My 16-hour a day schedule with the team has keep me away from internet cafes and a chance to update my daily blog. However, I will do remedial reports over the next couple weeks to fill in the blanks. There is much to tell including daily miracles.

On Friday and Saturday, we had a chance to see the dark underbelly of this fabulously rich gold mining city for the first time. Behind the sprawling new suburbs, glamorous casinos and the opulance that makes Johannesburg such an exciting international capital, there are hungry children. The need is as bad here as anywhere in Africa. While we came primarily to visit our Operation Africa Child Orphan homes here, I was not prepared to see such hunger and need. Children are still starving in South Africa -- I realise that we can't let the glamor of the booming cities here blind us to these needy kids.

Thelma Makaro, the wife of one of our key project leaders here, took us out to see the "Needy Children of Phalo Park" on Saturday morning. For a minute, Ivy thought she was back on Smokey Moutain in the Tondo slums of Manila! This slum sprawls ironically beneath the high tension lines that carry power to feed the hungry industrial plants and gold mines of the city.

There, where there is no electricity, running water or toilets we met one of those daresaint visionaries who is often the heart of outreaches like these. He is sometimes the only source of food for the children there -- both spiritually and physically.

He runs a hot meal program, vocational training, children's nursery and youth clubs. This is real Christianity in action -- bringing rightiousness, justice, mercy and truth to forgotten children.

On Friday, it was the same story in Orange Farm where we are sponsoring a daily lunch program at the "Light of Christ Primary School" there. It serves 1200 youngsters, many of whom come to school barefoot and so hungry that they cannot concentrate in class. How I thank God that our World Children's Fund donors around the world are sending Dr. Lam gifts that enable us to help feed these hundry kids.

Some experiences, like your wedding night or your honeymoon, are just too sacred to describe. Such was yesterday's all-day meeting with the Archbishop Emeritus. I'm afraid to describe it in too much detail because I can't do it justice and that might cheapen it.

We began the day at historic St. Cyprians in Langa Township, which was celebrating 70 years as a church. Through three hours of praise and worship, we celebrated the Lord's table and what God has done in the life of the church. During reflection time today, Mpho and I both described our team's little part in the program. After Ivy gave greetings, Paul led us with the guitar in an unrehearsed quartet singing Amazing Grace. Using "Praise God, Praise God!" as the lyrics for the last verse, we felt the angels come down and take over our voices. Of course, the whole three hour service was like singing in a choir because no one, and I mean no one, can sing like Africans can sing!

After church we went to lunch with the Bishop and then onto his favorite charity, the long-term care pediatric unit at Tygerburg Hospital. The Bishop confided in Ivy that he wants to raise $5 million before he dies to set up a "Ronald McDonald" style house where mothers and family can stay with children who are in long-term care -- who must have constant attention to survive and can no longer go home.

We were invited to his house for dinner to meet a few friends! Nearly 30 of his friends showed up including all the folks from his foundation and a number of medical specialists. We spend the next three hours retelling the Malawi story and our hopes for future ministry in Africa. We couldn't have had a more sophisticated, knowledgeable and kind audience. Everyone in the room knew 100 more times than we did about the problems we face -- yet they welcomed our faith-based approach to the crisis and showed incredible humility and support. We have a new set of friends in South Africa. My time is up. More details later.

I lost it for the second time on this mission today. The first was when I had that panic attack in the Atlanta International Airport over my lost photographic skills -- and then today, the same thing happened when I missed the arrival of Ivy and the team here in Cape Town!

Because I was working off one schedule (an older one) I showed up at the airport with my sign and a van at 11 for the 12:15 flight from Johannesburg. (They came in on the 2:15 flight after I gave up and rushed back to the hotel to check my emails!) When there was no one left in the baggage claim area, I was deeply overcome with fear that I can only say was sent by dark spiritual forces to torment me.

I panicked. The airline couldn't find them on the flight manifest. I had not gotten any calls or emails. Had their plane crashed? Did they have an accident?

Well, this finally forced me to cast all my fear on the Lord because I realized the truth that "God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of love and power and a sound mind..."

I calmed now and the Lord assured me that whatever the reason, they were coming. I relaxed and proceeded to do emails and business while I waited for the Lord to resolve things. And he did. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Prize winner, had the right schedule and met them with a van and took the whole team to the hotel. The welcome, not coordinated by me and my fleshly skills, was a wonderful one and we were soon all united in prayers of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord.

