South Africa. I never imagined myself here in this ministry or even with my team. I went into South Africa expecting that I wouldn’t be a team leader, that I wouldn’t have a team who wanted to go spiritually deep, that I wouldn’t have an incredible ministry that’s people based, but every single thing I thought I wouldn’t have God has blessed me with. From the moment we walked into our new home for 3 months He’s shown me the desires I had that I didn’t want to speak into because I was scared I wouldn’t receive come to life.
Over the last two weeks my AMAZING team and I have been working with Impact Africa. IA works directly with the squatter communities ( informal settlements) to help them to know Jesus. They have several different preschools, a baby rescue program, a student ministry, and community outreach which is what we are a part of. The first week of being here was full of training and getting to know each area of ministry but now we go out everyday and tell every single person we see about Jesus.
When I first heard about the baby rescue program I knew that was what I wanted to do because if you know me then you know how much I love babies. However since we are a team and would be better suited for a larger ministry we were placed in community outreach. Being put there my heart began to beat a little faster, I had never shared the gospel with anyone before but here I was with it now being my job to share over and over. Our team got together after finding out and thanked God for this opportunity of constant ministry (9-5) and just for God putting each of us on this team.
After stepping out of the car and smelling the air of our first squatter camp we were ready to go. I walked down the road onto our street praying that God would just speak through the people in my group. We ended up meeting someone right at the top of the road and he invited us to sit and talk. My leader Jeremy started the conversation and all I could do was study/ absorb everything he did or said so that the next time we went out I would feel ready to speak.
We continued to talk to a couple of other people and as we went down the street more I feel at ease knowing that God was literally walking through the filth and speaking to these beautiful people with us. The next day we went out again meeting a young mother walking home. I asked if we could help with cleaning or if she had time to talk and to my surprise she said yes. Each time we walked, each time we talked to someone I felt Gods presence in that space.
My team and I sat with lots of people talking to them about life and about Jesus. There was one mama who was walking home and I caught her asking if we could go with her. We sat in her house that was just big enough for a bed and stove top. As I was holding her 10 week old baby ( I actually get to hold tons of babies some of them 3 days old!) I noticed a thread with a button on the babies wrist. I asked her about it and she told me it was to help uncross the babies eyes. In African culture witchcraft has a huge stronghold on the people here and you will see that many kids have bands on them to help with protection or healing. When the mama told me what it was my feet felt heaving I knew that it needed to come off. I asked her if we could pray for healing over her baby and believe that Jesus would heal her because he is our healer, after carefuly thinking she said yes. We prayed and my team Betheny, Silas, and Jocelyn prayed along with us. When we finished she took off the bracelet.
I never thought that the last three months of my race would be doing this, telling the beautiful people of South Africa about Jesus. I see now that the first 6 months were about God growing me and shaping me, which of course I will still do, but now its time for my full cup to overflow into others. As we go out each day I think about a verse that has been circling around in my mind, “but I will be sufficient in courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For me, to live is to Christ and to die is to gain.” Philippians 1:20-21 I wasn’t living until I had Christ completely capture my heart, yes to die would mean that I would be with Christ but what made me love this was that every breath I breath yearns to tell people about Christ. So that’s what I will do every single day.
