June 26, 2007
After camp today, two small teams headed out to minister to the residents of Joe Slovo, a squatter camp near Refilwe in Lanseria. We went with the intention of doing door-to-door evangelism, building relationships, and praying for any needs in the community. After a long day of ministry with crazy adolescent kids, honestly the last thing that I wanted to do was walk to a squatter camp and take a stab at door-to-door evangelism. I had never done it before, and I really wasn’t in the mood to start today.
Before we left, we prayed that God would give us strength to persevere through the rest of the day. After a long day of working with the kids, we were all fairly exhausted and lacking energy. As we made the 10 minute walk to the camp, I felt such a sense of refreshment that could have only come from Him. I became excited for this ministry and how I was about to see God move.
We arrived at the camp and split up into two teams so as not to be an overwhelming presence to the residents. I was with Sarah, Katey, Casey, and Kim, a member of the January team. This was our first exercise in “ATLing” (Asking the Lord). Many times throughout the year we will not have a planned ministry, but will have to ask God to give us guidance and direction as to where He wants to use us. We didn’t have any planned ministry at Joe Slovo, but simply relied on the Father to guide our footsteps, asking Him the whole way where He wanted to us to go, and who He wanted us to talk to.
After walking up and down several small alleys in the camp, we passed a shelter with a blue door. Sarah stopped and looked at me and said, “I think the Lord wants us to talk to them; He keeps telling me about a blue door.” There was no one outside of this shelter. We stopped as a group outside of their yard and asked God if He really wanted us to talk to them. None of us heard God speak anything else about this house so we walked on, confident that if He wanted us at this house, He would make it clear later on. We walked for a while, briefly prayed with a woman in the process of cooking dinner, and played with a few kids that we knew from our camp at Refilwe.
After some more walking, Sarah told us that she was still hearing God tell her to go to a house with a blue door, but this time He was telling her that it also had black writing on it. A few houses ahead of us, we saw the house with the blue door that we had originally stopped at, but this time noticed that there was black writing spray painted on it. When we stopped the second time, two women were in the front yard. Sarah called them over to the barbed wire fence and introduced her self. Their names were Nelly and Refilwe (that means “hope” in an African language). After a bit of small talk, she asked if they needed prayer for anything. Nelly said no, Refilwe told us that she would like us to pray for her. She walked us across the alley into her house.
I was blown away by her welcoming spirit. Her house was nothing more than scrap pieces of metal nailed together. Inside were mismatched sheets hanging from the ceiling. But it was honestly beautiful. She didn’t have a lot, but I could tell she took pride in what she had. We talked some more with her and learned about her life. She doesn’t have a job right now, so she lives off of 200 Rand (approximately $30) given to her by the government each month.
Sarah asked if she knew who Jesus was. She timidly shook her head no. Sarah proceeded to share the Gospel with her. She was receptive to what we had to share with her. I wish I could say that she accepted Christ into her heart today. But that’s not why I went. I went because God told me to. Maybe His plan was to only use us to plant a seed today. But she did seem very interested in learning more and getting to know us. We told her where we were staying and that she could stop by anytime to talk to us or ask questions. When we left, she made it seem like she would stop by to see us tomorrow.
When it was time to leave, we met up with the group that we split off from to walk back to camp together. They gave us some good news: 3 men genuinely accepted Christ into their hearts today! Praise God!
