I heard somebody say that the days on the race seem like years and the year will seem like only a couple of days. Given the fact that we are already finishing up our second months ministry, this is making more sense to me. Some days feel like this will be the longest year of your life and then you look up and the month is over.
This month is about as different as you could possibly be from last month. Last month we stayed with 24 screaming kids, this month we are in a quiet home with Pastor Lamaz and his wife Maki. Lamaz and Maki are missionaries from Nairobi, Kenya. There home Church in Kenya is a mega church called Nairobi Chapel. Lamaz and Maki felt Gods calling to leave everything they had and to start a Church in a completely foreign country to them and that is how they ended up here in Gabarone. Gabarone Community Chapel is the Church plant that they started and working with them has been our ministry for the month.
Gaborone Community Chapel reminds me of very small NorthPoint Church from back in Atlanta. They are a Church who is trying to reach the “unchurched” and Their mission is to grow DEEP to reach WIDE. D-Daily Devotion. E-E groups (community groups) E-Engagements in Acts of Mercy. P- Pulpit. W-Witness to 100,000 people I- Impact to the 6 sectors of society (church and religion, arts and media, business and commerce, family and eductions, science and medicine, politics and government). D-disciple 10,000 people by 2025. E-Establish 10 Churches by 2025.
Our role is about 90% envagelism and the other 10% is service planning and running the Church service on Sundays. We do evangelism 5 days a week at the University of Botswana, Rail Park Mall, and around the neighborhood where Pastor Lamaz and Maki live. The University of Botswana is a huge university right here in Gabarone with about 15,000 students. When we go out to the University our role is to simply love the students, pray with them, tell them about Jesus, and invite them to come to our Church. Rail Park Mall is a really nice mall about 10 minutes from where we are staying and we do evangelism 2 days a week there. On Saturday mornings we get to walk around the neighborhood and pray with the neighbors as well as help them with things around their house- car wash, clean house, take their trash out, or anything else they may need.
Evangelism is pretty new to most of the people on our team. I shared the Holy Ghost documentary films with everyone and started leading a study on the book of Acts. It has been amazing to see the boldness and the change in everyone after that. We leave the house with such a sense of urgency every day. Every morning we wake up and ask the Holy Spirit to highlight places, names, or any other directions He may have for us that day. I could write a book on how many amazing things have happened from this. The short is, He has directed us right to the people at the exact time we needed to be there. The God of miracles that we read about in the bible is 100% still the same God of miracles today.
On Saturday afternoons, we are responsible for setting up the Church for service the following morning. The Church is still very new and very small so they are meeting in an oriental school classroom. We have to remove everything from there and bring in all the things for the service and set up the stage, sound, decorations. etc. On Sunday we lead the service and are on stage leading the welcome, announcements, offering. etc. Once again, out of a lot of our comfort zones, but God has worked through us in amazing ways.
Today we got the chance to visit an orphanage in a very poor village with 200+ children who all have HIV. There is really no way to prepare your heart for something like this but we just brought the love of Jesus to a dark situation. We also had the chance to pray over a blind woman who worked for them. God is still healing the blind!
We leave for Madagascar next Thursday morning. We will have an overnight layover back in Johannesburg South Africa then fly out Friday morning. Our entire squad will be together working with the same ministry for the month and we will be in the capital city Antananarivo. This is the first time the World Race has ever been to Madagascar so we will be laying the groundwork for future generations of racers to come. We are beyond excited to see what God has in store next month.
Please continue to pray for us as we continue to live out Matthew 28:16.
Love you guys!
Ryan
