On Sunday August 2nd, we traveled very early to a small prison on the coast called Mtunzini Prison, near the city of Esikhawini , the city where both Derrick and Kenny live, two of our brothers here in this area.  Both of these men work very closely with BOHI and our program.  Every Sunday Derrick goes to the prison to preach the gospel.  Today we met with about forty prisoners, all dressed in orange prison garb.  Each uniform was marked with the words "prisoner or corrections" on them.  Together we sang hymns and praises to the Lord.   Each of we Americans shared briefly about why we were in their country.
 As we sat there and listened to them sing and share their stories, it ran through my mind over and over how blessed I felt to be present there and share with them, many of whom I believe were Christians.  It was truly a privilege to be a part of the experience.  Afterwards many of them shook our hands and thanked us for coming and sharing with them.
Comments from Robert:
Activities in the Richards Bay area:
Over the past two days Nick and I have been teaching the Students of several different schools. There are so many children and all of them have a great heart just waiting to be filled with knowledge and love.  The pride I have to see my son (Nick) in front of 50 kids "every day" serving the Lord has brought me great joy. This has made all of the training, fundraising and travel worth it. In each of the sessions Nick has become one of the main attractions. When we do the introduction we ask all of the kids to guess Nick's age.  

 

Most of them guess between 16 and 21, we have even gotten up to 26 years old.  So for only one kid has gotten it write (14).  When ever we do tell the kids his actual age the class erupts with laughter and amazement.  
 
This morning in our bible study I read Romans 12:10, "Love one another with brotherly affection.  Outdo one another in showing honor."  I always find it amazing when God talks directly to me through the Bible.

Comments from Glynn:
Activities in the Richards Bay area:
Pastor Duncan Miller is using the Better Choices program in a totally different way than we have ever done before.  He is working with the Life Orientation (LO) teacher at the Grant Lee school.  He gets one LO period every other week with all the students in one grade level so it will take twelve weeks to get through the whole program. 
Activities in the Empangeni Area:
Our activities have been somewhat different than they normally are.  Since the local teams are working in the schools on an continuous basis I didn't feel the need to push for reaching as many students as possible during our trip.  Clement suggested that we take two days to visit three schools that have been trained over the past six months and just get some feed back from the Kids and teachers about the impact of the program on their lives.  We also used this time as an opportunity to have a question and answer session to address any questions that the students had, and also to reinforce the message of abstinence as the best solution to control the the rate of infection. 
Activities in the eSikhawini Area:
Because of limited time in Richards Bay this year Kenny arranged a school hall at the Technical High School and invited students and teachers from about eight eSikhawini schools to come and attend an all day presentation of the Better Choices.  Instead of doing two sessions a day for three consecutive days, we did the whole program in one day.
Future plans for the Better Choices program:
I had a very fruitful meeting with our partners from the Outlook Church, which included their pastor. Pastor Brent has volunteered his assistance in rallying the support of other pastors in the Richards Bay Pastors fraternal to each adopt a school and do a one time event this time next year to present the better choices program at their selected school.  They will then use the Campus Crusade LASC course to working through the SCO (School Christian Organization) to establish an ongoing Character development and discipleship program.  This plan is in line with the way the program is run in Durban and also what we have been trying to get established in Richards Bay since we started this project.  Praise God for a major break through.
 
We might get in one more report before we move to Greytown on Sunday to participate in a pilot project in a new city.  I am not sure if we will have Internet access next week so you might have to wait a week for our next update.
Regards from Richards Bay, Kwa Zulu Natal.