There are two kinds of time, "Kingdom Time" (God's timing or Kairos) and "Chronological Time" (Our timing, i.e. the time limited by our solar clocks in this world). The Rev. Paul Moore and the whole team here during this last week has experienced "Kairos Time" daily in remarkable ways. None of us who participated this week felt that we were in charge, nor did we feel manipulated by others. Instead, we sensed the Lord speaking to us that this was a tipping point in the life of Northern Malawi, that if we moved now on this opportunity, God was endorsing it in some supernatural way.

It has been a week uniquely filled with God's presense. At dinner tonight in Lilongwe, and on the flight down, Paul and I had some very intimate conversation about our past collaborations and expectations for the future. He admitted that he had resisted coming back to Malawi so soon. But as it turned out, he felt compelled to come even though every bone in his body was saying "no" to him ... but he felt obligated to Dr. Joseph Lam and me.

Thank God he obeyed the prompting of the Lord. Because he did, the Lord spoke to him through the other leaders that gathered with us and we all spoke to each other in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church of Central Africa leaders and even government officials and medical and aid staff all felt that the time has come to de-stigmatize the HIV-AIDS victims -- and that the key to the cure was in our hands.

The time to act is "now" in Malawi. We feel powerful tides drawing our craft out into the waters again -- much like Paul and I felt back in the 70's when he started the Times Square outreach at the Lamb's Church of the Nazarene and we did "Here's Life New York" -- a campaing that brought so many thousands into the born again experience of the 80's and in turn gave birth to the Here's Life Inner City follow-up with Campus Crusade for Christ.

Paul shared with me that he strongly feels that there are some kinds of outreaches that can't succeed if they aren't "faith-based" and such is the response to the AIDS Orphans Crisis in Malawi. If it doesn't include the churches and morality as one of the three "M's" in the campaign, it can't succeed at all. (The Three M's for Malawi are "Morals, Medicines, and Meals" -- only a combination of behavior change, medical therepy and inproved nutrition will work. That's the challenge not only to the people of Malawi but to us who are co-ordinating the global response. Without it, there is a good chance that the tribes of northern Malawi face extinction.

Coming down from the hill stations of Livingstonia (circa 1959) to the capitol city of Lelongwe (circa 1983) makes me more comfortable again with the technogy ... it's like traveling forward in time! I'm still not back to 2004, but I'm closer now. Thank the Lord for the internet and the power to log in almost anywhere. Today I fly to South Africa where I will link up with the USA delegation to begin our Operation Africa Child Tour in Cape Town.

My heart is aching to describe the depths of poverty I have seen in the last few days. And I have deep gratitude to God for the Church of Central Africa for their partnership with WCF, MMI and CitiHope in responding to the current crisis. Their network of 1500 community-based house churches is the key to turning the tide against death, disease and starvation in the highlands of northern Malawi.

I have had enough inspiration in the last few weeks to motivate me for another year or two. There is nothing like holding those dying, starving babies in your arms to make you angry enough to do something for God's poor here. I will never forget the faces of the dancing, singing women who welcomed me again and again to their villages this last week, and the assistance we are able to give with the help of our donors and friends around the world. So far this year, we have been able to supply four million meals to the orphans here -- often the only hot meal they get daily.

I also have fantastic new respect for the way the African people are responding to this crisis from day to day ... their faith is amazing to me. More details will follow about this because we have made a lot of vows here and set plenty of new agendas. I am definitely going back to my global communications ministry with new power. You have to smell the dying in those hospital wards to want to do something.

Ironically, I am personally feeling bloated and fat from the last week's visits to 15 ministry sites in the highlands! I am balloning from the high carb, almost all starch, low protein diet that I have been fed by my hosts along with sugar-filled bottled drinks (since I can't drink the water anywhere!). My belt is cinching two holes out from when I left the States! I'm glad Ivy is not here to see this but I will see her soon and expect her to notice right off! Hopefully I can get back on protein and salads in South Africa next week!

I must go now to meet a courier from the photo lab at the airport (part of the picture-taking miracle here that has keep me close to Christ this week) and then board my flight to Johannesburg with Rev. Moore before connecting to Cape Town for the night.

Tonight, I was able to sponsor a farewell dinner for the 18 guests, including the wives of the African staff and volunteers who have done so much to make this mission such an incredible success. I think we may have reached a "tipping point" here in the battle against this wave of death and disease. The dinner was an awesome bonding moment and cemented us in love for one another as we went around the room and "toasted" each other with thanks and complements for work well done. Despite cross-cultural communications gaps and all the other challenges, the love was so thick in the room that the air felt like we were swimming in a pool. However, most of all, it was exciting to be with a faith-based organization -- because everything was said in the context of worship to God and thanks for his miracles. There were many references to God's protection from dangers and miraculous provision in times of needs. The grace of God, and His hand of mercy on us has been overwhelming -- but everyone was painfully aware of their own missed goals at well. The joy was tempered with knowledge of unfinished business and sacrifices that everyone knows still lie ahead of us.

