WHEN IN ROME

It’s still wet and cold outside, but inside we are warming up to South Africa. Amor is being challenged and confronted with problems and Steve Horrex’s brain is being taxed and he must rearrange the plans. How to build an Amor house in South Africa, an Amor house that can be constructed in a weeks’ time with an enthusiastic, young, yet unskilled labor force? Steve has to think about a different roofing system other than the one he has been accustomed to during the past 28 years, and a different exterior system because many of the materials which he’s use to aren’t available here. Everything has to be recalculated with new materials and different costs, then converted from dollars to rand. While he’s doing this he has to try and stay on budget, which if Amor is successful at will absolutely shake South Africa up, because they cannot comprehend that Amor can build a house below what the government or local contractors could build it for. If Amor is successful here and able to accomplish what they have set out to do, it will truly be God’s work. Prayer was answered and the sun has started to come out!

As the day progressed Steve decided, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” He’s going to adapt the South African roof system to the Amor house; however he has come up with his own exterior siding system. We don’t have the time to work with brick as they commonly do when they build here. Amor is pioneering a new exterior siding system in this construction, and if it works…!

Both Steve and Scott are being heavily challenged, their minds are racing and sleep doesn’t come easy. They’re tired, but as you would say in Southern California, they are “stoked!” Scott is busy keeping relationships going forward, forging new ones, cultivating existing ones and making sure this vision for Amor ministries stays on track. He’s being pulled in different directions because so many need help here. “Could you build houses for us? Could you build classrooms for our school? Our Church needs buildings, could you help us? Yes, yes we’d like to; but we are here to build
houses for the poorest of the poor.”

South Africa is a big city, with much of the same that goes on in any big city. But what is happening here is critical to all of mankind because the war of principalities is monumental in South Africa and all of Africa. Africa has been divided for so long. There is deep rooted fear, hatred and separation. Apartheid is more than a wound it is an infected virus which has spread throughout. There can be a strong undercurrent of anger as a result of the suppression and oppression. There is new hope here with the ending of Apartheid and we are so blessed and excited to be here; to be a part of that new hope. It will not come easy; it can’t. It will take years of hard work, and many hands working together. And of course it will take money. Most importantly it will take prayer, lots of prayer and only through the blood of Jesus and the workings of the Holy Spirit are these things possible. Only through the forgiveness of the cross do we have hope to forgive each other and live together. Without that forgiveness we are doomed, forever doomed.

Here in Africa the sins of man are so eerily apparent and that is why, now! more than ever, this world needs to come together and work together in helping our brothers and sisters in South Africa. And Jesus is with us, you can feel it here. His loving, working and forgiving hands are working through us. He can lift us up, restore us and bring us home into His Kingdom!