Hello everyone!!! We have arrived in Botswana and it’s amazing here. I know I’ve said that about every place, but there’s something special about this place. Our ministry and he people are sooooo fun. Anyways, I will talk about all our ministry here in another blog. For now, I want to tell you about the time we spent in Johannesburg, South Africa. Between Haiti and Botswana, we spent two full days in Johannesburg for LDW. LDW stands for Leadership Development Weekend. It is simply a small break between countries to refocus us on the Lord, receive teaching from our leaders and personally to beat jet lag. To say the least, the Lord had other plans.
My squad stayed at a hostel. If you don’t know what a hostel is – a hostel is like a hotel, but instead of purchasing a room, you purchase a bed. You could be sleeping in a room with 7 other random people. Hostels are a great and cheap place for backpackers to stay, so obviously that was our first choice. Luckily, we have so many people on our squad that we were all in rooms with people we knew. But, staying in the other rooms were people we didn’t know. In a hostel, everyone shares a kitchen and living room space. So the first night we were there, we got to know the people pretty well. We learned that the local college students use the hostel as a dorm and a many people were there because they had no where else to stay. Similar to a college dorm in the states, the night turned into one big party scene. It quickly became evident that the Lord placed us at this hostel for a reason. There was a lot of brokenness everywhere. Within 10 minutes of talking to the students, we were already having full blown deep conversations about the Lord. We weren’t even going into it with the intentions of this happening, it just sorta happened. It continued all night. My squad saw the opportunity the Lord gave us to speak into these college students lives and to meet them where they are. One girl – with an unexpectedly deep spiritual knowledge – expressed how stuck she felt in the college party scene. She knew the Lord and knew his commandments, but felt her friends didn’t take her seriously enough to respect that decision. We got to speak truth into her life and got to be rather close with her. Conversation after conversation blew my mind on what the Lord what trusting me with. One older man staying there had no particular affection for Americans, never the less Christain Americans. He was drunk all day and night accompanied by drugs and smoking. Though it seemed scary and odd, me and my team mates got to share the gospel and truth of the Lord with him. He spoke to us about a vast array of brokenness in his life. Despite his vulgar language and rude remarks towards us and what we believed in, we got to be examples to him that nobody is too far gone to receive the love of Christ. The fact that the Lord chose me to speak His truth into these people’s lives is a blessing. After this first night, it was apparent that the WHOLE hostel knew who we were. “The American Missionaries” was probably what went through there head whenever we walked by. As the Lord tells us in his word, our battles are not of the world, but of the spiritual realm. When my squad came into that hostel with the spirit of the Lord, the enemy wasn’t about to let that happen. People at the hostel weren’t always receptive to what we were talking about. People were rude to us, called us names and argued our cause. But this gave us even more opportunity to show the love, grace and compassion of Christ. Nights two and three were all similar and filled with the Holy Spirit stirring.
Not only did the Lord have work for us at the hostel, but he provided us the opportunity to minister to people at the nearby mall. While we were in an authentic African souvenir market, many of the vendor ma would ask us where we were from and why we were in Johannesburg. This is probably one of the easiest ways to sneak in a little bit of the Lord into a conversation. Soon enough, the vendors were asking us for prayer. They wanted prayers for family, finances, health, success and more. We got to stand with them in the middle of the market and pray. It was beautiful to pray unashamedly with these people. Since the lord has called us into full and deep relationship with him, why should praying in public be embarrassing? It’s not!!! Anyways, since others saw us praying, it caused them to come and ask for prayer as well. Soon enough they had us praying over the whole entire market. We explained to them that we’re not anyone special and that their prayers are just as powerful as ours. One vendor wrote down our names so that he could continue praying for us. He kept looking at the names and was trying to come up with other names that sounded like ours. We asked him what he was doing, and he said he was thinking of naming his twins after us when they are born. It was so funny and sweet. The man genuinely associated us with the love of Christ and wanted that for his children. His name was Emanuel. As I’m typing this, I’m realizing how weird all this might sound, but being on the race makes these things feel normal. It’s quite the adventure.
The rest of LDW was full of Jesus moments. On the last day, I GOT TO GO TO A HILLSONG CHURCH. If you know me, you know I love the band Hillsong. Me and my teammates loved it so much that we went to both morning services and one of the evening services – all in one day. It was so fun and great.
Sadly, LDW ended and brought way to 18 hours of bus rides. But now we’re in Botswana and it has far exceeded my expectations. That’s another story for another blog(:
I’m continually so thankful that the Lord gave me this opportunity and I appreciate every one of you who reads my blogs!!(:
I still have a wee bit of fundraising to go. If you could all be in prayer about what that is going to look like, I would greatly appreciate it.
