Ben Scholten First Year Missionary - Where's The Heart At?

Bla

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, I am rather sick, and have been for two weeks. My right ear doesn't work so good, and I feel like my head is in an aquarium. If you would please pray for me that'd be great.

The reason you see so few blogs of me is I sent all my supporters family and freinds my facebook notes instead of adventures blogs, so sorry that you're left out of the loop.

God's awesome.

Join the Awakening: Discipleship & Missions

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Awaken to the Adventure

Disciples aren't born; they're made. It's a process that takes time, discipline, and God. In reality, it looks more like waking up than attending a class.

As part of The Awakening, you can undergo a discipleship program like no other, experiencing four months of intense training in another country to prepare you for the ministry that awaits you for the rest of the year.

Join The Awakening

Your mornings will be spent in training and your afternoons ministering in local communities, activating what you've learned. In the context of experiential learning, you will be discipled by mentors who want to see you grow deeply in your faith.

You will be part of a community of other individuals who share your passion and desire to come alive in Christ. This time will challenge and stretch you in new ways, and you will never be the same.

Become a part of The Awakening in either Latin America or Africa and discover your role in the kingdom of God.

You were made for greatness, to experience the abundant life and freedom that Jesus promised. As they awaken, current participants are saying:

I don't think that I will ever have such an opportunity to give up all of myself and all of my expectations as I do here. (Emily Tissot, Latin America)

The Bible study has... turned into a church. So, we have church at noon Tuesday-Friday under the tree in front of the market. I love watching as people just bring their stool/chair/water container... and join in the singing. We are going through the book of Galatians, and it is cool to see how freedom is effecting their hearts. (Denise Eckert, Africa)

For more on The Awakening, visit the First-Year Missionary website.

Thando

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In early December I met a boy named Thando. He's ten years old and incredibly smart for having never gone to school. For four years his mother has tried to get him into school, but has always been denied school because they have never had a child in a wheelchair before. So Thando sat at home while his brother and sister went.

One day as my team was doing a Bible lesson to the pre-school age kids, we had the kids bring in their crafts for us to write their names on them. Thando was with them and when given a pen, drew strange symbols onto his craft. I asked the translator what they were. "His name." She said. "He has invented it."

When older kids started coming from school we took some inside to give one-on-one tutoring. The gogo, (grandmother) of the carepoint asked me to take Thando to teach him letters and sounds. He was so eager to learn that he got down the first 8 letters in upper and lower case - with sounds - in under an hour.

"Can you come tomorrow? The gogo asked?"

"Maybe, I'll try." I answered. I didn't know then that Maybe' and I'll try' is as good as a promise here.

The next day I had to go elsewhere, and I was walking by the carepoint in the evening. A gogo told me that she had had a bad day. "Why?" I asked. "Because you didn't show up, and Thando waited at the carepoint for you to teach him all day."

That made me almost fall over I felt so bad. I asked Thando's mother how the search for schooling for him was going. She said that an AID organization had said they might sponsor Thando to go to a disabled school in Cape Town.

Then it was middle of January. The organization never got back to her. But I understand. I'm no better than them; I gave Thando hope, and then didn't show. I said a prayer that God would redeem me and get Thando into school.

Thando's mother asked me to come and beg the closest school to accept Thando. It'd be the 5^th year of trying. Basically I was a white face, because Swazi people act differently around white people. (Because 90% of them are AID workers or missionaries) I was happy to be used if it got him into school. However the school headmaster turned away Thando's mother with some stern words. The worst part is not that Thando's mom has to tell him he won't go to school again; it's that Thando will tell her that it's OK, and he'll get in next year.

I followed the headmaster into the school, and managed to get her to say that it wasn't the money, or the lack of wheelchair access, or the shortage of school books, or the that the kids might make fun of him when he poops, but that it is because the school is full. This is understandable because the Grade one teachers have 50 students each. This is actually great news because there are usually some registered children which disappear over the summer break. (Not great, but great for Thando!) However, even when a spot opened, the headmaster wouldn't allow him on new reasons. So his mother and I took a few trips to the regional education officer (REO) and he got things sorted out. The REO for all Swaziland happened to be the son of the gogo we were staying with! (Small country!)

