• The way the clients came in at the last minute, yet they were all hand-picked. Each had an appointment with God, and they were there.
• There was a distinct blurring of the lines between “consultant” and “client” and “intercessor” and “team leaders” — three consultants came back as clients. Past clients were there as consultants. Team leaders were consulting. Intercessors were clients. etc.
• There was lots of potential synergy between the clients — many of them could work with and learn from each other going forward.
• We had a surprise appointment in Alexandra, a community that has enormous issues and opportunities. Randy Leuning led a team to put together a model for a practical business incubator around the construction industry. Jackie Loatle presented on the last day, and there is potential for an effective Community Track in Alex.
• There were what you could call the “normal miracles” that took place: lives were radically transformed by the truth of the gospel of the kingdom and the love and service of the team; property deals came through miraculously; funding was released to some clients; marriages were strengthened as more than one person discovered that their spouse was their best business partner; etc. etc.

My profound thanks to the team for all they did to make this an important Venture. What a joy it is to stand on the last day and witness the deep transformation in the lives of leaders that we know will reverberate through their businesses, their households and beyond.

Brett Johnson

The only set appointment for the day was our visioning meeting with Brett Johnson scheduled for 2:00 PM.  Since we had done so well on yesterday’s Ps, my client Ann and I decided to give ourselves a work-free morning.  She picked me up at 8:00 AM and we headed to the Nelson Mandela square for (half) a day of relaxing and shopping.  Nelson Mandela Square is near a big shopping center called Sadton City Mall.  The statue itself is massive, 6 meters tall and 2.3 meters wide (elbow to elbow).  The shopping experience was fun, relaxing and I managed to spend all my budget!  :).  Rory, my counterpart South African consultant joined us at the B&B, and following lunch we went in for our visioning session with Brett.  The visioning session brought in much needed clarity around Positioning and Profit strategies.  We continued working on the scorecard for some time until we were satisfied with the progress for the day and Ann was ready to go home.

Tomorrow I’m speaking on The Wedding Banquet parable (Mt 22:1-14) as it relates to PLACE.  Only a few days left to our venture now…  I know I will miss this place, the people, the experience.  It’s so awesome to see the gifting God has placed in each of us and how these giftings are used for His glory.

Blessings,
Elisabeta

In today’s training session, we covered three of the 10-P’s:  Profit, Planning and Partnering.  The Partnering section included a touching video on Team Hoyt (www.teamhoyt.com), a father/son team who have competed together in hundreds of marathon events since around 1980.  What makes the story compelling is that Rick, the son, cannot walk or talk, and so his father Dick pushes and pulls him through all of the marathon events.  There were many aspects of Partnering which the clients observed in the video.  For one client, seeing the father push the son down the road helped the client gain a new understanding of his role as a “Junior Partner” with God, the true Owner of his business.

At the end of the day, we got a “sneak preview” of Place, one of the 10-P’s which we will cover in depth on Wednesday.  A former equip client discussed the importance of Place in any business, and she talked how about the equip consultation helped her discover God’s Kingdom purpose for herself and for her interior design company.  She encouraged the current clients to persevere through the end of the consultation, as the benefits are well worth the effort.

Points for prayer:

• For God’s leading as each client continues to work on strategies for bringing his or her company more in alignment with God’s will.
• For some health issues which are impacting the leader of the South African team and his family
• For two sets of meetings which the clients and consultants will be having tomorrow (Tuesday).  There will be Visioning meetings (where each client seeks to discern God’s long-term vision for his or her organization), as well as prayer meetings with our wonderful Intercessors.

More things you should know if you come to South Africa:

• “Pack up” = To stop working, break down.  Example:  “His dishwasher packed up.”
• “Diarise” = To put something in one’s calendar.  This is a very efficient term, so I think I will try to introduce it in the States.
• “Strong” = “Well” or “physically healthy.”  How this term might be used:  Just theoretically, let’s say someone on the team (we’ll call him Tom) was a little under the weather last Wednesday the 13th.  On the 14th (and on subsequent days), some of the South Africans might say to him, “Are you strong, Tom?”  But this is totally theoretical.

God bless,
Tom Sweet

The team went to “His People” Church this morning.  It would be equivalent to a neighborhood church in an America - with an African twist.  It was family Sunday so entire families were worshipping and praying together. Worship was intoxicating – the children’s pastor and kids led the songs (complete with hand motions and dance moves) and the entire congregation joined in.  The head pastor is American.  It was odd to hear an American accent, especially from the pulpit!  It was nice - I could relax a bit and not have to work as hard to understand what was being said!

