What a busy few weeks we have had in the office.  Our Real Life teams came back Friday night and we went to the debrief in Atlanta.  It was great to hear the stories of how God used them in India and Swaziland.  We are getting ready to send out our Ambassador and Real Life teams for the summer and trying to meet all the deadlines that this holds.  Our FYM teams, that have been out for 9 months, will be coming back in three short weeks.  What a great year they have had.  We have 60 FYM's accepted and ready to go out this September, by month end we are hopeing to have all 80 accepted and the teams formed.  God continues to bless the Next Step Ministries and continues to send young lives our way, we will send out 350 participants this year alone.

Here is an entry from Lauren Zickl, an FYM, who is serving in Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa.  This story shows a glimpse of the relationships they have built during their time and how deep the relationships have gone. 
Lauren writes: 

This past weekend, Erin and I had the opportunity to attend our first (and hopefully last) funeral here in South Africa. We have befriended three of the boys from Joshua Projects mom, and her mother (the boys grandama) passed away. They invited us to go the funeral, and so we went to support the family and our boys.

While we were walking to the funeral, neither of us really knew what to expect. We had a lot of questions racing through our mind—from things ranging from what type of traditions do they have to whether or not we were dressed appropriately. I was rather apprehensive, because I wanted to make a good impression on the family and not offend anyone.

When we arrive, we were warmly welcomed and ushered inside the house. The casket of the grandmother (Anna) was in the living room, and there were a lot of people sitting around it. We stayed there for about 45 minutes, singing praise songs and a pastor gave a sort message in Afrikaans. From there, we walked to the church, where they gave a service. What they said is unknown to me, because it was preached in Afrikaans, but it was great to be there with our kids. Then we all gathered on a bus and drove to the grave site, where we took handfuls of sand and threw it on the casket and the buried Anna into the ground.

Throughout this whole process, I couldn't help but feel like part of the family. When I was going into this, I was worried that Erin and I would stand out really bad (which is a rather selfish thought to have when going to someone's funeral). And even though Erin and I did stick out significantly (since we were the only white people to be found), we were welcomed like part of the family. It was a rather humbling experience, being able to celebrate the life of a loved one with our friend's family and their friends.