My friend Thandega (Erin's Swazi name) got to see him on his first day of school. He was intensely focused on the teacher while 49 other 5 year olds goofed off. His mother had another boy push him the 3 km down and up the mountain to the school each day. (No Kidding) Thandega said that they might move him up a grade if he does well. And he will.

The REO disabilities chairman told me that there's nothing that can get him out now but bad behavior or poor grades. It shouldn't be a problem, as he's ten years old and in grade one.

I thought these things only happened in World Vision TV specials.

But one problem still remains, the wheelchair accessibility at the school. There are no ramps or pavement, and he has to be brought to the toilet and lifted into classrooms.

Here's the bite:

I am hoping that wonderful people in North America will be able to help build minor wheelchair accessibility at the school. By having wheelchair accessibility, the school is opened to other children in the area who have been constantly denied schooling also. Should you feel called by the story to help make ramps and buy accessibility hardware, please donate to the Swaziland orphan education fund at https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=orphans and be sure to select Swaziland Orphan Education fund.'

Immediately following you must be sure to send an e-mail with the amount donated and thoughts or concerns to bjs9@ualberta.ca. This allows me to show how much I can extract from the fund for the wheelchair accessibility project at the Mkhuzweni primary school.

Thank you so much, Be Blessed.

Ben Scholten.

Two Days In Swazi

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Lately I've been really requesting Joy of the Lord. It was the first thing I thought of one morning as I lay in Bed. Then a paper with Psalms 138 fell off the wall and onto my face. Then for the last week it seemed Joy is all I could get around here.

Days in Swaziland.

On the public back from the care point Bailey was talking to a friendly guy. You have to be careful about how you mention what you're doing here, because Swazis often like to put you on th spot and ask you to preach right then and there. So the young man and Bailey laughingly had me stand up and speak the rest of the ride back to manzini. I talked about what the lord did for me in the Walk till you Drop and how he can heal. Somehow the man translated this as "His Girlfriend laid hands on him and healed him!" So the whole bus started laughing hysterically! It got sorted out and I got so into it we missed our stop.

I get the opportunity to go an hour's drive out to Nsoko carepoints. Unfortunately the 100 kids at the care point hadn't eaten from the care point in a month, but they showed up faithfully every day in case we might come with the boxes of food. The food comes from an organization literally called "Feed the starving children!" ("What is you company called?" - "Yeah? What do you do?") Lately there's been some creepy youth hanging around to steal food at that place and molest the girls. Mrs. Black had to slap one in the face the other day, so I'll be going with the women more often now. Thankfully having a white man there stops most all of that.

In Swazi Culture it's assumed that if I walk somewhere with a woman, she's my Woman. So I get a lot of hilarious conversation about my harem of 5 girls at a time. Let's just say all of the girls on our team know their worth in Cows.

At the next carepoint I met a Kid with socks tied over his his hands. A lot of the time that's to keep them from sucking their thumbs around the age of 3 or 4, but this time it was because he'd burned himself across the middle of both hands, and the socks were the only things they had. The socks were wet with puss and dripping. I had to pray and keep going because we didn't have anything. Next week. At the next carepoint we had to wait until someone could open the building so that the food could be locked inside. Men from the community had been demanding water from the tank supplied to them, and when the women refused they'd kick off the locked tap, take what they want and let the rest be drained out. They would also steal the food for the children. Pray and move on.

At the next care point we were close to where Mozambique and South Africa meet Swaziland, so we went past a military checkpoint guarding who goes onto the mountain. We gave him a box of the care point food to keep up good relations. He was about 300 pounds, but it's the G42 ministries need the good relationship because he's never asked for bribes or given trouble. At the Care Point just past that the ground was swarming with ticks, but there was no one there. So we couldn't leave food, and they won't feed children until next week.

At the next care point we this man with mental disabilities kept trying to shake my hand, and I ended up just holding his hand the whole transfer of food while he spoke one word in Siswati. It was pretty funny. Now we're out of food, and people are starting to come from all directions because they saw us drive by.

