April is a month for visitors, starting with Annie’s parents Stephen and Marilyn Herwaldt from Lansing, Michigan, for two weeks. Allan’s sister Allison, her husband Steve and their seven-month-old daughter Amelia are also visiting this month from England. And later in the month two of Will’s buddies will be coming for a week. It’s been a great experience having visitors here and remembering the first impressions that the township and the Powerhouse made on us: the vibrant singing and worship, the beautiful shining faces and the wonderfully welcoming hospitality have taken on fresh color and meaning as we observe first-time visitors taking it all in. It also makes us excited to welcome the teams from our churches back home (Grace Community Church and Atlanta Westside) at the end of May.

Annie’s dad was invited to lead a two-session seminar on biblical leadership for the elders and leaders at the Powerhouse, and everyone was really blessed by his presentation a few evenings ago. Mr. Herwaldt is clearly someone who knows Jesus. He is humble and thoughtful as he speaks, but when he’s presenting the truth he doesn’t waiver one bit. I was particularly interested in this session because our church back home, our pastor Ru and Rebecca and I are prayerfully considering the possibility of my serving as an elder when we return home. After the sessions I am still considering serving our church in this office, but I have to say that if there was any shred of thought that I could do it in my own strength, that’s gone now. Mr. Herwaldt went through all the biblical requirements of being an elder in the first session, and then fleshed out the different duties that elders perform in the church. Throughout both presentations it became clear that while the standards are high, they are qualities that are like Christ, and in that sense should be learned by all believers. We’ve posted the two sessions online for anyone interested. Click on the buttons below to listen.

Part I of “Biblical Leadership in The Church”: The Qualifications of an Elder

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Part II of “Biblical Leadership in The Church”: The Job of An Elder, The Tools of An Elder

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This past Sunday we enjoyed a relaxing family lunch with Annie’s parents and much of Allan’s extended family. We have felt warmly welcomed into Allan’s family since being in South Africa and always enjoy the feeling of having a family away from home when we see them from time to time. See the 3D Panoramic image shot of the group below.

Filed under: 3D Panoramic Image and General by Nathan on April 6th, 2009. Tags: eldership, family, first impressions, leadership, visitors | Post a comment

You can’t visit Africa without seeing some wild animals. So with our guests Dave Jr. & Dave Sr. in town, we made a trip to a lion park near Johannesburg.

To put a little background behind the video (and photos), I’ll share the experience our friends Ben & Anna had with Pastor Vincent last December. While they were admiring a beautiful white male lion stretching against a tree, remarking how much like a harmless kitty cat it was acting, it suddenly lept onto the driver’s side window, shaking the van from side to side, then attacked again on the rear window. As all the passengers were yelling at Vincent to drive off, he got excited and popped the clutch. They luckily got away without any tires bitten off or windows broken, but when they first told this story to me (and Rebecca and Allan & Annie) it was clear they were terrified by the experience and warned us to keep our windows shut should we visit. Needless to say, going into the park this week, we had high hopes of an attack. I personally was hoping to break YouTube records with the video of our own attack—but there was none. However, be sure to watch to the end for some explicit animal kingdom action…almost.

Lion Park from Nathan Clendenin on Vimeo .

It has been great having the Daves here. We’re headed out later this week to see some more wildlife at Kruger National Park. Things at Powerhouse are going really well—we’ve got some more info on all that’s going on there coming soon.

Filed under: General by Nathan on August 24th, 2008. Tags: lion, slideshow, video, visitors | 4 Comments