He said essentially that it would be foolish for a person to choose Christianity if they believed the evidence for it was not good or absent. Hawking said the universe was actually about 14.5 billion years old and that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. (using plate tectonics, radiation aftermath, and many other means to support this) I read Dawkins and read some pretty interesting and possible stuff about evolution. I even heard Christian scientists say that the “theory of evolution” is a theory in the same sense as our “theory of germ infection” and our “theory of gravity.” I read Einstein and other reliable physicists who supported the above ideas. And then I read Augustine. Augustine said that one should follow the truth wherever it leads them. And if God is true then He will be shown to be true, since if God is the truth neither He nor us need to hide from it (meaning that I should not be intentionally ignorant of what science claims). So I considered all of these factors along with the problem of evil in the world and several additional major theological problems inherent in Christianity and I gradually lost my faith.

I will never forget the many sleep-deprived nights I used to argue with myself at lying in bed. I would lose hours and hours of sleep thinking about the above and much more. I wanted God to exist so badly and yet it seemed as if the “truth” was pointing away from God. I wanted to be honest with myself and “follow the truth wherever it may lead.” I will never forget the night I whispered to myself, so my roommate wouldn’t hear me, “I don’t believe in God. I really do not believe that God exists.” I don’t cry very often but I did that night. I cried that I had lost my faith. I did not cry because I thought that life was meaningless and that nothing would happen when I died. I didn’t cry because life was without purpose and I didn’t even cry because I no longer had a relationship with God. Quite the opposite! I actually thought it was pretty funny that humans, myself included, had tricked themselves into belief in God in order to create for themselves some kind of “hope” for the future. God was “the imaginary friend” that almost everyone sang to and prayed to but was never there.

Instead I cried because I felt I could no longer be the person I wanted to be or felt that I should be. I cried because I wanted to help people and give them a reason to hope and I felt I could not lie to them. I cried because I had wasted nearly two years of my college career on religious studies and now had to do something else with my life. I cried because I was afraid that my friends would find out and that they would reject me or judge me. I cried because I thought my unbelief would deeply hurt and disappoint my parents. All very selfish reasons honestly.

So I decided not to tell anyone about my unbelief. Not a single person. I lived this way for about 6 months that year. But I tell you the truth when I say that the things I cried about in the previous chapter hurt me very badly over the next 6 months. I still laid in bed for hours trying to argue why God does/should exist. I wanted him to exist but I couldn’t find the logical foundation for a belief in him.

I was never an atheist. Never will be. I was an agnostic. If I am ever to lose my belief in Jesus Christ as God or the existence of the Christian God I would never be an atheist. I feel, and have always felt, it a fairly illogical position. Let me explain briefly. The atheist (and I am stereotyping here) generally claims that belief in a God without proof is essentially silliness. Additionally, an atheist generally accepts modern science and attempts to use it as means to prove or disprove the existence of God. But the problem comes in here for me: Science can only “prove” something if it is able to be tested. The possibility that God exists cannot be tested (because it is a spiritual existence not necessarily a physical one) and therefore cannot be proven to be non-existent. So if science cannot prove or disprove God (however, it can and does give evidence for both sides of the argument) then there is some “belief” involved in the unbelieving atheist. You see, the common atheist says God doesn’t exist because it can’t be proven, but therein lies the problem in their position: God cannot be disproven either. Therefore there is some type of belief/faith involved in being an atheist. They don’t have absolute proof they just think they do. A Christian may also believe they have absolute proof but I would argue they probably don’t. I thought, and still believe today, that the most logical position on this issue is to be agnostic.

But as my life progressed that year I learned life is not all about logic (as much as I wish it was). You cannot prove logically that love exists. And it is a rare person indeed who would argue that love does not exist. And this idea led me to say that:

Logically, it seems that logic is not always logical.

Meaning logic tells me that logic cannot apply in all aspects of life (such as love or altruism) and it is therefore fairly illogical to attempt to use logic to explain the illogical.

Does this make any sense? If not, think about it... And if it still doesn’t then maybe I’m being illogical...

