the films

Monday 27●11●2006	Tuesday 28●11●2006	Wednesday 29●11●2006	Thursday 30●11●2006	Friday 1●12●2006
‘Mother Africa’ (showing at Kaffa Coffee Co.)	‘Africa Learning’ (showing at Kaffa Coffee Co.)	‘Leading Africa’ (showing at Kaffa Coffee Co.)	‘Africa Forgiving’ (showing at Fellowship Dallas - if weather is bad it will be in Swiss Towers contact Michelle Jones)	‘Hearing Africa’ (showing at Northwest Bible - time to be announced)
“Yesterday” – was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film in 2005 (first South African film to be nominated for an Oscar) – about a faithful woman and mother who gets infected with AIDS by her husband who works in the goldmines in Johannesburg and deals with how it affects her and her daughter’s life.	“The Constant Gardener” - starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz who won the “Best Actress” Golden Globe for it in 2006 filmed mainly in modern-day Kenya – a British couple working in the Embassy discovers something suspicious related to free pharmaceutical drugs and its effects on the local population.	“Sometimes in April” – HBO documentary about Rwanda – it starts a decade after the genocide when there is a Human Rights Court hearing cases in Tanzania and a radio-presenter stands charged with inciting this tragedy although he never directly killed anybody.	“Tsotsi” – won Oscar for best foreign film 2006 (first South African film to win an Oscar) – about a young thief who hijacks a car from a couple without knowing that there is a young child in the backseat.	“Red Dust” – starring Oscar winner Hillary Swank who plays a New York lawyer (who fled Africa as soon as she was eighteen) involved with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in South Africa

the voices

Monday 27●11●2006	Tuesday 28●11●2006	Wednesday 29●11●2006	Thursday 30●11●2006	Friday 1●12●2006
‘Mother Africa’	‘Africa Learning’	‘Leading Africa’	‘Africa Forgiving’	‘Hearing Africa’
● Bernadette (Rwanda) will tell us about how ALARM is empowering the church to help widows care for orphans given to them. ● Kelly (US) and Blessing (Nigerian) will share their current struggle to survive the red-tape on adopting the 1st Nigerian baby in the country’s independent history. ● Amy (US) who serves full-time in Sudan as a missionary from IBC in orphanages will share the current involvement of other US believers helping with this issue.	● Pierre (Ivory Coast) who has spent a few years studying in the States and plans to go home to teach the Bible and translate it to his countrymen. ● Vic a DTS faculty member (US) who taught in Ethiopia for some time. ● Johnny (US) who has experience working with street kids and recently started serving African refugees. ● Ms. Judy (US) tells about her visit to South Africa during a global evangelization conference in 1997 and serving there - how she sees DTS playing a vital role in Africa’s future.	● Patrick (US) from Watermark along with his team shares his experience in Rwanda and Burundi with ALARM. ● Celestin (Rwanda) tells us more about their leadership and reconciliation ministry in 8 African countries. ● Butros (Nigeria) who is also active with leadership-development in Western Africa. ● Joseph (Cameroon) who also focuses on pastoral teaching and mentoring in French Africa. ● Kambale (Congo DRC) on leadership development needs in Central Africa	● Arthur (South Africa) shares how he got the chance to study in Atlanta, GA and what living in a country as a marginalized people-group both in the Old and New South Africa feels like. ● Josh (US) tells us about his thoughts before and after his first visit to South Africa and Mozambique in the summer of 2006. ● Eva (US) tells about her (still unlived) dream to visit and serve Africa and how her perspective on life has changed since learning more about it.	● Panel discussion and strategic planning session on main areas of concern and interest as the week progressed… ● How will Dallas Theological Seminary respond to what was said this week? ● What Vision Africa hopes to contribute after today… ● What will happen to the Zebra's bark?

love in 2000 languages

"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to seperate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -

Join us:
every day this week:27 November - 1 December 2006
at the Dallas Theological Seminary campus on 3900 Swiss Avenue, Dallas, TX 75204

What?
Friends inviting you to experience African community for a week in America.