The last of our official deliveries of medicine and nutritional aid end today with ceremonial handovers at the Mizuzu Central Hospital, a district hospital, and two more African Orphans Day Care programs. I estimate we have visited a total of 15 outreaches in the last three days. On Thursday, Sister Joan from Medical Mission International will join Pastor Maurice and I to revisit two of the Orphan Day Care Centers we were at on Monday, projects which are of special interest to her -- and this is significant because it looks like Maurice will be coming to the States for fundraising in November as a guest of Rev. Paul Moore and the Citihope International USA board. More about that later!

Today we climbed the moutain -- Malawi's "Mount Pisgah". We did the required pilgrimage to Livingstonia, the 6000 acre moutaintop national monument from which the missionary explorer David Livingston viewed the great Bantu tribal nations which became modern day Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. It is a sacred site in many ways to the Citihope Malawi national director Robert Mhango and many of our national staff partners here. We went up and down the mountain in two four-wheel drive landcruisers which we had rented for the purpose. It was, I think, the worst "road" I have ever been on in my life and it went through smokey jungles where tens of thousands of people live and die barely noticed by the outside world.

There were 20 of us in our party, including Sister Joan Clare from Medical Mission International and the entire Operation Africa Child 2004 Malawi Team -- and all the local staff here we support with grant money sent by our World Children's Fund donors around the world. The treacherous mountain road has 22 hairpin switchback turns. In many places the road nearly disappears entirely.

Dressed in our WCF and MMI tee shirts, we brought symbolic aid for the projects we were supporting in Livingstonia -- the David Gordon Hospital, the town's private secondary school and the University of Livingstonia. At the top of the moutain, I was stunned to find out that I was scheduled not only for the handover ceremony but three "preaching" opportunities of a half-hour each! (These I gladly shared with the team members -- but used my prepared speech on teamwork at the hospital and my "Four Be's" Grandpa Bray lecture to the students -- "Be Knowledgeable, Be Wise, Be Pure and Be Faithful")

The visits to the maternity and pediatric wards at the hospital brought tears to our eyes, but the highlight for me will be when the women of the village danced and sang for us. The local staff had given them part of the 50 metric tonnes of dehydrated soup we shipped here earlier this year. They had composed a special song for us that went something like this:

"The soup, the soup you sent us, was very good. The pregnant women took the soup, and they were nourished. The TB patients took the soup, and they were nourished. The Malaria patients took the soup, and they were nourished. We want to thank (WCF) Citihope because you gave us the soup. Many, many thanks. Many, many thanks. Many, many thanks to you (WCF) Citihope. We want to thank you."

This song was danced by the women of the village with voice undulations, drums and dancing that lifted our feet right off the floor. Afterwards the village headman spoke for the village headmen on the moutain through an interpreter and thanked us.

None of the local people would dare to speak the word AIDS or sing it out since it is a taboo here. They prefer to speak about TB and Malaria since these are the old, almost "friendly" opportunist diseases that they know. Yet thousands here die from the real secret killer that is behind the TB and Malaria deaths. It was sad to see the shortage of nurses and teachers since so many professionals have died already.

The situation is far from hopeless, but to them it appears hopeless. They have not seen the new drugs working yet or come out and faced the facts of what they are going to have to do to survive this crisis. Meanwhile, one had the strong sense that we were watching a generation pass away. I went away loaded with "shopping lists" and proposals from the leaders -- and the faces of desperate students, teachers and leaders who are looking at us to help them survive into the future. More details will come later.

It is 12:30 now, after midnight, and I am exhausted but too pumped up with excitement to sleep. What a day of faith-building promise and outreach this has been! Besides representing Dr. Joseph Lam at ceremonial handovers of medicine at two hospitals and the Synod headquarters, we held a press for 60 local public health officials and media attended by the Lord Mayor and Member of Parliament from this district. Then as the light faded, tears came to our eyes as we visited the barefoot orphans we are helping to feed at the local blind school, made visits to girl orphans at local boarding school for whom we are considering a sponsorship, and visiting a nursing school that is seeking our assistance.

Although our outreach program is less than a year old here, we have already sent four shipments of aid into this desperately poor country and are actively assisting 37 local missionary institutions or stations. It is amazing to me to learn that we have already feed four million meals here and sent in aid valued at over US$ 2.2 million.