I then decided to read a bunch of books trying to find a way to logically regain my faith, allowing for the possibility of being illogical as just discussed. I read everything from Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator (which was scientifically terrible) to The Reason for God by Tim Keller to The Language of God, by the head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins. And aside for the pretty conservative arguments (like The Case for a Creator) these books and books like them helped establish a logical foundation for a belief in a deity. Even Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, believe there is a strong scientific argument for the existence of a god and not only that but it seems as though Hawking would say there probably is a some kind of deity out there. It also encouraged me to read intelligent people who believed in God and Christ as his son, like Francis Collins. It encouraged me to read C.S. Lewis give his account of what the story of Adam and Eve may have been like if God did in fact use evolution as a means to his creation (Yes, he did this. It’s in the Problem of Pain). I discovered that smart people can believe in God. It no longer seemed intellectual suicide to believe in Christianity and science. I won’t go into the specifics on my beliefs about science and Christianity since that is not the point of this story. I will just say this: You can be a genuine Christian and think the world is a little older than 6,000 years, you can be a Christian if you believe much of what modern science teaches is correct, and contrastingly, I also believe you can be a Christian if you think that science is the enemy of Christianity (as naive as I believe that may be). I do believe you are fooling yourself if you say that God could not have used a certain method or a certain process in creation. You would be limiting not only your thinking but also His power. I say this not to offend you but to encourage you. And, of course, I may be completely wrong on all of this!

Ok, back to the story...

At this point, I now had the logic basis for belief in Christianity but was lacking the experiential basis for belief. I don’t think that every case one is saved by a prayer to Jesus asking him into his or her heart during an emotionally driven service at a Christian youth camp in middle school. That may be the case for some but it seems as if that is not the case for all. I know my faith did not just reappear instantly when I prayed that prayer... And prayed it again.... And again... And again. There was not tree of faith that instantly sprung up in my life, rather, it was a process. Like a seed planted in the ground that sprouts and slowly grows root by root and branch by branch until it becomes a tree. And such was the story of my newfound faith. The logical foundation was my seed and the Christians I met during the summer of 2009, who discipled me, helped my seed grow a little bit and over the course of that summer at “Beach Project” and the following year, with a few droughts here and there, I have continued to grow my tree of faith. Praise God.

So now it has been just over a year since that seed was planted and has continued to grow. This past two months I have spent in Cape Town has caused my faith to be seriously challenged and in the process, greatly strengthened. I heard someone famous, whom I can’t remember, say: “A fire tested faith is a strong faith.” I fight doubt and belief every single day of my life (often on an hourly basis) and it often makes life miserable. But I hold on to the Lord and trust that in the end he will use the time I have spent in torment over these beliefs to increase and strengthen my faith.

Don and friends, that is my story. I apologize for its length (and believe it or not, it is a shortened version)! As far as my future story, I have long term plans and short term. Long term I want to get my doctorate in theology and then in cosmology so I can travel the country speaking to college students and others that have doubts or questions about the Christian faith. I plan on using my knowledge of the Bible and theology combined with knowledge of modern science and physics to show and encourage others to consider the realistic possibility that there is, in fact, a God. And if there is a God that designed the universe with just the perfect conditions in order for life to exist, He might even care enough to come down and spend some time with us. Then again that is very long term and my life certainly may not head in that direction but I’ll go where God leads and I’m not too worried about it!

As far as short term goals. I am heading into my final year in college as a fourth year religion major. I plan on getting involved in my local Campus Outreach and working with our Religion Department at my school to organize group or individual meetings where new religion majors or any who have legitimate doubts about Christianity can come and talk to someone who can relate.

The real reason I cried that night was simply because I was alone. I had no one I could talk to about it. I couldn’t tell my friends my doubts and questions because I didn’t want to cause them to doubt their faith. I was so jealous of what I saw as their ignorance. I just wanted someone to talk to about my doubts and I had absolutely no one to speak with. If I could have merely spoken some of my doubts to someone who could relate to me, I may not have lost my faith and had these hellish debates and wars with myself every night of my life for months. I want to give these slightly younger people someone they can talk to about their doubts and someone they can open up to about their problems with Christianity. I heard somewhere that 75% percent of Christians lose their faith coming out of High School and into College. For those that study the both the Bible and science closely, I’m sure the statistics are much worse.

