South Africa Report Back - Part 1

REPURPOSING HANNES
I want to thank you everyone for their prayers, encouragement, and financial support, which really helped me move forward with this journey to South Africa. During the trip, I sent out updates regularly and posted many things that happened to the rēp blog we maintained for our venture. With this post, I'll focus on the highlights of the venture.

For the folks who didn't get the background on rēp (formerly called "equip"), I'll give a quick overview into what rēp is all about. rēp is a non-profit organization that was founded by Brett and Lyn Johnson, who are originally from the Cape Town area of South Africa and now call the San Francisco Bay area their home. Part of what rēp does is to train Christian business consultants in a framework that is commonly called "Marketplace Ministry." The rēp framework uses the Bible as the foundation for thinking about how God views the domain of business and how He wants to use businesses for further renewal of society and His kingdom on earth. Every rēp consultant has completed over 100 hours of training to prepare for a venture (missions trip). This spring, consultants from the USA, India, and South Africa traveled to four cities (Chennai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Gauteng and Cape Town, South Africa) to work with Christian business people to help them repurpose their businesses and often their lives to serve God more effectively within their local community, countries, and spheres of influence. A big part of what the rēp framework does is help people integrate their faith with their work life, which is truly a transformational process! During a venture, a traveling consultant and a local consultant team up to work with a local client in the host country for ten business days. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we would all met as a large group in a conference center at a church to learn about the 10 "Ps" (i.e., Purpose, Product, Positioning, Presence, Partnering, People, Process, Place, Planning, Profits) and how God views these concept within the context of business. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we would spend time with our clients in their place of business observing them in their daily work life and praying for them.

It was so amazing to watch God operate in the lives of the clients and consultants during the venture. God regularly performed small to large miracles daily on this trip, as well as, answered so many prayers. Typically, the ventures are about repurposing a company to serve God better and have a larger impact within the world. My experience with my client was a bit different. My client (Hannes) was personally repurposed during the venture, which was such an awesome testimony to the power of change in a person's life God can bring about. Johan, who was my South African counterpart, was such an instrumental part of making this this happen too. Most days I felt like I was learning as much as Hannes about how God works through Johan's deep knowledge of scripture and how God works. It was an honor to go through this journey with these two Christian brothers! Now on to the story...

The first day of the venture (May 07), Hannes was on the verge of being very sick and his doctor told him over the weekend that he needs to rest and not work (potentially needs to be on oxygen!). If he wasn't careful, he could catch pneumonia and end up in the hospital. He almost did not come to the first day of the rēp consulting. We prayed for Hannes to heal that day and he visited the doctor later that afternoon. He also told us he didn't know why he signed up for the consulting, but he knew he was suppose to be there. Prior to the venture, he would often pray to God when he needed help with a problem in his life. While driving down the highway a few weeks before the venture Hannes was praying as he drove. He was in a tough spot with the company, so he prayed for God to send some help to address his problem. Within a few minutes Jodene (a friend and rēp consultant) called him to inquire if he would be interested in joining the May consultations in the Cape Town area. He didn't know why he said "Yes", but he knew that he needed to do this and he signed up to be a client without hesitation.

May 08 (TUE) - Hannes was almost cured from his sickness and the rest of the week he was fine. Johan and I met Hannes at his office and we began to learn that Hannes's company was running into financial trouble, partially because one client had not paid a huge invoice. He mentioned that this wasn't the first time they had faced this sort of issue and the company has always survived these financial challenges. Hannes related how he has always been able to figure out how to solve theses issues in the past, just relying on his own business skills. He laid out the many financial options that he saw now and the crossroads that he felt he was at this time with different investment paths. Johan started to share with Hannes that he doesn't have to carry this burden on his own. Johan started to talk about how Hannes could yield his heart to God, and let God guide him in these business decisions though prayer. Hannes's mind and will are starting to slowly be repurposed to serve God at this point.

May 09 (WED) - Hannes tells us he feels like he has been in the desert for the last 7 years. Johan talks about Deuteronomy 6 and the reason for the desert phases in our walk with God. We started to talk about "Purpose" and how Hannes is well positioned for God to use him to further the Kingdom in Africa. We talked about ownership of his company verses stewardship of the company. In reality, it is God's company and Hannes is the steward, much like everything we think we own is actually God's. He cares about how we use the resources He provides to us. This is big stuff for Hannes and things start to change now in both Hannes and the company's situation! Potential takeover offers for his company are starting to surface at this point.

May 10 (THU) - Back at Hannes's office, Johan explained further about how God speaks to us. Johan was such an awesome teacher! He really has a gift for taking complex concepts and making them so easy to understand. Hannes is ready to pray about surrendering his heart to God fully. He asks us to come to his home after work to pray for him to yield to the Lord. We went to his home that evening and prayed for him for about an hour, and afterwards left Hannes to pray on this own. Hannes YIELDED to God this afternoon! When we were all praying, Hannes and I both saw clouds. I had this vision of Hannes rising with angels into the clouds. Johan felt that Hannes had made a shift, but perhaps there were more layers of yielding that needed to happen.

May 11 (FRI) - Hannes came to training the next day very tense and said he didn't feel that he could sit there all day. I asked him if he wanted to pray. He said that he wanted to pray later in the day. We started the training off that morning by sing the song "Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord" with the whole consulting group and this song really hit Hannes hard. The music was from a worship DVD and a video was projected up onto the screen that we use for the daily training. The song contained many scenes of flying through the clouds. Right after the song was over, Hannes's phone rang and it was a coworker calling to say the bank had pulled the funding to keep their company running and the debtor had still not paid. Hannes said he needed prayer now, so we went to see the intercessors and to pray over Hannes. Natchi (a prayer warrior from India) read scripture about the borrowed axe that floated. This seemed to imply that the Lord will keep Hannes's company afloat during these challenging times. Hannes said he didn't know what is happening to him, but it is good. At this point, it seemed that he had yielded fully, but he said his mind was still fighting his heart. In the evening, Hannes heard from his business partner about a very good offer to acquire their company. Things we looking up on all fronts!

The second week of the consultation was full of ups and downs and Hannes's met with the board of directors for his company and they reviewed several offers to acquire or invest significantly in his company. It was like roller coaster, but even through all this you could see a new calmness in Hannes. He had a new understanding of God being the chairman of his company and a new kingdom-centered vision for beginning to repurpose his company. The last day of the venture was a Friday, May 18. All the clients gave a presentation about their new visions for repurposing their companies to serve God and the strategies they would employ to carry out these visions. Hannes got up and gave the most powerful testimony of the day. His was a story of personal repurposing. You could tell it was really from his heart! Everyone in the room had tears in their eyes as Hannes shared his story. I saw big, rugby-player, sized men with tears streaming down their faces. It was so awesome to see this transformation in Hannes and hear this powerful testimony!