The World Race has officially begun. We all reported to launch Sept. 5th in Chicago. In all I believe there are about 240 of us. The 240 were split into 4 different routes leaving about 60 to a squad. Then the 60 are divided into groups of 7 or 8 which make up the teams. I am part of team J-159. J-159 stands for Joshua 1:5-9 which talks about Joshua and how he was called by God to be strong and courageous.
Our journey started by heading to New York on the Sept. 8th I think. We arrived in New York about 12:30 AM and decided to make a night of it and explore the city while we had the chance. We ended up seeing times square, statue of liberty, wall street, and took the ferry to Staten Island. It was an awesome night hanging out with my teammates and exploring the city.
That morning we returned to the airport from our tour of New York City and caught a plane to Atlanta and took a connecting flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. It was about a 16 hour flight that gave us a lot of time to catch up on lost sleep.
Sept. 11-Well somehow we ended up in Pretoria, SA. It’s only about an hour from Johannesburg. The ministry is called POPUP. It stands for People Upliftment Project and serves as a skills training and development center. Basically any adult in need of education or training can come receive it here with the intent of helping them find a job and to also hear the gospel message at the same time. Some of the training areas include computer skills, paving, plumbing, carpentry, hospitality, sewing, home-based care, and footwear manufacturing.
Photo of where we stayed at POPUP and some of the guys on my squad
Thanks for all the support everyone has given me. God has blessed more than I ever deserve and people like you who are supporting me in prayer have a huge role in all this as well. My team has also been a huge blessing to me. I can already see we are going to challenge and push each other to grow in our relationship with Christ each day as we live and serve together here in South Africa and the nations to come in future months. We have all connected well and have come together to form what I think will be a strong team and through Christ will be able to accomplish much in Jesus name.
I am continuing to remember everyone back home as well and look forward to seeing you all again soon!
Sept. 23-We’ve been at POPUP now for two weeks. A typical day for me usually consists of being ready to go for the day at 8. Then we have devotion and for a half-hour before starting work at 9. Then I head over to the kids. The kids start with their lesson for the day and the past couple of weeks they have been learning about birds. After that the kids have some sort of craft, then snack, and play time. Bathroom breaks, washing hands and eating is also mixed in there quite often and this usually turns into quite the messy adventure. After the kids have their lunch we get a two hour break to eat and relax. Then we head back at 2:30 and play/hangout/cleanup with the kids until they leave for the day. That ends up being around 4:30 or so. It ends up being a long exhausting day but it’s a lot of fun and the teachers need the help.
September 22 we spent a day at a park in Pretoria. We all went there along with some guitars and let God take care of providing people to talk to. The day turned out really well with a lot of worship, a lot of sharing the gospel with all ages of people, and a lot of fun.
This is a photo from our day at the park
Later that day some of us were able to go to a soccer game of some kids as well. These kids have been coming most days just to hang out with us for a while so we decided to support them at their soccer game. From what we can tell they don’t have much of a home life and I think they really have appreciated the support and friendship from us. And they’re great kids to start with so it was fun for us also.
This past week, the 25th, 27th, and 28th we spent some time visiting orphanages. These orphanages worked with kids who are called double orphans which means neither of their parents are involved in their lives. Most of these kids live with grandparents or aunts and uncles. The orphanage provides the kids with a meal, help with homework, and a positive environment to hang out and play. We spent one day at each of the three orphanages mainly playing with the kids and helping out wherever help was needed. Everybody had a great time and kids were really excited to have us there as well.
On the 26th we spent the first part of our day at a school where we worshiped with them, did a short testimony/ skit thing that was really cool, and one of my team members gave a message. After our time at the school we were off to Passion South Africa! Passion is yearly event that takes place in the U.S. as well. Everyone was really excited to have the opportunity to attend this event. The main singer was Chris Tomlin along with Christie Nockels and the speaker was Louie Giglio. It was another amazing opportunity for our team to attend this event. If you get a chance to attend Passion in the future I would recommend it for sure.
Sept. 30-We are now in our final days at POPUP before leaving for our next ministry site which will also be in South Africa somewhere. All of the teams from I squad have been slowly trickling into POPUP to meet as a squad before we head to our next destination.
As we were waiting for one team to arrive one night something pretty awesome happened. A few of the guys and I had been waiting 3 hours or so at the bus station for the team to arrive so we could take them backup to where the rest of the squad was staying. So while we were just hanging out there a man (we’ll just call him Vinnie) drives his car up to us and asks if we could help carry his stuff into the bus station for him. We agreed to do that and were able to chat with him a little bit before Vinnie went in to check in for his bus ride.
After a while Vinnie came back outside to where we were standing and we could tell he was a little upset. We find out that he’s going to be charged extra because he has too much weight in his luggage and he doesn’t have any money to pay for it. So we end up hearing he’s a South African Marine veteran that’s having a really rough time in life and doesn’t really know where to turn next. He also doesn’t have any money left and is going to be stranded at the station until he can get more money somehow. Well we ended up sharing the gospel with him and he seemed very open to it. We also prayed for him and afterward he gave us all hugs as tears were streaming down his face. Then we went back inside the station and paid for his bags which ended up being around $30. Vinnie was so grateful and appreciated everything we did for him so much. You could see the joy on his face when he found out he was going to make it back home. I don’t know for sure what he thought about Jesus but the seed was planted, Vinnie got to go home, and now all we can do is pray for him. Hopefully someone else comes along that can help him take the next step toward accepting Jesus as his Savior and Lord.
Oct. 2- We've arrived at our next ministry site located just outside White River, South Africa. The place we're staying for the month is called Michael's Children's Village and serves as a home for about 20 orphaned children and the people that care for them. So far we've spent a lot of time hanging out with the kids because they've been on a break from school. Next week the kids go back to school so i'm sure things will be much different than they were this week.