I want to use my next couple of years to prevent this type of thing. I want to work though individuals doubts and fears and point them to a God who accepts and understands their doubts. A God who allows us to be tested for the betterment of ourselves and those around us. And finally, a God who will love and accept us whether or not we have a perfect theology or understanding of science. This is my story. My story that I hope will point towards the much greater and overarching story of the Gospel. I’m sure that attending this conference would be of great benefit in helping me discover more specific ways to make my story greater and, at the same time, more transparent. Transparent in the sense that they would not see my story as a story about me, but rather a story which inevitably point towards Christ’s influence in my life.

Like I said before, I almost did not enter this story in the contest because I’m sure there are many other great and unique stories out there to choose from. But making my life story interesting means taking risks like telling everyone who reads this blog my testimony which I often hesitate to tell. My story is simple and my goal is clear. Thank the Lord that the gospel is as well. His story is simple and his goal is unequivocally clear. I only hope that through this story and my stories to come that I can clearly reflect the overarching story of the Christ.

For those of you who are here read more about my trip, I will have an update about the previous week here at Living Grace and Ocean View as soon as I get the chance!

Love you and thanks for your prayer and support!

Josh Sheppard

Quick update!

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog once again after a fairly long break since the last post. I have been working on a much longer post sharing my testimony which I still need to touch up a bit. That will be next time! So it has been quite awhile since the last post and I apologize for that!

As far as what I am up to currently, I have continued to work with the homeless at Living Grace in the mornings and with my kids in Ocean View in the afternoons. If you happened to read my previous post you know a lot about what goes on during my time at Living Grace and at Kids Club. I have been asked to speak to the people at Living Grace several times now. This consists of preparing some kind of sermon-like message about 15-20 minutes long for about 50 people. It has been a wonderful opportunity to share a little more of myself with the people there and it has been great practice for preaching on short notice in the future. On Monday I was asked to speak about 5 minutes before everyone arrived... Great practice!

It was a little unsettling to have to intelligently speak for such a period of time on such a short notice but I felt as if it was the most relevant and quality message I delivered. I’m not really sure if its a good thing that I speak better with less preparation than with hours of it... It is so true that preachers often need to hear and learn from what they are speaking about than their audience. It has been such a blessing to have to dive into God’s word on a regular basis searching and listening to what He might have to say. I just hope I can communicate it in a somewhat understandable and interesting manner!

Many of my friends/volunteers have now left S.A. and are back in the States... And yesterday we returned the car we have been renting for two months. Life is much different now. There is a lot less to do but at least I have plenty of time to read. I read Letters From Iwo Jima and am now worried I may run out of books before heading back home! Buying new books here is a major expense. For example, I was planning on reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom, until I saw the price. It was 302 rand... Which is about 45$. -- 45$ for a book!-- I’m sure you are not surprised to learn that I decided to read something else!

My time with the kids in the afternoons has continued to be great! I really love playing soccer with them every day before we start our lessons. It is my rare opportunity to do some kind of exercise here! The worship, singing, and dancing before the Bible story has also produced some of my favorite moments during my time here! The weather has been much warmer here as of late, which is a real blessing. I can’t stand the cold and I can’t wait to get back to the hot summer weather!

On a very positive note: All of the money has finally been raised to cover this trip! It took longer than I had hoped but I am so thankful to my God, church, parents, grandmother, and all of you who have done so much for me, not just financially but also in thoughtful prayer! I know I could not have experienced what I have experienced and be where I am right now with out all of the above!

New blog post coming soon!

God Bless,

Josh Shep

Living Grace

Hello to everyone who actually reads this little blog, thanks so much for checking it out once again! The past week has been such a blessing and I’m looking forward to sharing just a little bit of it with you over the next couple of paragraphs.

Now that our four week “holiday club” is finally over, things are a lot less stressful! Instead of spending about 5-6 hours a day with the kids, whether playing soccer or doing crafts and stories, we only meet from about 3-5 everyday. The kids are now back in school and it is a nice change to have a little more time to be apart of other forms of ministry while down here. This past week, and for the rest of my time here, I have been assigned to work for Living Grace. Living Grace is a homeless center here just outside of Cape Town. My day consists of waking up at around 6:45, grabbing a shower then heading over to the center where we start singing and devotions at around 8:15. After finishing up at Living Grace we grab lunch and then head over to Ocean View where I get to spend more time with the awesome kids there.