So next we went to a potential missions team house in the area. If we got a team in there they'd be able to start loving on the kids. But it's too expensive for the group to buy right now.

The next day we went to the Church of the Nazarene Hospital. I like the "Broken Children's ward" because it's full of bored boys made to sit in bed with just a broken arm or Leg. they all started freaking out and yelling when I showed them that you can write and color on your cast without getting in trouble!

Next we went to the Bosco Center of Selestian Monks. An Irishman named Father Larry Macdonald was sent to manzini in 1970, and since then has created a street boys center, a youth center, a trades school, a grade school catchup center for being youth, a honey farm, a sauces and spices farm and factory, a bursary program for hundreds of kids, and acquired an orphanage. These things employ about 600 people. All one guy obedient to God's call to give up his life. But when we talked to him, he was extremely pessimistic about the Swazi future. "Some may escape to other countries."

At Gary Black's house 3 Aid organizations ate dinner together, soaking in eachother's American familiarity. Michelle and I were talking with him, and the conversation went to Swazi people saving Swaziland from a 50% HIV/AIDS rate, and an expected extinction in 2050. Then I mentioned teams, and Gary told us how most of his ministry when not leading teams is cleaning up after the mistakes of young Americans making promises and preaching. It's true. I've done it myself. Missions trips to radically different cultures commonly do more harm than good. I spent a day helping a 10 year old kid in a wheelchair named Thando who was given hope of being sent to a disabled school in Cape town by an aid organization. They never got back to him, and school starts tuesday. Thando's mother and I went to the school to beg to let him in for the 5th year in a row. He hasn't got grade one, and now he's turning 11. He's so brilliant and longing to be educated that when I started teaching him, he had made an Alien language of his own with pictures representing sounds. He learned the first 8 letters in upper case and lower case, -with sounds- in an hour. I had no shame in being used to beg because I was white. But they rejected him from the school again -even though his mom had money- because they were full.

Back to missions trips being useless if compared to people who give their lives to a culture. Michelle was really shook up by Gary Black's words, and she was sobbing as we prayed on the front steps together. She pleaded that she might not just fill hearts and dump them when she goes back to the states, and that she could have a ministry that produces more fruit than it does disappointment.

That is a hard part of desiring and receiving God's heart for a lost world. God's heart is for all children everywhere all the time. How do you know what Children you're called to?

One thing is clear, If you are not called to stay, YOU ARE CALLED TO GO.

Good Africa, Bad Africa.... Hey, it's all just Africa

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Today we got pulled over by the cops, (really, he just waved us off the road because it was a woman driving a van of girls and a guy.) And he wanted to give a spot fine. (Which means money in his pocket) He threatened R1000 (which is about $120 US) but we talked him down to a bag of our peanuts.

Last week one of the ladies got waved over by a lady cop, who yelled a bunch, and then got the driver to go behind the koombie (minivan) and talk to her. It was then "If you go to the store there and get me a cold drink, I'll let you go."

Hello, everybody! I'm fine, my team is fine, Things are peachy, we're starting to get the guts to share everything that got reveals to us, and now all we talk about is that. It's sweet, and I feel like our team is glowing.

I'm buying a phone card today! It should last 12 minutes. Yay!

I will probably fly to india for a month over christmas instead of staying in South Africa in Cpe town or Kersluie. So pray that works out. Flights are cheap here, you can fly across SA for like $120 US. The India round trip should work out about $700 US. I'm going to check out an orpanage that a bunch opf my friends and leaders started there. Sonds like a cool place, and they're always telling me how the kids are better there.

The other day we bought a cow, took it to a squatter camp church, which is about the size of a living room, slaughtered it all over the floor, had a huge party eating it with kids and some sqatters, then put about 200 people in the room to dance to some battery powerd speaker music. The kids here are incredible. They have rhythm, they have moves, they outdance the "Misungoos" (whites) by the time they're 3 years old. Kids here automaticlayy dance when they walk past a radio. Its awesome and addicting.