This afternoon the team had options.  Several went to the Alexandra Township to work on a project while the rest went to experience an open-air African market.  I, on the other hand, took a well needed nap!

This evening we had dinner at a South African’s home.  Brenda led us through the Jewish Sabbath ceremony; a time of prayer, reflection and rest.  It was a great way to ready ourselves for the week ahead.  The food was good too – I am becoming partial to the way fish is prepared here…and Mom, they had broccoli salad!  Gran would be proud!

Tomorrow starts our final week of the venture and we are covering three “P’s”.  Pray for us as we grapple to hear from God and deliver to our clients what they need.  Thank you for your support!

Dena

We then went to have authentic African food at a place called Moyos. It was a real treat.They had servers in African wears and also a live band that played incredible music from many parts of Africa. We were able to dine with consultant Dave Porter and his wife Sarah, Jessica Pillay, a client.in this venture after partnering with me on the last venture in March here. We also had Karabo, another SA consultant join us. And finally we had Brenda de Charmoy join with us.She is also a former consultant, now a client. 
 

We had great food and  we also went as a group onto the dance floor and tried to keep up with th Africans. We sure were a site to see, but we had so much fun. We will go to church with Brenda in the morning. Thanks for supporting us in prayer.
 
Robert Ricciardelli

By 8:30 we were off, a bit like greyhounds at the races, consultants greeting clients who had arrived and South African consultants coming to pick up their U.S. counterparts to head out to client sites for the day. My client, Brian Makunike, was first up to meet with the intercessors. Brian, who owns and operates a small 5 bedroom B&B that serves Africans who come to South Africa for medical treatment, is a true entrepreneur and visionary. Every day and every new situation presents Brian with new opportunities and ideas! The challenge facing us was how to focus on what is needed to support Brian in repurposing the B&B, while also not losing sight of the fact that God has bigger plans afoot for him. Our meeting with the intercessors provided clear confirmation, that in Brian’s “A Million and One” ideas, God is providing him with an incredible opportunity and responsibility. Brian has emigrated from Zimbabwe, and it was confirmed through the intercessors that he may one day be called back to his home country, to help rebuild the nation. The key message was, use the B&B repurposing as a model for repurposing his many future businesses, and in each opportunity seek God and evaluate the business proposal against whether it would serve God’s greater purpose of re-building a nation. By the time we finished our session at 10:00 a.m., I had tears in my eyes. Our work together had just grown from transforming a small B&B and helping Brian sort out some options, to healing a nation!

The rest of the day was very pleasant, the B&B was alive with the buzz of many meetings – clients with intercessors, meetings with Brett to do visioning, consultants coming and going with clients to off-site adventures. News from the others included: Tom and his clients, Patrick and Angela Green of Jobergonline.com, caught up on ‘Purpose,’ ‘Product’ and ‘Presence,’ as they joined the venture just Wednesday. Randy and Bruce, along with Rory took their client, Carole Craggs, a recruitment specialist, to Alexandra Township to meet with the leadership of a new church ‘Built for Life’. They brainstormed about building an incubator business network – training carpenters, plumbers and electricians to run their own companies, so that they can take advantage of South Africa’s black empowerment policies, while simultaneously sowing into people, creating jobs and building the church!

While the group leaders went off in the evening to various meetings, the rest of the team had dinner in – Chinese takeout from around the corner. And off to bed to prepare for tomorrow’s structured workshop day on ‘Positioning’ and ‘People’.

Blessings,
Kasia

• Brett shared on repurposing the leader, which is a key aspect of what we hope will be accomplished during the venture.
• We discussed “marketplace miracles,” which are part of God’s “marketing plan” to reach people who don’t know Him. 

We heard from one of the consultants about a miracle which was confirmed during the morning session.  Praise God!

• We had a session on Product, which is one of the “10-P’s” which are drivers of an organization’s impact.  I shared examples of Product which can be found in Scripture.  I also led a segment on Scorecarding, which is the methodology we use to document and measure clients’ strategies and plans for getting their businesses where they believe God wants them to be.  The teaching went well.  At least I think it went well — immediately afterwards, Brett Johnson said to me, “Tom, of all the teaching that I’ve heard at the conference, that was definitely the most recent.”
• We also covered Presence, another one of the 10-P’s.  Robert and Clint led segments of that discussion.
• We were reminded of the critical role of intercession in overcoming the challenges (aka “Giants”) which exist in any society.  We were also reminded of our need to be in continual contact with God, even in the midst of busyness.

