We Have Arrived in South Africa
January 10, 2010 by Liam
Filed under South Africa, Updates
We Have Arrived in South Africa!..in fact we arrived on the 16th of December, so we are almost 4 weeks in, but Internet has been even less available than we expected but now we have gotten familiar with the surroundings we are hoping to keep you all up to date more regularly…well, at least we are trying!
There is so much to say, too much than we could really convey just in words, but to give you an idea of our first few weeks we made this short video below, enjoy!
We Have Arrived in South Africa from Liam Byrnes on Vimeo.
WE can be the Generation
popestvictor
It’s True, for those of you who were involved with the Make Poverty History campaigns in the UK (which was the ONE campaign in the US) we are familiar with the catch phrase, but this week in the teaching we’ve had we’ve been re-awakened to the truth that we CAN make a difference.
So often We’ve been convinced that our role in life is to be like the boy who was on a beach with thousands of stranded starfish and throwing them back in the water, when questioned about the futility of trying to save the starfish answered, “It mattered to that one”, but I’m not so sure you have to be that pessimistic!
Do we realise that we actually have the resources in the west to really make poverty history? When we think of poverty in the sense of a concept the phrase is far less impactful than when we realise that the issues facing the World have faces, they are people and families. Then the desire to find a solution becomes far more urgent. Im not mentioning this to walk down the familiar guilt trip road that aid agencies often employ to pull emotional responses from us, not because its wrong that we should have emotional reponses to the problems of the world, but unfortunately we have become callus to the images of poverty and the cries of a continent. The reason that it is no good for us to try and invoke an emotional response from you is because emotion just isn’t going to cut it anymore, it only ever takes us so far. Maybe we’ll throw some change into a shaken can at the supermarket, or even better we’ll sponsor a child, or aid worker monthly, but what we need is a generation to make a commitment.
popestvictor
When I say generation, Im not trying to appeal to the youth or student ages specifically, but more the generation of people alive in the planet during this age. We look back through the history books and we see that generations are remembered for things, both good and bad, people look back with 20/20 and say, “If only, If only they would have done this or that” or even more accusatory “How could they live in an age when that was happening and do NOTHING”. I know personally when ever I have seen clear injustice in history, child labour, racism, or slavery, I’ve thought “If that was happening in my day, I wouldn’t rest until it was set right, I’d apply all of my efforts, education and cultural voice to seeing that injustice ended.” I’m sure you can guess where I am going with this;
This is our Chance to make a difference, this is the age in which we are alive, what will be remembered for? Injustice is rife in the World, where once the child labour was in the industrial towns and cities of our nation, today in our Globalized economies and Industries the same Injustices are being perpetrated, just not directly in front of our eyes.
The Children are no less real, though their cries are more faint,
The Slaves are no less people, though their chains are invisible,
The Women are no more free, though they are in nations we close our eyes too.
Stay Awake!! This is not a guilt trip, but encouragement, WE can be the Generation that says, “We will be remembered for really making Poverty History” not for pride’s sake, but because every assault on any persons humanity is an assault on our humanity, and every devaluing practice towards women, devalues us all. We won’t win this War because of emotional responses, because they will always fade, we need something stronger, commitment, because strength to fulfill these commitments comes from the one who is unimaginably more committed to the poor than we could ever hope to be, because as someone once said, “God is with the Poor, and if we are with the Poor, then God is with Us”.
popestvictor
God has given us everything we need to fix the problems, so what’s the deal with us pointing the finger back at him? Its time we began using our brains and talents to see this through to the end. This is neither a call for everyone to leave family and home to move to Africa, We are not all going to be called to go to a place, but we CAN make a difference through the way we live our lives;
If you can sing, sing songs that bring awareness and solidarity with the poor,
If you work in Business, order your business dealings to help lift the poor out of poverty,
If you are a teacher, work to educate people in a way that empowers them to lift themselves out of poverty,
If you have a voice in the public forum, use to be a voice for the issues plaguing the least in society,
If you are a scientist, work to find a cure for the diseases that are found in impoverished communities.
We need all these things, because it really is going to take a generation, a whole body of people to embody the body of Christ to the Nations…
Liam and Rachel Byrnes are working with YWAM in South Africa, read more about that here, or find our how to help them to continue to work in South Africa by supporting them monthly here.
