Here is a glimse into what my two months of South Africa have been like. We work with an organization called Impact Africa, within this there are five different branches!
The first branch is Impact Baby Rescue (I.B.R.). This department goes into abortion clinics and hospitals and give presentations about the importance of their child’s life. They also expand on facts like 3 to 5 newborn babies are abandoned everyday in Johannesburg. In this specific department they also counsel new mothers who may feel stressed, confused, or any range of emotions. I.B.R. also has a really neat program called the Baby Dropbox, this is a box designed for mothers who just cannot raise a child to put their baby in so that the baby is not just thrown away. The dropbox has a weight sensor inside that alarms the house mom that a baby is inside and the house mom can retrieve the baby and the birth mother doesnt have to speak about anything and leaves her completely anonymous. It’s a safe way to reduce the rate of child abandonment.A key verse I think about for this specific department is James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father acceptsas pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polutted by the world.
The next department is Impact Kids. This program is a cresh (preschool) in the middle of squatter camps that provides schooling and a safe place for children ages 2-6 years old. Children in this program are taught the basics of schooling and introduces fun bible stories to help the children get excited about learning about the bible. When the kids who have gone through this program begin primary school they test in the top 20% of their grade!
Another department is what I’m apart of right now, we come in and help with all 5 of the branches. I love it here so much! Along with the short term groups there is also an interniship program here that ranges from 3 months to a year long program geared toward my age group. For people searching for the untraditional route. Searching for a purpose and a way to serve internationaly for longer than 2 weeks. Pretty Awesome.
The last two departments are pretty near and dear to me and have helped me so much in my walk and in finding my next steps in life. One being Community Outreach. We go into squatter camps where people are living off of less than a dollar a day and share the hope and love of Jesus with people all over there. The squatter camps are made up of people who come from all over Africa looking for a job right here in Johannesburg. The hope that Jesus brings to these people is mind blowing to me. In the first week of us working with this department there was over 200 salvaions. That’s insane.
The last department is something I have been able to grow in over the time of being on the race. The world race has shown me that I have a passion for teaching young adults and high schoolers. The department I’m going to share about has only confirmed my desires to work in this atmoshere after the race and that is Impact Students. They go into different high schools around the squatter camps and teach a class about life skills. I got to help in this department once a week almost as soon as school here started back up (the last two weeks in January). I got paired off with one of the girls on the other team we’re living with and we led the class along with a translator who worked closely with this specific ministry. The first class we taught was all about dreams and encouraging these students to continue to follow your dreams no matter what, which easily fell into the next lesson we got to share about circumstances Vs. choices. We mostly expanded on how you can’t choose your circumstances but you can make good choices regardless. The first day we were in the schools we were sitting at the tables during some time between our next class we would be teaching when the staff member who heads up Impact Students was sharing with us about this kid they met last year who was known for fighting and had failed grade 11 three times and how this student went to the staff member and was able to share that he passed grade 11 and made it to matric which is grade 12 in the states (also, the hardest grade for these students). I was in awe and felt the presence of the Lord so clearly showing me what I needed to do after the race. I asked God for confirmation in three different ways and He showed up in every single situation. Firstly I asked Him to make clear my passions and desires. He made it really clear that I have a passion for students. Secondly, I asked God for confirmation from someone else and thats when a man named Dennis who works with Impact Students came over to me during a break in classes leaned over to me and said “God is asking you to come back”. I didn’t know how to react so I kinda shrugged and laughed it off. The rest of the day I couldn’t shake the thought of coming back though, something about it just seemed right. So lastly, I asked God to speak to me during worship since I have the hardest time connecting with God in this time. Over the past few months I’ve been learning to play guitar, little did I know I’d soon get the opportunity to play the one song I’ve learned and that would be how God would speak to me. We were doing blindfolded worship that night as a team time and in the middle of the session I felt God tugging my heart to play King of My Heart. This was definitely one of the scariest moments on the race for me so far and I’ve been in some pretty scary situations thus far, I’ll expand more in my next blog. So I played the song and had one of the best worship nights of my life that night. I took all of these and decided to apply for the internship here next year.
Applying for this opportunity was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. We could never get to wifi for long enough to fill the application out completely, the application got deleted a few times and other struggles came up during this time. I began wondering if this was really what God was calling me to since it was becoming so difficult. So I talked to my teammate, Hunter, about it to hear what he was thinking and then crazily enough talked to Nano, the man over all the interns, about the same situation the very next day. They both gave the exact same adive that struck home with me. They said “just because you are knocking right now and the door doesn’t seem to be opening like you thought it would, doesn’t mean stop knocking”. I had been doing a lot of back and forth on my next steps. One being this interniship and the other being another ministry opportunity back home in Abilene Texas. Hunter and Nano helped me to confirm something, that is, God gives us the choice and He gives us freewill. For this specific situation it seems as though God is giving me a choice and whichever I choose I know God will have my back. I know this because both of these opportunities help to further the kingom of God and both help me to grow in my spiritual maturity. I am thankful for this opportunity to choose. I realized as I was considering both options that this desicion was not only about my next step for the next year, but that this was the next step to the rest of my life. I could choose to go home and get a job and do ministry from home or I could come to South Africa and begin down the road to becoming a long term missionary. I feel like I have choosen the path less travelled as I have made the desicion to walk the road to long term missions. I taught about following dreams in Impact students and now I’m putting my teaching into action.
If you have any questions or want to find out more on how you can support me in this, my email is [email protected]. Thank you for your time in reading my blog. Never forget, you are a child of God.
