Greetings folks!
Just checking in to let you know the current status of our team. Last week we started finishing up our ministry at the church in Bulawayo. We had to say goodbye to all of our new friends, church staff, and Jeff and Tammy (our host and pastor). Before we left, however, I got to run my first African 10k race, which was the coolest thing ever. Jeff, and several ladies from the church ran with me. Before our departure on Tuesday, and had a party at our house with our friends and the church staff on Monday night to say goodbye. It was very sad, but we know we will see them again, whether that is here on earth or in heaven one day! On Tuesday we finished cleaning our house and packed up our bags. Jeff and Tammy drove us to the bus station, and we departed the bus station at 4 PM. We spent about two hours at the border (at 10 PM) carrying our packs around, but after getting across it was straight in to Joburg. We arrived at the station at 8 AM, where the Impact Africa buses picked us up, and then we traveled to the outskirts of Joburg. We got to meet the many intern’s currently at Impact Africa, as well as the staff. We had a time of orientation later in the day. We all slept very well as most of us only slept an hour or two on the long bus ride. On thursday, we did some training in the morning, and began outreach in the afternoon. We went to a squatter camp a few miles away. The idea is to help out people with daily tasks (washing dishes, sweeping floors, doing laundry) and asking them questions about their life, and eventually start asking about their relationship with God. On Thursday I was paired with two of the interns, and we we able to help a lady out with her dishes while talking to her brother and her son (her brother’s name was Patrick, age 41, and her son was Gift, age 25). Gift had two daughters, but had a serious drinking and gambling problem, so felt very unworthy of being a father. We were able to give her a copy of the Gospel of John as he didn’t have a Bible, and helped explain God’s forgiveness, Grace, and his title of God’s son. He said he wanted to start going to church with his sister and uncle, and really seemed to be understanding what we were telling him. The next morning we went out back to the squatter camp, and me and two others met a lady who has been struggling greatly. She is originally from Bulawayo Zimbabwe (which is where we just came from) but had to leave her child in Zimbabwe to look for a job in South Africa. Her child is only 9 back in Zim, and the grief from that is great. Her husband does not believe in God but she feels responsible to change him. She doesn’t have enough money to travel to church, as it is a 45 minute car ride away. We started reading scripture to her and she almost started crying because of the power of God’s love. She plans to initiate more conversations with her husband, as previously she has been very fearful of doing that. Later in the day we went to another squatter camp to do a kids program singing songs and telling Bible stories. We will continue to do many other types of outreach here.
A few facts about our area:
The HIV and AIDS rate here is extremely high. It’s more than 90%. Baby abandonment is very high as well. Three babies a day are abandoned in this area, either from inability to support or fear of raising a child (Impact Africa actually has baby rescue homes, and does counseling in hospitals to help prevent this). Joburg has one of the largest networks of squatter camps in the whole world. People from all the southern counties in Africa travel to Joburg in hope of finding a job, but because of the lack of jobs many end up living in squatter camps struggling to survive.
More details to come.