I'll tell you a dangerous prayer here. "God Prepare the hearts of teh people ahead of us." People in townships will run to you pleading for the gospel when you say that prayer, and when you give it, you give it with yourself, and try to pour into the people. It's a prayer that makes you go to bed really really tired. But happy.

The water works 2 thirds of the time, and the power works 5 sixths of the time.
Right now the power is going out periodically every afternoon.

It turns out this is bacuase the power company is saying that with the rainy season, people are using to much electricity, so they're cutting out the power periodically from jophannesburg to pretoria to punish us.

Yesterday I held went to my first orphanage. It seemed so typically Missionary ('miss' is the term for when feel bad about stealing pictures of us with black babies and send them home.) So as the team saying goes, it was "so miss." (mish)

The ladies in the place often don't care about the babis at all. they play rap music and gossip while the kids beat eachother and cry. So when volunteers come in, they just ignore us. I spent a lot of time with this boy called Abriel (with a rolling R) who was two, but he couldn't speak a word, or walk. they have no concern over teaching the kids to walk.

I watched the care taker take a crying baby, push him forcefully onto the couch, and then yell at him. He was probably 10 pounds?
It's weird to see these tiny babies with full sets of teeth. One baby is 4 months old, but weighs 6 pounds. She fits in your hand, I think she's almost into the AIDS C4 count.

And this is one of the good daycares? They call them "cresh" here.
When I was in Swaziland, it was weird to see a market full of people, and think, "of 100 people, in 5 years, 60 of them will be dead."

That's the sort of stuff that hasn't

God will use you when....

Fri, 5 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I'm in an internet cafe, and the internet sucks, but I'll try to get a bit off.

I could type for an hour on the things going on here. I'll just say this:

When the things in my head travel down 18 inches to my heart, I think I will die.

Because it's like living in a picture made to have you donate money, to make you guilty and feel bad for doing nothing. But at the same time, the most powerful thing is the easiest.
Sometimes it gets hard to pray, because you can't even understand what happened to you all day. But God is incredible, he removes shame, and he wants you to know that he WILL use you confused, he'll use you scared, he'll use you annoyed, he'll use you when you just want to be alone!

My team is awesome. Thanks.

Goodbyes!

Sat, 1 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The time has come to leave...

But first I have to appologise to the FYMer's who may waste their time reading this, it's more for the people I've been giving out this blog address to.

I will miss you all so much. I have no idea what's going to go on in 11 months, most of which I have so little idea of what's going on, and no real plan for getting home after hiking after the missions with Dirk Brussow, and a bit of a vague Christmas Plan.

But, I have faith that it'll be amazing! Because I know that this is where I am supposed to be going. And to know you are doing what God wants you to is simply incredible. It's like getting a flashlight while hiking in the dark! No more worries!

I will miss you at Augustana, you from C&C, you from Camp, and FAMILY!
But I will miss my outback hat more than I should miss an object. You see I left it the top of a glacier with a rock on it, after a 6 hour uphill hike in the middle of the rockies. SO, my dear hat will be left to enjoy the view and grow wise from the mountains until I return for it in a year.

Let me tell you about my fundraising. I had a to put a lot of faith in God when he told me to quit my job and go to kid's camp, but he provided more than I needed to get back to Augustana without a student loan!
So I asked God to spare me the fear that comes with meeting a money deadline, and help me get all the money in I needed without stress.

He answered me and I was done fundraising 3 months early. Wheww.. Whoa.

I'm leaving to Barhead monday to help Trevor and Amy and my new nephew Samuel with the construction of their new house, and I'll come to Camrose just before I fly out on September 12th.

The website I will update ever two weeks or so while in Africa is http://benscholten.myadven tures.org/ (This one)

You can write to me while I'm in Johannesburg,

PO Box 1284

Ifafi, South Africa

0260

I want you guys to pray for me while I'm gone, even if you aren't Christians, because he hears everything, and he'll stick his hand in you life and change it for the better in his will. I need the support and safety from your prayer. It's a little dangerous I hear...

Goodbye Canadians! Goodbye Canoe trips and hiking!

Ben Scholten

Insurance for Canadians

Wed, 9 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Hey everybody! This e-mail is for Canadians looking to get their travel insurance.

