The World Race is an incredible opportunity for meeting new
friends and sometimes even reconnecting with old ones! It is so cool how God
weaves our lives together, crossing paths throughout the years or just for a
brief moment in time.
Our second week in South Africa I was contacted by some old
friends from Bible College, Noah and Tricia Kaye, who saw on Facebook that I
was in Cape Town. They had left the USA in January to be missionaries there for
3 years, planting churches with an organization called All Nations http://all-nations.co.za/. I asked them if they had any idea where the small
village of Fish Hoek was, figuring they probably had never heard of it. As it
turned out, I was staying right around the corner from where they live! It was
like a miracle (especially considering the fact that Cape Town has 4 million
people in it). They took me out to dinner and we reconnected after many years. They
also took the time out of their busy schedule to show me all around the
beautiful sights of the area. It was exciting to hear about the work they are
doing in Masiphumelele, one of the communities we were also involved in. They
are passionate about simple church planting and recognize that a church is not
a building but a group of people gathered in Jesus’ name! Their blog is http://blog.noahkaye.com/ if you would like to know more about their incredible
story.
One of the highlights of my entire year was the wonderful blessing
of seeing the missions team from my home church in Worcester! (By the way, I
drove through a ‘Worcester, South Africa’ just outside of Cape Town which is
spelled & pronounced the same way J). It was so refreshing to see familiar faces and to
have a day to catch up with several good friends. God completely opened the
door for me to be able to see them… the timing was nothing short of
miraculous.
Last July I had the opportunity to go to the same location in the
Limpopo Province of South Africa (our church has adopted a village there).
Taking that trip to Africa was actually one of the things that inspired me to
do the World Race in the first place. When I signed up for my route, I saw that
South Africa was on the list of countries and I thought, “How cool would it be if I saw my church team there half way across the
world?“, knowing that it was EXTREMELY unlikely we’d be there at the same
time. Originally my squad was supposed to be there in May and the church was
scheduled to go later in July. When May rolled around we found out that for some
reason we were no longer going to South Africa that month and perhaps were not
going at all. Later in Mozambique I found out that we would, in fact, be going
to South Africa in July. To make a long story short it came down to the fact
that we had just one day off in Johannesburg before we left the country and
that just happened to be the week that my church was in South Africa; it also just
so happened to be their one day off from ministry. [You do the math…out of 335
days on the World Race, only one day perfectly matched up] My awesome friend
Leah who works for One Hope offered to pick me up and drive me up to see the team
for the day. It was a really fun time with them…we even saw some amazing lions
and giraffes! To top it off they were kind enough to bring a care package my
parents had sent me, which I had been waiting 6 months for (it’s a long story J). It was like Christmas morning!
South Africa was also a month of making new friends. The team at Ocean View where we worked was an
incredibly fun and talented group of people dedicated to the kids and teens in
that community. They taught me so much in our month with Living Hope http://www.livinghope.co.za/. The mission of Living Hope is to reach people for
Christ, bringing hope and breaking the despair of poverty and disease… and they
are truly living up to that calling.
The lodge we stayed at was called the A.C.T.S House which is a
ministry that facilitates missions trips in East and Southern Africa http://actsoverland.com/ and there were several other AMAZING people staying
there from the States that we got to know pretty well. We had dance parties,
game nights, movies, and they shared all kinds of yummy treats with us!
There was also a church from Little Rock, Arkansas we worked with
our last week at Mountain View. It was nice to see vibrant new faces that were
so passionate about the ministry… as well as a great group to hand off the
baton to when we left!
In the end, all I can say is GOD is GOOD…I will miss you, South
Africa!
[Our Team for this month:]
