I had the idea for writing this blog many months ago, but time has not allowed me to write it. So lets go back to the month of November, 2011. The setting is beautiful Cape Town, South Africa and we were working with New Hope International, Jeremiah Project. We were doing street ministry in a colored neighborhood but while we were there many people served us and took us out to see the area and blessed us beyond imagination.
One of the people who really touched my life was a man named Steven.
Steven was a very ordinary person who was probably in his upper 40s and had a wonderful wife and two teenage daughters. He was an active member in the church that he attended and he ran the youth group. We met Steven one Sunday morning when he drove out of his way to pick us up and take us to his church. I rode in the inside of the truck with him and it was then that I found out that he is an Electrical Engineer and works at South Africa's only Nuclear Power Plant.
Funny huh? Funny that I would run into a person in South Africa who works at a Nuclear Power Plant…
Anyways, we went to Steven's church and had a great time. After church, Steven took us back home and invited us to go on a tour with him of the entire Cape Peninsula the following Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day that Steven picked us up and we all jammed into the bed of his pick-up truck as he took us for a 6-hour tour of the amazing Cape Peninsula! We stopped several times and all got out of the truck and took a lot of pictures. We saw some of the most beautiful ocean views that I have ever seen in my life! It was so much fun to be able to go on that tour of the peninsula. Near the end of the tour we stopped at a restaurant called, "Fish on the Rocks," which is a famous fish and chips place on the ocean. Steven treated us all 10 of us to a delicious meal of fish and chips (the best fish and chips I have ever had in my life). After dinner, we stopped at a beach to watch all of the seals jump around in the water… I mean everything about this day was just so great.
After Steven took us on the Cape Peninsula tour, he invited us all to a Braai (Africaans Barbecue) at his house with all of the youth group. So a few weeks later we all went over to his home and he treated us again to a delicious dinner and we had the opportunity to meet the youth at his church.
I guess the point of the story is that this one man blessed us in SO many ways!
It really challenged me to think about the ways that Steven used his career to bless us. It was because he worked at the Nuclear Plant that he had the money to take us on a tour around peninsula. It was because of his job that he had the time on a Sunday afternoon to take us on that tour. He was a great example of how someone can use the their corporate job and lifestyle to generously give to and bless others. I was greatly encouraged from Stevens generosity and challenged to do the same with my life.