Every corner of my conscience has been pricked on this trip and Paul Moore, as usual, is making dangerous faith promises at every stop -- giving hope and incarnating Jesus more than any man I know -- and my faith is stretched to the absolute breaking point. It is no fun to sit on the podiums here and receive such elaborate thanks from these barefoot believers who are so dependent on us for their ministries and lives. May God help us to do more.

Oh the night is far too short! Seems like I barely put my head down on the pillow but the sun is waking me to this beautiful morning. The east Africa spring is well underway. The clean, fresh air is wild with birdsong and the most beautiful purple jakaranda flowers are falling from the streets like rain. As I sit here reading through Psalm 109 (how tempting it is to name some adversaries as I pray it!) I wish this moment closest with Christ could last all day. I could sit here all day just thinking on the wonderful events of yesterday but Sister Joan Clare is arriving today and our joint CitiHope and Medical Mission International/World Children's Fund will be complete. Ahead of us lies a grueling day of activity and ceremonial handovers of medicine. However, right now, I am caught up completely absorbed in thanking and praising the Lord, rejoicing in Him, and meditating on His ways. I wish this moment could go on all day but big events lie ahead including our official welcome by the local bishop and a press conference with the medical staff of the five local hospitals we are associated with in this emergency outreach to the orphans of the pandemic here. Every family has already lost at least one who has died in this plague -- and of course many have lost more than that.

A WORD ABOUT WHO MAKES UP OUR CORE MISSION TEAM THIS WEEK. Besides Sister Joan Clare from MMI in the Philippines, we are joined by Brother Robert, the Malawin Chief of Mission for CitiHope, my long-time friend and visionary co-worker the Rev. Paul Moore of Andes, New York; Pediatric AIDS specialist Dr. "Penny" Muelenaer (MD, FAAP) from Roanoke, VA and brilliant young program specialist Tracey Shissler from London, England. (At each of our many stops this week we will be joined by indigenous staff workers who are carrying on this our largest outreach program in Africa!)

Backed by three choirs pounding out some of the most beautiful Christian rythems I have ever heard, the Lord poured on me with a powerful anointing this morning as I preached twice on Philippians 3:1 to 4:1. My message featured the command to "Rejoice in the Lord", probably one of the most important themes of the book. I was able to preach a boiling hot message that came out of a week's meditation on this chapter and theme ... why Paul was so willing to denounce his priviledged heritage to rejoice in Christ and the free gift of salvation given by grace ... and why he wanted to live a life dedicated to understanding the power of the resurrection, suffering with Christ, and entering into His death ... why he insisted on leaving everything behind (both the good and the bad in his past) in order to run a race that rejoiced not in circumstances but in what the Lord had done for him. The readings, the hymns and the music all fit together perfectly guided by the Holy Spirit ... please pray for this message that will be rebroadcast with simultaneous translation on Radio Malawi to the whole country next Sunday. I was also interviewed by Radio Malawi (the state radio network) today. I think I will always be remembered for this sermon by the men and women who heard it, most of whom were the leading Christian figures of the indigenous church here.

Sunday ended with visits to the graves of the Scottish missionaries who brought the Gospel here and died by the deadly malarial mosquitos that are flying around me here in the hotel as I type this. After the afternoon meeting visiting an orphanage, I again had another beautiful dinner meeting with the leading officials of the Church of Central Africa. It went well into the night. As I type this it is 12:30 AM here and I have only slept a few hours last night -- and have to get up early tomorrow to make our second official handover of what will be $2.2 million dollars in aid. So I must stop and go to bed. Pray for good long-term effects from the messages I am speaking to the mass media and church leaders here this week. Pray that our words and demonstration of material support will encourage them as they craft their faith-based response to the epidemic that will kill at least 1 in 5 of all Malawins this decade!

My heart pounds as we fly over the burnt red soil of Malawi, so much like Central Virginia, and as I peer over the thatched roof of mud and tin shining tim roofs that dot this tropical Garden of Eden. With me on the Air Malawi jet is the WCF Citihope Medical team including the Rev. Paul Moore, our pediatric HIV-AIDS doctor, and program development officer. The flights here have been brutal on me, with over 26 hours in the air! I can barely keep my eyes open for 15 minutes without nodding off into exhaustion. Ahead of us is a five hour drive through the lowland villages up to the mountaintop sanctuary of the Mizuzu Central Hospital. This is the center of the new outreach network we are funding with the help of the Central African Church of Malawi. Thank God we are safe on the ground. Tomorrow I preach to 3,500 souls including the indigenous church leaders that have invited us to come and help them.

