I have now been on the World Race for seven months.
Each month on the World Race has provided a myriad of opportunities. Ministry and even life takes on many different forms. Sometimes you walk into an established mission and you’re just the hands and feet for the month, but some months, like this one, you walk into an incredible opportunity to pioneer something.
This month, I find myself in Coffee Bay, a beautiful little village on the Eastern cape of South Africa. We are working with Mandy, this incredible woman with a heart and a vision for this land.
Her father is not a believer, but he is very well respected in this community. Evidence of racism still lingers in corners here, but when it was really running rampant and turning neighbor against neighbor, Mandy’s father found favor with the Africans. Because of this, the chief granted him an allotment of land among their own people. So on this land, about 30 years ago, he began a backpackers hostel and campgrounds. Previously, this land has been known for music festivals and ensuing activities that sum up 1970’s America, but when we showed up, there was a definite shift in the atmosphere.

Mandy has been living for years in Capetown, where the Lord captured her heart and began using her mightily in the lives of local children. She began a surfing and soccer ministry there which provided a great opportunity both for people wishing to be involved in the community and for the local children in need of entertainment and (more importantly) and awareness of a need for relationship with their Savior.
So each weekday, all year round, the group meets from 2-4. They pray, do some warm ups and drills, chant some surfer songs, and then enjoy the feel of waves crashing around them and a smooth board beneath them propelling them over it . Then at the conclusion of the activity, the children sit down together to hear the Word of God. The government saw how this was keeping the children out of trouble, and so they gave Mandy a beachfront building to serve as their “surf shack”. Talk about favor! This ministry really took off as the Lord began to open doors for it to run with minimal expense. Thrilled with the way things were going here, her heart became stirred at the thought of the children in Coffee Bay, near her father’s campgrounds.
Coffee Bay is a tribal area, much more rural than Capetown. The children here have very little to keep them entertained, but every opportunity to get into trouble. On one of our first ventures over the river and through the woods into the village, we came across some adorable children playing in the hills. Their toy was a makeshift car, constructed of cut-up plastic bottles, a piece of wire and an old paint roller. But you would have thought it was Christmas morning with the way they beamed at this thing. I don’t relay this vignette to you for sympathy- I kind of envy the simplicity of cultures like this- the way people are so much more appeasable. Instead, I say this to you so you may understand how much something so simple as teaching a child to surf and kicking around a soccer ball with them can make a difference in their life.

As the vision for this place began to take shape, God placed the World Race in Mandy’s path. And before she knew it, she had 35 hands and feet coming to literally run with her dream. God is incredibly timely like that. So this month, we’ve come into a notoriously godless area and brought the light of Christ through sports and evangelism. Twice a week we do worship and invite the locals and often get to end by praying over them. It’s been amazing to be a part of God’s work in such an obvious way. But here’s where you come in.
We have started this thing, laid the ground work for it, but long after we pack up our tents and leave this place this month, the children and their need for love and discipleship will still be here. We don’t want to seem like typical Westerners who come and preach their little message, do their good deeds and then leave the children to their reality with no one to encourage them in their new, fledgling faith. So we need more volunteers. People to carry the torch after we’re gone. There are so many opportunities for those even as young as high school age. The ministry in Coffee Bay is not limited to surfing and soccer and you don’t have to know how to do either one to teach it (Mandy has a program that teaches the volunteers very basic steps to teach the children)! Her vision for this place is for it to continue to run each month as different teams of volunteers come in, but the next available World Race team won’t be coming until November and December. The need is urgent.
Below are several other needs and opportunities in this area:
-Evangelism and prayer in the village
-HIV ministry
-Church planting
Needs:
-long term leaders
church planters/missionaries
People to oversee sports ministries
-short term teams to facilitate sports
If you are interested in volunteering or more information, please contact Mandy Weschta at _____________________________.
You can also check out her website www.volunteerinsouthafrica.co.uk to see their mission statement and get a little glimpse of the ministry in Capetown.
But it’s the Coffee Bay site that we really need you for! So please be prayerful in how you can partner with us in this. Pass this along to friends or churches and youth groups. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
