Stefan's Desert Experience

I just got this e-mail from one of my former world race teammates, Stefan. He is leading a group of South Africans on a similar journey around the world this year, called the Global Challenge. He reports:

We currently find ourselves on the edge of the Sinai Desert in Egypt. A few days ago we as a group spent the night on top of Mount Sinai… You will remember that this is where God spoke to Moses as a friend and also gave him the 10 commandments. It was a cold and windy night, but I tried to spend it in silence. Sleeping on the rocky-Plato, I tried to imagine myself what it must have been like for Moses all alone on that mountain for 40 days. I also wondered if he maybe slept facing the stars on that same rock I was lying on… and also, was he as cold as I.


So many great things have surfaced in us as a “church”. As a team we are in the process of reflecting on what God has done in and through our lives in the past few months. Just last night we had a session on: What is your destiny?

I would like to just share with you some highlights that came out of this:

The first question that was asked to the group was:

“What in this world would be the one thing that you could change if you had the chance?”

In the comments that followed we had various candidates standing up for almost every challenge mankind face today: Poverty, abuse, immorality, equal opportunities, world evangelism, education… to name a few. In each case there was someone in the team who felt in some way a burden for one of these causes…

The conversation progressed further to what could stand in you way of contributing to these causes…

Some of the things mentioned were: unbelief, pessimism, negativity, lack of support and us looking at the big picture and thinking our own contribution would be insignificant.

Taking part in this open ended conversation we actually led ourselves to the answer:

Surely it is in Gods plan that men are saved, people fed, children educated, abuse stop… and lives are changed. However where this all start is actually very simple.

Each one of us, you included have the opportunity to make a difference. I believe God wants all of us to be surrendered instruments in His hands. Instruments that is obedient and willing to be used in which ever way He chooses. We should live from the vantagepoint that God believes in us to do His work on earth and that for Him to use us we need to be faithful.

For God to use you to build a thousand orphanages through out Africa, you will have to start with one. For you to be a world evangelist, you will have to start with one. For you to lead others to a better life, you yourself should live that life.

It is my prayer that as we travel through Africa in the last few months of this year, God will help us to be obedient and faithful in the small things, so that we will in future also be faithful in the great things.

Please continue to pray for us.

Thank you for all your support!