When I started this past Tuesday, I was surprised to see and hear all of these homeless people singing hymns and praising God before their breakfast. I’m sure that the main reason any of these men and women come to the homeless shelter is because of the free food, but who can blame them? But the thing is they don’t have to sing, yet many of them choose to and boy do they sing. It surely isn’t the best singing you’ve ever heard but it is certainly entertaining. We have about 25-35 people that join us in the morning for devotions and breakfast, then about 50 people that join us for lunch. In between serving the people breakfast and then serving them lunch, much of the time we spend preparing the food for lunch. I am getting so very good at chopping up onions, potatoes, meat, you name it! I am pretty much the only guy volunteer working at Living Grace that the men can talk to, so I’m usually the guy they talk to if they need someone to talk to. I have certainly had some interesting conversations ranging from the spiritual to the down right crazy (not everyone is 100% here mentally).

My first morning at Living Grace I got to pray with one man. It was one of the first times this trip I had the opportunity to pray with another man who could actually understand what I was saying (at least it felt like many of the kids did not understand!). What a blessing it is that I am even able to pray for others and to have God work through my speech to heal and encourage many who are in fairly desperate situations. I am just so thankful I have had this opportunity. This morning I got to speak to all of the homeless people there as part of the morning devotion. I got completely lost in my notes and basically rambled for 10-15 minutes but I trust that God can and did use all my mess ups and lapses of memory to communicate something important and encouraging to some of those people. This past week at Living Grace has been all about building relationships with the men and women who volunteer, work, or simply visit Living Grace everyday. It has really been such a wonderful thing to be a part of and I look forward to developing many of these relationships over the next couple of weeks that I have left here.

Please pray that God presents opportunities for His word to be shared with the people at Living Grace and that He can find a way to use my ministry to the betterment of His commission. Thank you once again for all of your prayer and support!

Jshep

A Brighter Corner

Hello again everyone! Last time I wrote you, I talked briefly about some of the unpleasant realities many people have to live with down here. I wrote that often times life feels hopeless and that is still true. But I hope that simply because we see the problem of poverty, AIDs, and sex trafficking as too big for us to handle, it doesn’t mean that with Gods help we can’t make progress. My dad tells me my grandfather always used to say: “we can’t make the entire world a better place but we can make our corner a little bit brighter.” And if everyone starts making their corner a little brighter then there is hope for the world. Today I’ll share with you a couple opportunities God has blessed me with to make this corner of the world just a little bit brighter.

Two fridays ago I was given the opportunity to do something called Samaritans Feet. Samaritans Feet is an organization that provides disadvantaged kids with shoes along with the presentation of the Gospel. When the day began, I was placed in the “story” section. The kids would have to go through a couple stations before they received their shoes and the story section came right after the registration table. I had the chance to share this story with several groups of kids as they came through.

--This is much abbreviated--

The story was about a man named Manny. Manny was a poor kid who lived in Kenya (I think) when one day some Christians came to his village. They started basketball clinics in his area where he learned what basketball was and eventually, how to play it. But Manny had no shoes. This often made it difficult for him to play. At the end of their clinics the Christians gave him and all the other kids shoes, along with the message of Jesus. It was here that Manny began his relationship with Jesus and found hope in those shoes, since they were his first pair. He then grew to love basketball and used his new shoes everyday to practice and eventually got very good. So good, in fact, he received a scholarship to play college ball back in the States. He used this opportunity to get a business degree and became very wealthy. God then used Manny to use his wealth to do the same for other children.

And to conclude the story we would say something like: “And Manny has provided the shoes which you are going to receive today because of the hope these shoes represented in his life found in our Savior Jesus Christ. Manny was a poor kid who thought he had no future but Christ used him to accomplish great things and these shoes represent that same hope you can have in Christ for your dreams.”

