As Steve shared with us some of the political battles that his party was fighting for, based on Biblical values (e.g. upholding child spanking, restrictions on abortions, etc.), it was encouraging to see how even this small number of people (4 out of 400 members of Parliament) were having a major leadership impact in the direction of South Africa. Just the image of this beachhead for God in the midst of the country’s political process was a powerful reminder of the presence of God’s church, even in small numbers (Matt 18: 19-20).

During the course of our day, we also held “visioning” sessions for many of the clients. This included time of intercessory prayer as well as seeking God’s vision for these leaders’ lives and their businesses. This was such an impressive time of just being able to witness God’s desire to direct and be involved with the details our lives. It would have been easy to come into these sessions as the consultant with a well thought out and spiffy plan to help the business. But the real impact happens when we wait on God’s input and revelation. Often it can lead in the opposite direction we would have expected (such as expanding a client’s vision vs focusing it), or even more awesome is God revealing a personal or relational insight that has far more important implications for the leader’s impact than anything related to the business.

In several cases, we had what seemed to us highly productive visioning sessions, only to experience a brief word or picture from God at the end that had an impact to the client that dwarfed all that we had discussed the hour before. This experience just profoundly reinforces a message that I heard most well put by Martin Luther, “I have so much to do today, that I need to spend the first 3 hours with the Lord.” Basically, that one clear word from God can have more impact on our lives than a whole day full of words from our own logic or abilities.

            We had hard work to do today because of the heightened awareness that the client presentations are due on Friday.  That is now just four days away.  Since clients are required to focus and produce a written document for their presentation the time for discussion, analysis, debate and consternation are over.  It’s time to put things in writing and move forward.  We don’t know how long the Trinity “purposed” the universe or discussed the positioning, place, presence or profit before the creation.  But God did in fact finally speak.  And now is the time for our clien ts to create and bring forth.  For this reason there is a new atmosphere in the conference room and as Brett, Doug, Lynn, and of course God drive us to the finish line it seems that the Holy Spirit is hearing from everybody at once.  It’s very nice, and comforting to know He is not constrained by bandwidth issues, storage capacity or CPU time to respond to all of the needs.

            Please pray then especially for endurance and strength for all involved.  Extra measures of the fruit of the Spirit are always needed and I thank you all for reading this and caring enough to listen to the needs of a distant land, a distant people and a distant problem.   If we really are able to help then jobs will be produced, books will be published, water will be purified, (to name a few of the businesses we are re-purposing).  Lives will be changed, jobs will be created and crime will go down, hence a safer place just to name one kingdom impact.  My own clients’ hope is that HIV/AIDS will be prevented on a massive scale through the publication of a very sp ecial book about love.  The book is aimed at young people 11-15 who are just now becoming sexually active.  Sadly, sex (that often leads to death) is to many the only relief these people have from the desperateness that is their daily life.  We appreciate your support in building God’s kingdom around these unfortunate people.

We’ve been working with clients for a week now on repurposing their businesses.  We’ve had the honor and privilege to be part of their lives, and it’s a wonderful experience!  Carl, Mark, Natalie and I have been discussing Carl and Mark’s business.  We’ve been listening to their beautiful vision of caring for families through their businesses.  When they design a house, they look at how family relationships would work in that design.  And when they have customers in their water park, they think of how to serve that family and help maintain their relationships.  Their vision is to provide an atmosphere of love towards the families, so the environment can be inviting for healthy relationships.  It’s an amazing experience to work with people who care about what God cares about.  They care about their community and care about partnering with others in the community.  When they work with investors, they work towards a common goal of family care and community health.

Over the weekend, we had the opportunity to visit great sites that reminded us of God’s creation and beauty all around.  We visited Cape Point, the [almost] most southern of tip of Africa!  It was a beautiful site of water, mountains, green, whales, and much more!  What was even better was the fellowship as a team.  We had a great day together refreshing from a hard week of work.  We enjoyed the company of each other built stronger relationships with each other as a team.  We also had a great seafood lunch right by the ocean, actually, where the two oceans meet!  The Atlantic and the Indian oceans!

On Friday, we were also blessed by visits from previous clients. We got to hear about how their businesses have been affected and what the most important changes were. Hearing from previous clients is also really encouraging because it shows us the impact the work we are doing here can have.

My client is making a documentary about a man named Ntsikana who came from the Xhosa tribe in East Africa. He was the earliest known tribesman from the Eastern Cape to convert to Christianity. For our off-site day we decided to go to the nearby town of Stellenbosch to have lunch and enjoy the scenery while we brainstormed. Stellenbosch, just thirty minutes from Cape Town is the oldest town in South Africa and is a lively university town. We found a beautiful restaurant to have lunch in and after arriving discovered it was built on top of the remains of the oldest church in South Africa, established in 1666. It was destroyed by a fire in the mid 1700’s. In the basement of this restaurant is a glass case protecting those first bricks. It was in this historic spot where so many prayers have been prayed hundreds of years before that we had the opportunity to pray and ask God to bless this effort to tell this man’s story. The hope of our client is that her documentary will bring many more people to Christ and to a deeper respect and understanding of the tribal people.

Today was also a day of transition where issues that were initially brought to light from the surface, were revisited at a deeper level, more personal and real.

Many breakthroughs occurred during the scorecarding sessions and the many intercession prayers. Through several dreams that occurred a week before the venture, one of the clients received the revelation regarding a new product that is now in prototype model.

At the end of the day we went to Blouberg beach to go for a walk and watch the sunset. Another one of the many gorgeous sites in Capetown!

Today marked the first time that the consultants met with their South African counterparts and clients. It was very evident that God had his hand in matching not only the clients’ business needs with consultants’ expertise, but also their personalities and past work histories.

We currently have 10 clients that range from a billon dollar construction and development company to a start-up water purification company whose founder designed a completely organic water purification process based on what he had heard from the Holy Spirit. Today’s client training dove straight into the material, emphasizing that the client’s business is not separate from their ministry and going over the 10-P profile. The 10-P profile is business analysis tool which covers ten segments of a client’s business. Brett and Lyn Johnson, the founders of REP, along with Doug and Bart, this venture’s leaders, spent most of the day teaching the clients about what God wants to do with their businesses—to reach and influence the unsaved at all levels of society by transforming businesses. As Brett has shown us from the Bible, God wants to use business peoples’ skills to transform society by reaching segments of population, primarily business people, who would normally never be reached by today’s current evangelistic methods.

The first P of the 10-P profile that we are reviewing with our clients is Purpose. Since the framework of the client’s ability to transform a society depends on their ability to crystallize their personal purpose as well as business purpose, much time was spent today talking with the clientele on how they want to see their businesses glorify God. We are constantly praying and asking for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to give us as the consultant wisdom and for God to transform the hearts of the clients. We wait in anticipation to see how the Spirit will move in both the lives of the consultants as well as the clients, and are grateful for the opportunity to serve God is this beautiful county.