Hello hello friends and family : )
I’ve realized that even though I’ve blogged often, I haven’t fully informed yall what I’ve been up to in the last two months.
We have been living in South Africa for almost two months now, working with the ministry Popup, which helps adults develop the skills to hold a steady job.
That’s what usually draws most people to Popup, but in the end, they walk away with much more than the skills for a job. Not only is Popup passionate about filling people’s physical needs, but their emotional, mental and spiritual needs, as well. One way they incorporate this, is by setting up a month long, “foundation for life” class that each learner must complete, before they can enroll in the skill program of their choice.
This is where we come in. For the last four weeks, I’ve sat with adults in their twenties and thirties working to better their lives, as they questioned and discovered who God truly is. Those who once walked in darkness, walk in the freedom and joy of walking in the light, because of this class. The group of men and women I met on the first day are not the men and women that I see today. God is so good.
This past Friday, the learners all graduated from foundation for life. They walked in front of the crowd, shook the hand of their teacher, and were handed their certificate. We took group photos and cheered and everyone was hugging. I honestly felt like a proud mom or something because I saw how in four short weeks, the lord drastically moved in this group. The course asked a lot of hard questions. Questions, that even as someone who is more mature in their walk of faith, had trouble answering. What the learners found is that most people of this community go to church, they know the answers, but they don’t understand the meaning behind the Sunday school clichés. Honestly, to me, that sounds a lot like most churches in America, too. But in the end, if you don’t understand something or someone, it makes having a relationship with it very difficult. Foundation for life focused on the foundation of faith and revolutionized the way these men and women thought. The class provided the tools they needed to discover what their faith is actually made of. And to see them all rise up and take ownership over their faith was incredible.
One Friday, the teacher switched things up a bit. She told the class to walk up a nearby hill, pick up a heavy rock, walk back down and bring it to class. So, we all set out, we walked the hill and it was really fun actually. Some people asked us what we were protesting, but we just laughed and explained. When we got to the pickup place for our rocks, we all realized that we were standing in a dump. Amongst the garbage, lonely shoes, and old, broken furniture, were indeed stones. Walking through the dump we grabbed our rocks and began headed back. The walk back wasn’t as fun, there wasn’t as much laughter, and we all walked much quicker, because these rocks were heavy. When we finally made it, the teacher was at the door, she asked us to take our rocks and stand out in the blazing sun and hold them up. She said not to put our rocks down.
We stood there, arms shaking, sweating, and listening to her speak to us. With the rocks above our heads, she very simply explained the gospel with this analogy. The rock we picked up from among the trash is our sin, our hurt, our pain. We spend most of our lives trying to struggle along, carrying this burden because we think we have to. But God, gave us a place where we can leave these things behind forever. She told us to take our rocks inside. A cross was at the front of the room. We sat down and passed out markers. For the next hour and a half, the learners all wrote down on the rocks what they were leaving at the cross today, where it would stay forever. My team and I got to pray individually with them and answer any questions they may have. The presence of God was there.
Being in that room, I truly saw shackles of the enemy fall away.
Soshangovue, where we live, is a small town just 30 minutes outside of Pretoria and is infamous in all of South Africa for being the most corrupt area. When we have transportation pick us up from our site, they are shocked were living there, and ask us to get in the car quickly so we can leave as soon as possible. They ask us if we’ve been robbed and comment on how they would never willingly come to Sosh.
The amazing thing is that despite all the generalizations we were told about Sosh, about the people there, the crime, the darkness, and how unsafe it is, my team and I have had really sweet experiences here. Besides a few gunshots nearby and a strike (we were completely safe on our site), we have seen some wonderful people, who have shared extreme kindness with us.
Some afternoons we just go out into the community and talk with people, praying for them and sharing the good news about Jesus. We also will sometimes go to a nearby orphanage and help the older kids with homework, or play with the kiddos, or help do dishes. This type of ministry is really sweet, because it is what you make of it. We have to be walking in the spirit, with the urgency of the spirit to carry out what he calls us to.
I think that’s all for now, a vague and simple explanation of what we’ve done so far. I wish I could express the deep relationships I’ve built with the learners, the wonderful conversations I’ve had with strangers, and the value of everything we’ve been a part of. But all in all, God is good, life is good, and thanks for reading : )
Much love,
Kara