A while back we got an e-mail reccomending the group rate for AIM through an American provider.

At $1 mil coverage and $100 deductable, it costs base $1003.25 for internationals. (Canadians)

So I bought it, and was quicly informed of my error. And I quickly cancelled it.

Due to part coverage by the Canadian health care system, it's much cheaper for Canadian companies to give Canadians coverage. Most also have none of the annoying categories for extreme and leasure sports coverage.

So in general, for half the cost, you ger double the coverage in Canada. If you bought the group rate package through the American Insurance, I advise you consider the following company quotes and cancel your order.

Canadian Travel Insurance Companies: The Cooperators (Best for me), Kanetics.ca, AIG, Bon Voyage, and Travel Underwriters.

I Hope fellow Canadians might avoid the US travel insurance, and save tons of dough.

Walk till you drop

Tue, 1 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Around Christmas, I found God leading my heart to missions in South Africa.

I designed a fundraising event called walk till you drop.

In walk till you drop, I would get people to sponsor me some money per kilometer to walk as far as I can, not until I give up because I'm sore, but until I can't possibly walk anymore. I would leave Camrose Alberta heading north on April 27^th, and have someone following me by vehicle.

Here are the reasons that I initially started this fundraiser.

1. It would be cool to be intense and crazy by doing this.

2. I was apprehensious about asking people for large amounts of money, and I would sidestep the issue by having them donate tiny sums of money per kilometer and be faced with the sum afterwards.

3. I lacked faith that God would provide for me in fundraising. This was an attempt to take getting to Africa and put it under my own physical power. If people weren't donating enough, I would simply walk to the North Pole and make what sponsors I had pay up big.

Then God took a hold of my heart in the walk till you drop. The day after getting the idea of walk till you drop I hurt my knee jumping down a flight of stairs, and later developed a crazy back pain which made it hard to stand straight. A series of other humbling events quickly showed me that I was not the one who planned my life, and it was not my life to plan.

As soon as I surrendered my walk till you drop to God, thing s began to fall into place for it, people began supporting it, and before it started I suddenly had $2000 Cdn before it even began! The day before the walk, April 26^th, I went for a walk with my good friend Francois Hugo. He told me in amazement about how the day before his mother had destroyed her ankle stepping in a hole, but when he prayed over her, she was nearly instantly healed and her pain was completely gone. I asked him then and there to pray for my knee and back to be healed for the walk. We sat down and prayed, and I couldn't feel anything. I was so scared that it would hinder the marathon, but I held some blind little string of trust that God would be faithful to Francois and I asking in Jesus' name.

The next day I was walking to the statue of Martin Luther on Campus, the starting point for my Marathon, and I remember thinking how my knee still hurt. But the very first step of the walk, it was gone completely! I didn't have any pain in my knees or back the entire marathon!

That day and the next I walked 71 kilometers without sleeping, over 17 and half hours, and never once did they hurt me. When I dropped on the pavement of highway 14 at the end of the marathon, my knees instantly seized up and could hardly move. Then my dad helped me into the truck and I slept.

I feel my knee and my back sometimes now, but that can't even compare to the feeling of realizing that they were fine on the walk, and would be as long as I was walking the marathon for the Lord's work in Africa. After I got home - and my knees aren't seized up now - I was rummaging through all my stuff, packing what I wouldn't need until I was back from Africa. I came across one of my notebooks and a something I had written while I felt God telling me to prepare my heart for a year as a floor leader in the freshman dorms at University of Alberta. It was written 4 months before I even knew I would do the walk till you drop.

I want to run your marathon

In your steps Lord. In your steps

I will not follow your selfish courses

You show me the way God

I will thank you for my marathon

I will thank you for my prize

All my days

I will not question your paths

Just lead me on,

Through the twists, and the spots it seems

Another way would be easier.

Your prize is my goal

Please take my burdens God

And give me living water,

For my aches and pains

I want to live a life worthy

Of that I cannot be worthy of on my own.

You know my troubles

And my inmost thoughts

My ways, habits, and future

I will pray praise and thank you

Lead me on, show me how

No matter how good it may seem

I need your help now