November Update
We are trying to keep everyone as up to date as possible with the time we have, we recently sent out our November update email and have included an excerpt below.
Well we can’t believe it, but our lecture phase of the DTS is half way through. We have been putting into practice everything we have been learning by living a life wholly given over to Jesus in a community plagued by poverty, drug addiction and broken families. In our time making friends on the streets here in Kona we have seen 7 people come to know Jesus and many healed including the immediate healing of chest pain, and a girl in our class have the deafness in one of her ears completely healed!
Learning at the University of the Nations has been an incredible experience. There are over 400 students this year from over 40 different nations, in 35 years this Kona YWAM Campus alone has sent over 50,000 missionaries out to the nations. We live in the GO Centre, one of the oldest buildings on the campus on a floor with the other married couples on our DTS, living in community certainly brings its challenges but also has incredible benefits, like getting assistance removing large insects!
Our eyes are beginning to turn to South Africa now, even as I write this, we will be joining our team for our first vision and strategy meeting this evening. Would you pray with us as we ask God what it looks like to go and serve the township communities outside Cape Town with the love and truth of Jesus in a way that partners with what God is already doing in that place. We want to sow seeds selflessly for the benefit of the Kingdom in that place, desiring first to bless those communities before seeking a ‘positive outreach experience’ as we know the latter will always come to pass when the first and second commandments are put at the fore in all we do. For more information on the type of projects we are working with, click here.
To sign up for our email updates, click here!
We’ve been busy!!
Well, We first need to start with a bit of an apology, we realise we have been a little slack with the blog even though we endlessly encouraged you all to read it before we left, so here, on paper (kind of), is a commitment to be more regular with updating you on all that is going on.
DTS Staff Members
Our lectures so far have already been significant times of learning for us in terms of how we approach our longer term goal in South Africa, We are hoping to post some more reflections on what we’ve been learning very soon, bur for now we wanted to let you all know that we are doing well, learning a lot and really feeling like we are being challenged, grown and stretched as we come towards the second half of this time serving in South Africa. If you want to understand some of the areas we will be working, you can find out here, but something that has also been shifting with us, is the areas we will be working with in South Africa. We will still be involved in the areas we mentioned before we left, but as our hearts and minds are shifting as we pray and think about our effectiveness there, along with utilizing the gifts we have in the group which will travel with us to South Africa.
We have started to meet in small groups with the location teams, but the team to South Africa is numbering around 20, so we are meeting in a couple separate groups, we are making great friends here, some like are good friends Calvin and Camille who are going to a different location, but also the groups heading to the same locations are starting to make good connections, and I (Liam) am glad to have another mac geek onboard the trip in the form of Gary and his wife Anna Brndiar from Colorado, Gary is blogging far more faithfully than me right here.
Kings Mansion Renovation
As we write to you, with the subject of being busy, we are on the sunday morning of the first weekend off since we have been here. We have work duties at an old YWAM base on the Island called Kings Mansion every other weekend, it mainly involved landscaping and gardening as there are no seasons here so things grow all year round, all the time! Even in the fortnight between us being there, we see the grass that we seeded grown out, Hawaii has quite an incredible eco system! Ive attached a video below of some very strange plants which live in the grass, I cant remember the name, but I think they are Japanese in origin. They must be related to the venus fly trap because they close when you touch them! Click on the play button on the bottom left of the video below!
Crazy Hawaiian Leaf plant from Liam Byrnes on Vimeo.
Ironman Event
In between the weekend we were working at Kings Mansion, we were volunteering for the Ironman Triathalon here in Kona, which was an incredible experience. The Ironman Triathalon begins with a 2.5 mile swim, followed by a 112 miles bike ride, then a marathon!! We were there at 3am for the start at 6, here is a short video of the swim start, it was quite an event!
Ironman Triathalon Kona 10.10.09 – 4 from Liam Byrnes on Vimeo.
We were security for the bike ride section, but then hung out at the finish line to see what a person who swims 2.5 miles, ride 112 miles and then runs a marathon looks like, we attached a video below:
So finally, we are hoping to keep this as up to date as we can, please feel to free to comment on the bottom of this page, we love to hear from you.