Things to pray about:

• That the clients would be focused in their approach to the consultation
• For miracles in our clients’ businesses
• That we consultants would be sensitive to “issues of the heart” which some of the clients may be dealing with, since getting those issues addressed is foundational to anything else that might be accomplished on the venture

Things you should know if you come to South Africa:

• “Just now” means “in a while.”  “Right now” means “right now.”
• Traffic signals are called “robots.”
• The websites here end in “.co.za” which is pronounced “dot coe zuh.”

Thanks so much for your prayers!
Tom Sweet

Now, the main days activities.  Today, I presented the daily devotion prior to breakfast for the US Team.  The Scriptures were from Proverbs 4, verses 20 to 23.

Pro 4:20  My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. 21  Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.  22  For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.  23  Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

This Scripture, among other things, is a description of an effective, visual, experiential tool on how to memorize Scriptures.  “attend” to my words requires the mind to be cognitive of the “LOGOS”.  “incline thine ear” requires audibly hearing the “LOGOS”.  “not depart from thine eyes” requires that the “LOGOS” be kept in front of your eyes, for the “LOGOS” to penetrate the eye gate to your mind on its way to your heart.  An additional step to this is to progress from reading the “LOGOS”, out  loud, to writing the “LOGOS” as you speak it, out loud.  This re-enforces the “mind”, “eye”, and “ear” washing with the “LOGOS”, on its way to your heart.  Powerful!

For the balance of day, the US and SA Consultants met individually with Clients, normally at the Clients place of business.  For Basil Carpenter, my SA Consultant counterpart, and myself, our Client is Maree Thompson.  Maree is leaving an existing place of employment, and starting a new business, doing what she presently does, financial investment consulting.  Through the course of the day, the three of us continued to refine her purpose statement.  When she revealed that the CC (closed corporation) she and her partner had purchased was initially named Copper Eagle, both Basil and I went into Scriptures, looking for confirmations of how the purpose statement integrated the Hebrew meanings and usage of these two words.  What a remarkable coincidence, the purpose statement builds on a Biblical meaning of copper and eagle.  Restoring financial households is that of removing the copper fetters.  The eagle representing that of soaring above, a birds eye view of the problems.

We had a wonderful lunch at the Water Front, pizza.  They do make a great pizza here (Maree and I enjoyed), and great condiments, like chopped peppers and garlic.  Basil enjoyed Hake and Chips (fish and chips).  The afternoon went by with more discussions, filling out the Strategies, Action Items and a start on the KPIs for each Strategy. 

The Carpenters’ invited Maree and myself over for dinner.  Basils’ wife, Vall, prepared a wonderful meal: two kinds of meat, rice, potato, salad, mixed vegetables, corn, peas, cabbage, dinner rolls.  What a feast.  I truly express my appreciation and thanks to Vall for a great dinner.  Complete with apple pie, tea, and chocolates.  After dinner, we talked, shared, enjoyed each other company, stories, travels, tales, with much laughter.  It was difficult to stop, pick up the PC, and continue pressing in, to completing the KPIs.  But, we did.  By 11:00pm, we have enough detail to continue on to the next step.

Its amazing how the Lord has arranged which consultants pair up with specific clients.  For weeks, the Lord had been indicating that I would have opportunity to meet with someone of Jewish descent.  The Lord has been revealing to me, my Jewish background through my mother.  And, I believe, as further assurance and confirmation, He was going to give me opportunity to have fellowship with others of Jewish background also.  Well, surprise, Maree Thompson is also of Jewish descent.  Awesome!  Thank you Lord!
 

God’s Blessings,

Clint

My client Ann is a wonderful lady with 25 yrs experience in HR Management.  The Lord asked her to resign from a prominent chemical corporation and is leading her to start her own consulting firm.  Ann has a passion for seeing people facing their fears and breaking through into the fullness that God created them to be.  She has many innovating pproaches in dealing with different issues in the workplace (polarity, women development, etc) through experimental trainings.  We brainstormed through the 10-Ps thinking about high-level strategies and issues related to each.  Many great ideas flowing already - and it’s only the first day!

Back at the B&B, Dena managed to pull together a quick warm dinner for the team.  And I am now ready to catch up on some sleep.

Blessings,
Elisabeta