I'm not here anymore. Not sure exactly when I checked out, but I have. At some point over the last few months I became unreasonable about this thing. My wife, kids, boss, pastor and many others knew I've gone over the edge. Bill won't listen anymore, they said privately. They're too polite to say anything in public because after all, it's not cool to say we should let those 20 million orphans die -- but what can anybody do? Africa is so ungovernable. The UN or somebody should do something about it. In fact, the accent is on "somebody." Meaning of course, "somebody else!"

At any rate, it is 2:30 AM as I write. Everyone's in bed. My bags are almost backed. My dear long-suffering wife and family have done all they can to help. My church has collected the best offering they can. Now I'm all alone in the middle of the night, still banging away at this cause. Writing something which may never be read but which I can't stop pecking away at!

This is, I know, how Moses or Paul worked. How William Booth, Wesley and Judson felt. Why Isaiah and Jeremiah didn't give up. It is how I felt 39 years ago as a young seminarian who first heard the call for India from George Verwer.

In fact, I'm like a pregnant woman who is already in labor. There's no stopping me now. I'm gonna have this baby no matter how hard it gets. If it takes a C-Section I don't want and can't afford, it doesn't matter anymore. The pain and pressure is too great. I have to deliver this baby. It hurts too much not to have it and nobody can stop me now.

At six my plane leaves for Atlanta. There I connect to Johannesburg and onto Lilongwe, Malawi to deliver our first container of anti-retroviral to Mezuzah Central Hospital. Today, I should be in Amsterdam at an important international conference with the rest of my team from work, but I'm not. My kids need me. My church needs me. My mission needs me. I love them all, but something is greater now. I have got to go to Africa. I won't be denied. God is calling me.

It is 9:16 PM, the last meeting of the team before I go on ahead to Malawi. We do a conference call. Ivy and I in Charlottesville, Mpho Tutu in Alexandria and Paul Caratti in Ione, California. We are the five survivors of what has become a "marathon run" to South Africa that started a year ago when I promised to come back again this fall.

I thought it would be easy to put together a team of at least 18 for this mission. The Diocese of Virginia is the sister diocese of Christ the King in Johannesburg and we have a tremendous vision for the country that goes back many years.

And we had a great vision for this team. It combines piety, study and action in a wonderful, biblical balance. I was sure that everyone who joined us would have been transformed and eager to come. The package seemed impossible to resist to me. We planned education and medical outreach, included an incredibly gifted spiritual leader and a schedule jammed with "something for everyone." But that wasn't enough in this election year.

One by one the candidates dropped out -- or never joined in! When they saw the huge costs, the hopelessness of the task, and the spiritual storms ahead many turned back from the calling. Yet God has put us survivors together with this assurance - the Lord is about to show us his power, his resources, and his presence in all this. Mpho says God has called us to be the salt of the earth, not the rice! God loves to show his glory and strength through small numbers. The world is always won to Christ two by two, not by an army!

Two questions have been assigned for daily reflection on this mission:

• First, when was it today that you most clearly heard the voice of God's call?
• Second, when today was it the hardest to hear his voice?

I think we have found the spiritual study for this trip, which is essentially a study of the environment, not a study of books or lecture notes.

No Lord. Not again. Why must we risk all? Ivy and I have been clinging to the tiny inheritance my mother left us. We have lived so many years on the edge, in poverty. Now it seemed like at last we could have a little savings for our retirement. So we used it to buy a house, putting the cash into equity.

But God called. He spoke. Only I heard it seemed. I knew that I needed to keep this tiny team together and the only way was to meet the absolute final deposit deadlines this week. But I woke this morning with the solution to our current crisis crystal clear. We had to go back to the bank again! We had the money sitting there. We had to put it to work for the Kingdom of God.

I say go to the Bank again because this is not the first time we have financed this mission on credit. We used credit cards for a couple deposits and then we financed a bug hunk of the team with a personal home equity loan - paying ourselves back as tithes and offerings came in to cover it. But they never seemed to catch up.

Throughout the year leading up to this critical deadline week, we have borrowed to finance each new stage of the mission. Ivy begged me to stop. I felt it was absolutely foolish and against all sound wisdom. But God was calling. I knew it.

When it became clear to me that the mission hinged on having another $3,400 by this week, I had to act. I couldn't leave town on my mission to Malawi without having everyone's tickets paid. It was obvious that we needed another bridge loan.

And it was also obvious to Mpho and Ivy. We prayed. They surrendered in faith. I acted. We three joined our shaky faith as one, and suddenly we had the three-fold cord that is not easily broken. And suddenly, the team was on it's way again.

There are five of us now. All paid up. This is Gideon's band for "Operation Africa Child 2004."