And it Begins
Ohana Court Registration
We have arrived! As you can tell from our last post we have quite an adventure, but we are delighted to be here. We have had a pretty hectic week and a half, we began by going through our induction processes, paying our fees, getting campus badges made, which was followed by a formal hawaiian welcoming ceremony with dances, they took us through the process of joining “Ohana” which is the hawaiian concept of family and emphasized our responsibility toward the islands ecology and culture. In the evening there was a meeting to celebrate the different nations who are at the University for this quarter. We were amazed by the amount of countries represented, most amazingly, North Korea, China and Kosovo. There are over 40 different nations represented here and it has already been amazingly enriching to be in a community with such a diverse background.
After the opening ceremonies we met our class and the staff, we have some really great staff including a guy from Guilford in England who we have convinced to be our “accent accountability” whilst we are here to ensure we don’t end up getting those strange anglo-american accents as most of our staff are from the US. Stuart Fyvie will be pleased to know that so far we are doing fine, and throwing in the odd eastenders quote for good measure to ensure our British roots stay strong!
DTS Staff Members
We have 65 in our class, from late teens up to people in their 40’s, we are dormed in the married area of the campus which has been great, especially in light of our single friends who have to dorm with at least 6 others in very close proximity. By comparison the married rooms are very nice, even though we have to push 2 single beds together! Throughout the staff and students in the community transformations school there are 7 married couples, 3 of which are our neighbours on the second floor of the building we are in. We are staying in a building called the GO Centre, there are no glass windows in our room, only mosquito netting and wooden slats that can be angled to close. Without air conditioning it means the room keeps a good air flow, but it also means we hear every sound from the road in front of the building.
Our classroom is the other end of the campus which makes for some good exercise and sweaty bodies on arrival, we have had a different teacher each day this week as it has been presented as an introductory week, we have already understood what people had told us, that learning on DTS is like drinking from a fire hose! There is so much we could pass on, but one of the main phrases that has stuck with us this week was from Jim Orred, the head of the campus whilst the founders of YWAM Loren and Darlene Cunningham are travelling; He said “Most people have a vision for their lives, but not a vision for their hearts”. This challenged us that so often we can have certain desires or aspirations for our lives, which aren’t in themselves bad, but we don’t often think about how we want our hearts to grow, to have vision for our character to be formed more and more into the image of Jesus.
If anyone wants to hear more about what we are doing, or has questions for us we would love to hear from you! You can comment in the boxes below, or if you prefer email us by going to the contact page.
A Short Video Update from our last flight
Our LAST flight, almost arrived at Kona from Liam Byrnes on Vimeo.
Our Journey to Kona
Kate and Abi
We have arrived and already have some pretty incredible stories to tell. We had a great week seeing friends and family in Cornwall and our leaving party at Grace Community Church was a really good time, we were joined in it by our friend Katherine Gillespie who is also studying DTS at the University of the Nations here in Kona and our other friend Danny O’Rourke who is studying Korean in Seoul. On Sunday we headed to London with great anticipation for what was before us. Our flight was on tuesday, so we stayed with our good friend Kate Harkus in London on Monday and enjoyed some great mexican food near covent Garden.
Finally, after over 12 months of anticipation and planning we boarded our plane in London Heathrow on Tuesday at 11am, this is really where our adventures began! Once onboard the plane we were getting ready to spend 11hrs stuck on a plane (which is certainly not Rachel’s favourite pastime) to fly to San Francisco, when we were notified from the cockpit that a nav system in the plane had gone wrong and had to be replaced! I won’t bore you with too much detail except to say 4 hours later we had watched 1 and 1/2 movies and the replacement hadn’t worked and people had started to become a little uneasy.
During this time there had also been an announcement that because of the legality of extended working times, the flight would now have to divert to Chicago because the crew couldn’t work as long as a flight to San Francisco, which would mean another serious extension on the flight time meaning we would certainly miss our connecting flight in San Francisco.