Why?
to encourage Africans living in a foreign culture,
to introduce Americans to our realities here and back home,
to recognize God's wind blowing us together, right here, right now.

How?
Hear 15 different DTSers share their experiences from Africa through an informal discussion between friends...
(3 main voices about a common theme/region each day for 5 days)
...see 'the voices' for details

Watch an African movie with us each night at different venues in Dallas...
(first come first serve and bring your own blankets, snacks and kleenex)
...see 'the films' for more details about the movies and actors

Where, when for who?
...Fireside Room in Swiss Towers
for people who love little ones...
Monday morning, 27 November 2006,10:30-11:30

...Room 114 in the Todd Building
for teachable adventurers who want to know the truth about a rough reality...
Tuesday through Friday lunch, 28 November-1December 2006, 11:30-12:30

...Kaffa Coffee Roasting Company
for lovers of art, humanity and excellent beverages...
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening, 27-29 November 2006, 19:00-21:00

Owned and ran by Sam and his wife, Abby all the way from Etiopia with their three US-born daughters now living in Dallas. Their eldest now studying at Stanford who recently visited South Africa as an AIDS-Ambassador.
These delightful people made their one-of-a-kind coffee bar available for our use between 19:00-21:00 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening. There is seated space for about twenty people where we'll be setting up the screen and projector, so please get there early if you don't want to sit on the floor.
(10455 N.Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75231, 214-691-6933)

...Fellowship Bible Church Dallas,
for families who believe the impossible becomes possible with God...
Thursday evening, 19:00-21:00
(9330 N.Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75231, 214-739-3881, )
www.fellowshipdallas.org

...Northwest Bible Church,
Friday evening [time to be announced-possibly a double-barrel show]
(8505 Douglas Avenue, Dallas, TX 75225, 214-368-6436]
www.northwestbible.org

engage in the REAL Africa of 2006

Contacts:
Leani or Arthur (from South Africa)
Eva and Josh Bleeker (from the USA)
...through the DTS 'facebook'/'stalkernet'
or send an email to zebrasbark@u2.com

Love Acts

where it all began in 2004

“Sixty-five hundred Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease. And it is not a priority for the West: two 9/11s a day, eighteen jumbo jets of fathers, mothers, families falling out of the sky. No tears, no letters of condolence, no fifty-one-gun salutes. Why? Because we don’t put the same value on African life as we put on a European or American life. God will not let us get away with this, history certainly won’t let us get away with our excuses…In the Global Village, distance no longer decides who is your neighbor, and “Love thy neighbor” is not advice, it’s a command.”
– Bono, November 2002 -

…becoming part of the solution…

The Bible records a story, in the ninth chapter of John’s gospel of a blind man who had trouble seeing life for what it really was. He begged Jesus to heal his eyes. God restored his sight and everybody in the region knew that a miracle had occurred.

The educated, high society of the day had many explanations. These skeptics argued that his disability was just consequence of his parents and/or his own sins. Jesus disagreed. When asked to defend the reason for this poor man’s suffering, humiliation and pain during all of his life, the God-man responded: “No, it was allowed into his life with the purpose to reveal God's work in him…”

On the last Sunday before I left South Africa in August 2004, this passage was branded upon my soul. It defined the unspoken question confronting me as an African leaving for a foreign land in search of greater understanding.

Is Africa poor, hungry and left desolate to suffer alone because of her own sins or those perpetrated by her colonial parents?

I believe Jesus’ reply would be the same: “No, but that the glorious power of the Living God might be revealed to all the earth.”

How will I respond to this challenge?
May each day of my life tell His story of sacrificial love.
May I inspire every mortal He sends across my path to put their trust in Him.
May I grow in skillfulness and influence to mobilize more souls as part of His supernatural solution to the needs of Africa!

For more information about how I started connecting my American friends to those in Africa see project pretty dirty feet on www.vision.givengain.org

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to walk through the valley of shadow again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires.”
– Nelson Mandela, September 1953 –

little miss sunshine

the gardener and his son

will work for food