(and this was not the “prosperity gospel” either, for those of you who know how much I hate that)

After telling the story several times, I then received an even greater opportunity to wash the kids feet and to talk with them one on one. Washing the kids feet was more for the symbolism than for cleanliness. Although, it is true that many of these kids hadn’t taken a shower/bath for good while. I’m not a big fan of feet honestly. Especially dirty ones. So it was a little out of my comfort zone for me to go and touch these kids dirty, smelly, feet! But I don’t think I’ll forget the experience.

While washing their feet we were to ask them questions. Questions like: “What story did you just hear? What did you think about Manny? What kinds of dreams do you have (which often resulted in them telling me about their dreams when they sleep and not for the future!)?” And then asking them about Jesus. Many of the kids were too young or shy to talk to me, but there were several who were able to.

I remember asking this one girl what her dreams were and she said that she wanted to be a waitress. I responded by saying that I used to work at a restaurant last summer and then proceeded to ask her which/what type of restaurant she would like to work in. She responded by saying: “I have never been to a restaurant but they sound like they would be a great place.” It caught me a little off guard, and I’m not really sure why it did, but it still did. I was surprised to know that this 13-15 year old girl had never been to a restaurant in her entire life. I had probably been to five in the past week! The things I take for granted...

I did get to share the gospel with these kids one on one for the first time since I’ve been here and that was a real gift. I enjoyed asking them who Jesus was and having almost every single one of them point up to the sky. “Yes, He is the Son of God,” I would say, “but he’s not just up there, he is right here next to us.” I even got a little choked up when I told this one boy about how the God who created him and knew him before he was born loved him so much that he would come down out of paradise to be executed on the cross for his sake. I thought about how beautiful the idea is, how beautiful that reality is, and now I think about the hope that this means for the kids here who suffer like my friend Jason (who I wrote about in the last post). --his picture in a "protection vest" is to the left-- We can’t fix the world but we can make our corner a little brighter. And the looks I saw on so many of those kids faces confirms that light in my heart and in theirs. Thank God for that.

Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John that He is the “light of the world.” I am so blessed to see that light in those kids smiles. Jesus says that no one lights a lamp only to put it under a cover. As followers of Jesus Christ, we have this light inside of us, found in the Holy Spirit’s presence, which should never be covered. We are to be like this lit lamp, a fire burning in the darkness for the Lord. But if our fire is placed under a cover, it while inevitably be choked of oxygen and fade. But when uncovered and placed near others it catches the others on fire and spreads uncontrollably. I pray that we chose to spread our fire rather than choke it. Lets live as lights and make our little corner, wether it be in Cape Town or Birmingham, shine a little brighter.

God Bless,

Jshep

The Lord is Our Refuge

“Dear Father, please protect the children in Ocean View and the surrounding areas. Don’t let the children’s abusers even think about using them physically, mentality, and especially sexually. God, I hate that these kids are suffering the things they do and I pray that you shield them from it. I pray that you convict those who do it and encourage the kids who are abused to tell someone about it. I can’t really even describe the hatred and sadness that flooded my heart when I saw Jason this morning. Protect him. Protect these kids so they don’t grow up and carry the same acts to others in their future. I pray for those who do these things, because I don’t know what may have happened in their past to scar them in such a way they have now grow to be so full of perversion and evil. Father, give the kids the strength to endure and to shield themselves with their faith and reliance in you. Never leave them. Holy Spirit you can do all things, so please be the ultimate comforter and enduring crutch. Jesus hold them in your arms as they should be held. And Father show them how a true father should act. Protect them tonight and always. Amen.”

Guys, aside from the occasional break, its been an energy draining and stressful month here. But so rewarding. Tonight I prayed a similar prayer to the one above and I can’t really capture in words how consumed with hatred I was this morning when I heard that a kid, Jason, had hickeys all over him. The rest of what happened and commonly happens here I will spare you of the details. I’m guessing he is about 5 or 6 years old and he is a sweet kid. Crap like this happens commonly here and I miss or rarely notice it. Many of these kids suffer from infant alcoholism syndrome (which produces physical and mental defects), HIV, physical and sexual abuse, and much much more. Sometimes I get frustrated with a certain kid or two and have even noticed myself being a little happy when one kid decided not to show up to Kids Club one morning because he was such a problem the day before. But the sobering reality is that I have no idea what lead that kid to develop such behavioral issues or what may have prevented them from coming that morning. Jason experienced more trauma yesterday than I have in my entire life. This morning helped me realize how important much of the work we are doing here is. We are simply getting many kids out of their miserable home situations. No matter how lame the songs and dancing may be at kids club it is immeasurably better than what happens all to often to these kids.