United Airlines
Fast forward 15hrs and we arrived at Chicago, fortunately we did not have to get off the plane, but the new crew came onboard along with as much food and drinks as they could carry. The layover was not received well by certain passengers, a 90 year old man sitting near us who was suffering with dementia just couldn’t stay on the flight any longer had to be escorted off to fly the next time, and another, seemingly unstable and agitated passenger decided to call 911 and declare that the plane had been hi-jacked by the crew and he wanted to go to San Francisco. A few minuites later US Security boarded the plane and removed him. We were later told that he had be taken to jail and fined $10,000!
The Adventure was not over yet, our plane took off for another 4hrs and we landed in San Francisco, this was the most nerve-wracking part of our journey as we had to clear immigration, which we were warned may be a problem due to our earlier refusal for a visa. As we lined up for immigration, with about 24hrs since our last sleep and 18hrs on our supposedly 11hr flight we not in the best shape to answer important questions. As approached the immigration desk I tried for my best smile and things seemed to be going well, finally our immigration officer said to us: “I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you for some secondary questioning”, our hearts sunk as we walked along the corridor to a holding area and we began to pray as we were able to.
In the holding room we were called up to a desk to a particularly stern looking Japanese-American officer who took the next hour looking through our
Passport
documents and asking us questions. There was not one positive sign from him during our whole time, until finally I said “What should I bring to make this process smoother in the future” and he said “Just make sure you always tell the truth like you have this time” and stamped our passports giving us 3 months to be inside the US! We later found out our friend and school leader Jeff Reid has been praying for immigration in particular during that time.
Once we were past immigration we planned to pick up our bags and go see our airline desk to see about getting hotel and flights for the next day, but unfortuntely the bags had got mixed up and we spent the next 3hrs going around the airport and speaking to different United desks about finding it. At this point it was about midnight in San Francisco and we’d been on the go for more than 24hrs, but finally Rachel’s bag had turned up, though it was a hardcase and had been broken.
Too tired to be bothered, we jumped on the shuttle bus for our unexpected one night stop in San Francisco, neither of us slept much more than 3hrs, we got back on a shuttle at 6am for the airport for our 9am flight, one small mercy in all of this was that instead of our scheduled San Francisco to Kona via Honolulu flights we were changed to a direct Kona flight.
Once on the flight, after a questionable mexican breakfast, we met Silvia a finnish girl who was going on our DTS, and then met a whole family of norwegians who were also coming to YWAM in Kona but on a different DTS, it made us miss Emelie and the Malmqvists but it was interesting to hear their story of how they came to YWAM.
Once we landed in Kona we stept off the plane and were met by our great friends Johnny and Jenni Gillespie who had traditional Hawaiian lei’s for us. We then had a sweaty car journey, tired, but happy to be in Hawaii back to our school leaders and good friends house Jeff and Bethany Reid.
Jeff and Bethany Reid's kitchen
More updates to come soon!
Leaving Party Photos!
Thanks for everyone who came to our leaving party, we had a great time and we’re so overwhelmed by everyone who made the effort to come, here are the photos are great friend Tom Daly took whilst we were there.
You can browse them here on the photo page.
Leaving Service at GCC – Tues 15th
Our Friends at Grace Community Church in Morval are putting on a leaving service for us and a few of our friends who are going off into Missions on Tuesday 15th.
There will be food provided, John Gillespie the pastor at Grace Community Church will be speaking for a few minutes and then we will all be interviewed by our good friend, and Liam’s ex-youth pastor Mark Davy about what we are leaving to do and then prayed for.
If you are in the area and want to come along you are very welcome. For Directions go here.
Leaving Party 5th Sept
We are having a leaving party for all our Scottish friends and family on Saturday the 5th Sept at 7.30pm, hosted at IBC, in Cults, Aberdeenshire. We’ll be serving drinks and dessert, taking lots of photos, tell you a little bit about what we are going away to do, and generally have some fun hopefully!
Leaving Party
We have set up a facebook event which you can RSVP through by clicking the attending button.
If you aren’t on facebook, send us an email to updates@liamandrachel.com to let us know you are coming!
Venue: International Baptist Church, Earlswells Road, Cults, United Kingdom AB13 0DS
To see a map goto: http://ibcaberdeen.org/about/directions
Thanks for Visiting our Missions website. We are trying to keep this website up to date as much as possible with details of our 
