I realize that its week 3 in South Africa and I have yet to tell y’all what we are really doing here this month. To be honest, I am not even sure if I still know the answer to that.
This month we were all really pumped! When we found out about our ministry for the month and they told us we were doing surfing ministry in Muizenburg/ Cape Town, South Africa area we were all bouncing off the walls! A little nervous because, if you watch “Shark Week” you will have heard of those areas. Especially “False Bay” which is where we are based at specifically. Home of THE GREAT WHITE SHARK! Pretty crazy, huh? Yep! This was the ministry that everybody was talking about and hoping to get to work with. 4 of our 7 teams, all living in 1 hostel, with 1 kitchen, 2 showers, and 2 bathrooms! Each person eating on less than $3 each meal (which here is very difficult because its all American prices). I feel like if we have learned anything this month, we have learned the importance of community and dying to ourselves so that others can have and be blessed. Living in a house with that many people, there are many opportunities each day to serve others, and honestly, its been one of the most challenging, but growing experiences in my entire 24 years. I have also learned to love PB&J sandwiches, because we have ate them EVERYDAY for lunch since arriving 🙂 No exaggeration. HAHA
Anyhow, back to the story. This month we had a couple different projects we were suppose to be doing. In the afternoon, some people surfed, some people played soccer with the local kids from the slums, some people did reading and school projects. In the morning there were street kids ministries, homeless outreach, Hillsong Church feedings, and more. There were LOTS of different areas to serve this month. I specifically was assigned to the surfing project (which was funny because I had NEVER been on a surf board a day in my entire life, HAHA, but don’t worry, its easier to teach than it is to learn yourself)! So each day we took a group of kids from the slums and surfed with them, fed them, and did prayer and Bible studies with them. It was so cool!
Now. The tough part. Week 1 was kinda okay. No huge problems, minus some scheduling stuff, but nothing major. We got past it. Our contact however, decided to let all of her volunteers go who had run the surf shop prior to us arriving… Okay, no biggie… Maybe. Except this was all new to us and now it was in our hands to make sure it run smoothly. Hmmm… This is when things started to take a turn in a different direction.
Welcome to The World Race… You learn that NOTHING (except Jesus) is solid. You learn to become VERY fluid.
After this started, it seemed as if there was a snowball effect that began. One thing after another started going crazy it seemed like. Ministry stuff was crumbling, and people had no idea what they were doing from day to day. So we met and came up with new ideas. Time and time again, they would fall through. It got to the point where we were so confused on what needed to happen that we almost lost sight of the goal… TO SPREAD THE GOSPEL & ALLOW YOUR LIFE TO BE MINISTRY.
I don’t type this blog in anyway to downplay the ministry that we worked with, nor to be a debbie downer, but I type it more so to let you know that sometimes our directions and plans fall through and don’t turn out the way we had initially planned for them to turn out. Some of the outreaches have worked great this month, and some of the others, flopped.
I say all that to encourage you and give you this idea to ponder on… What does ministry look like for you? Is it something that you have planned out or set aside just for Sunday, or do you use your day to day life experiences to help minister to people you come in contact with? I can tell you this, Jesus never intended for us to get so caught up on titles and programs. I feel like we make church and ministry so complicated. Jesus came to the earth to live a life that shared the Gospel with all whom He came in contact with. Whether that was while surfing, playing soccer, eating out at His favorite restaurant with His disciples, going to the mall (I bet Jesus loved the mall 🙂 ), or what have you. We were created for a bigger purpose. We were created to spread the Gospel everyday with our lives!
My fear is that often times, we get so hung up on planning and the organization part of it all, that we miss the really important part. If I had let every time something fell thru stop us from ministering, we would have missed it this month completely.
Stop trying to put God on a “to do today” list and start letting God be the paper that you base everything else in you life on. When we take God off the priority list and make Him the very thing that drives everything else in our lives, that’s when we will see real results and people getting saved. As long as we put God and ministry on that “list” as just another task to check off, He will slowly start to drop from first to last place. So today make Him the center point of your life and allow everything else to flow from that.
Love y’all.