This morning and this evening as I am writing this, life feels hopeless. You want to trust in God but things like this make me doubt. I wish I could come up with some awesome solution to why God allows these things to happen but another sobering reality is that there is no definite answer this side of eternity. I trust God though and do my best to believe that He will rescue humanity from themselves. But if I truly believe this, I and these kids, have a reason to hope. It sounds cliche, but as genuine Christians we should know to seek refuge in our Father. Jesus Christ really is the only hope for this world that has often gone to hell. Today has shown me that. If there is no God, and Jesus was just a nice guy that got carried away with himself, then life is a cruel joke. Everything is hopeless and meaningless. The gospel was written in vain and my and your existence is utterly void of meaning or purpose.

But thank the Lord, our Father, for Christ. With Him life couldn’t be more meaningful. The Gospel is not a collection of vain and meaningless attempts to invent one’s own worth. Christ was not a liar. Christ was not a Lunatic (just read through the gospels and you will discover this). Christ is one with the Father (Jn. 10:30) and invites us to be with them. The Lord is a strong tower and the righteous man finds refuge in Him. I realize that this post isn’t the most encouraging or uplifting post ever but tonight I chose to be real with those of you who read this. This is very serious and these kinds of things simply cannot be ignored because they make us uncomfortable to speak of. Being comfortable is something we as Americans easily become contented with. But it breaks my heart to know that this stuff is happening 10 minutes away from me this very moment and I am powerless to stop it. The Lord is their refuge. Everyone, please pray for these kids and their protection, not because I am asking you to, but because your heart cares for them. My heart breaks for Jason and those like him. Pray for him and others if yours does too. I doubt the Lord desires our half-hearted prayers. These are real people living real lives and just because we live thousands of miles or 10 minutes from them doesn’t make a shred of a difference. I dread the day I become contented in my comfort again, caught up in the hassles of life, and act as if this doesn’t happen to thousands (maybe more) every single night we lay down to sleep. Thanks be to God that we can take heart because our Savior, Jesus Christ, has already overcome the world (John 16:33)!

Thank you for your heartfelt prayers and love,

Josh Shep

“The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in Him.”

Ps. 37:40

The Beautiful Game pt.2

Wow, it is pretty hard to believe that an entire week ago I was getting ready to leave for my first World Cup game in Port Elizabeth. Time just flies by here! In order to go to that game, my two friends, Ronnie, Justine, and I had to drive approximately 8-10 hours across what is called the “Garden Route.” This is a famous and scenic drive across the coast, mountains, and flats of South Africa. I don’t think I will ever forget portions of that drive. It was certainly the most beautiful road trip I’ve ever been apart of. But then again I usually just drive from MD to AL! The drive went very well and was surprisingly easy not only enduring the amount of time it took but to find where we were staying.... Well almost surprisingly easy to find where we were staying. Actually now that I’ve written that, I’m wrong, it wasn’t very easy at all! After dropping Ronnie off a hostile in Jeffery’s Bay (one of the more famous surfing places in the world) me and Justine had yet another adventure in a foreign and unknown city in a rental car! After driving through and out of P.E. for about 30 km or so we realized we had missed the entire city... Yes the city. We drove into, through, and out of it without realizing we were out of the city for 10 minutes. Thus began a long journey of calling the people we were staying with and stopping a local petrol stations which all eventually led to our safe arrival in P.E.

We were staying with the grandparents of some missionaries Justine knew from her past in the mission field. Very random but awesome at the same time. We got to stay in an absolutely beautiful apartment where they were living. It was a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment, so we slept in the living room. This is the view that we had from the window though! We could even see Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium from it! And we got to stay with this lovely couple, who even made us breakfast in the mornings, all for free! On Saturday morning Justine and I got to explore some of the city. Thankfully we were staying within easy walking distance of the boardwalk. So we walked around for a couple hours and had an awesome lunch with a view of the ocean for around 9$. Good deal my friends.

And then it was game time. When we first arrived in Cape Town a bunch of us decided that we wanted to go to a World Cup game since we are here during the World Cup. Easy decision. We ended up getting Category 1 tickets at around the 60 yard line, only 18 rows up. I will never ever forget walking into that stadium for the first time. Truly unforgettable. The game was between Uruguay and South Korea and the atmosphere was like I was dreaming. 40,000 people who wanted to watch, talk about, and blast their vuvuzelas as much as I did! Still seems pretty surreal. I have tons of pictures and videos of the match but I can’t really upload those until I get home in August. Later that night we went to an “American Diner” where we watched the U.S. v Ghana game and I ordered two meals again. I eat much more than average person and my roommates constantly remind me of this fact! I’m going to be so fat when I am older...

The U.S. ended up losing to Ghana and I wanted to cry. Not really, but it was pretty disappointing. I guess I’ll cheer for Ghana now since they are the only African team left and it would be great to see this continent

rally around those guys. The next morning we all got up and headed back towards Cape Town, but we had to make one stop. This stop was so that a couple of my friends could jump off the worlds largest bungie. Pretty insane. I wish I could have done it, and I most certainly would have if it were cheaper! The jump is around 900(?) ft I believe. Just crazy stuff my friends. After my

friends jumped from the bridge on your right we continued our journey back home where I saw one of the most stunning things I have ever seen. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror.

Actually I saw the moon rise out of the flats in the dark night. The moon was as yellow as the sun but obviously not as bright. It really did look like cheese, but so much more astounding. It is really indescribable and I can’t really say much more than that. I just kept looking and staring at it for as long as I could. Unforgettable. I didn’t even try to get a picture of it because it wouldn’t even begin to capture it.

The thing I most regret about this trip was not bringing a high quality camera. I have a little handheld thing but I wish I would have done everything I could (loan from the bank or something!) so I could capture these types of moments. They happen all the time here and I always have to miss them. The whole ride back, I wished I had this camera so I could show you how beautiful it was because it was truly a blessing from God for me to see it. And yes I just talked about how yellow the moon was for a couple paragraphs and how it was a blessing. Cheesy huh? (pardon the pun ;)

So on Tuesday morning I got a call. It was someone offering me a ticket to that night’s game in Cape Town. It was the game between Spain and Portugal! Two of the top teams in the world were playing that night and I got a fairly cheap ticket to go with some friends from church. I couldn’t turn it down, sorry Mom and Dad! We were dropped off in down town Cape Town and got to walk the Fan Mile all the way to the stadium. The Fan Mile is this exhilarating walk with thousands of soccer fans down a street with music blasting and parades. Just classic. After a fairly stressful wait in the security line we made it to the stadium. We walked in as the flags were coming out for the opening ceremony. The stands were already filled when we got there, and since we were sitting towards the top of the stadium I got to see how gorgeous the whole thing was. The atmosphere was even better than the Uruguay v S. Korea game

that I went to. The fans were insane and the vuvuzelas never stopped. I even got a chance to be a part of the massive wave that was going around the stadium. I am incredibly thankfully that I got to be there for that game with 62,000 other soccer fans. At half time we moved down to the first category hoping to sit in some empty seats, and we did. We ended up seated at around the top of the Spanish box where I was less than a hundred yards from Ronaldo. He stood there the whole time and occasionally walked. (See picture on right) I booed at him the whole time and loved watching every minute of that game. He proved to the world and himself, that night, that he is not the best player in the world.

So there you go. An unforgettable weekend and Tuesday night. Don’t worry I’m still doing mission work down here, just have the weekend and some nights to explore this incredible country. I love it here. I could live here. Mom and Dad, I am transferring to Cape Town University! -- Just kidding.

Tomorrow we are doing something called Samaritans Feet. Where the kids that regularly come to Holiday Club will receive the Gospel and a pair of brand new shoes. I will be washing their feet and handing them new shoes. I am truly blessed to be a part of this kind of thing. Please pray that God works tomorrow through me and through everyone participating. Thank you so much for your love and support! I’ll let you know how it goes!

God Bless,

Josh