After spending about a month in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa, my squad had our first debrief. Our debrief was in Pretoria (just a quick 18 hour bus ride away) where we had a week off of ministry and reflected and processed our first month on the field. After debrief, three teams came back to Jeffrey’s Bay, and two teams went to Johannesburg. Yes, the squad split up…
When my team got back to JBay, we got the exciting news that we were getting new ministries. No more manual labor from 10-4!!!! (although we were starting to see how the Lord was growing us and preparing us in that season). My team was placed with an after-school program called Beats and Books. Kids ages 7- 15 living in underprivileged areas (underprivileged meaning rows of shack houses within a barbed wire fence) walk from school to this little character-filled three-bedroom, two-bathroom house stuffed with books, instruments and learning materials. The program combines math, literacy, the gospel and music… Lemme explain.
We have homework help time, spelling and math class, music class and prayer time. At Beats and Books, the kids are getting extra help with their school work, so they don’t fall behind while also learning skills of playing instruments like the violin, piano, trumpet and drums, AND they are getting poured into and filled up by the Word. It is a CRAP TON crammed into 2 hours, but the chaos is exciting, and it keeps things interesting.
Personally, homework time is my favorite part. I’m with the older girls. Some of them take a lot of pride in their grades and work really well, and some would much rather do anything other than homework- those are the ones I love working with the most. On one of the first days at Beats and Books, I was trying to help a girl with her spelling… It had been Wednesday when I finally got her to write down her ten spelling words for her test in a few days when most other students finished on Monday. The next step to learning them was reading them out loud, and this girl just would not do it. She sat silently in front of me for 5 minutes acting like she was uninterested, but I knew it was a front. I eventually got her to repeat the words after me, and I quickly realized that she isn’t as confident in her English as the other students. She wasn’t participating because she was embarrassed, not because she didn’t want to learn. This understanding was the start of our relationship. She knew she could trust me to help her at her own pace and I knew I could trust her to listen and take her work seriously.
I was grading tests one morning (one of the many tasks we normally do as ministry before the kids get there) and I came across her gradebook. Every grade was below a 50%. I have been working with her for about two weeks at this point and I KNOW she’s capable of so much more than what I was seeing. When she got to school that day, I walked up to her, gave her a hug and said, “you are going to get at least a 60% on the spelling test this week and I’m going to help you.” She smiled at me shyly and agreed. We shook on it. We started on Monday this time, not Wednesday. We read them, spelled them, read them again, found them in the dictionary, and then did multiple mock tests until homework time was over every day. I was scared she was going to hate me by the time Friday came- the girl was TIRED of studying. I just think she’s been overlooked and never been held accountable to do her work. When Friday came, I was confident she was going to reach her goal of a 60% or better. What I didn’t know was that sis was going to pop off and get an A+. We were all dancing and smiling and celebrating her accomplishment.
The thing is, she had the capability to get that grade the entire time- it’s not like she became a genius in a week. She just needed a little help. A little encouragement. A little push.
I think the Lord put me in this girl’s life for the same reason He has placed my team and my squad around me. We can’t do everything on our own and He knows that! Help is something the Lord is currently teaching me to accept and ask for as a strong headed, stubborn, independent person. I need someone to speak truth over me when the devil’s lies are gaining too much momentum. Someone to hold me accountable. Someone to love me and just walk alongside me when things get hard. Someone to tell me the Lord is loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled and I, as a child of God, bear those same fruits.
In Exodus 17, the Lord had delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, and they were now being attacked by the Amalekites at Rephidim. Joshua led the Israelites in battle against the Amalekites as he was ordered while Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of a hill overlooking the people. Genesis 17:11-13 says, “As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up- one on one side, one on the other- so that his hands remained steady till sunset.So, Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.”
God places us in community because he knows we can’t do life alone. I have been so humbled by my team and squad who are always at the ready to hold up my arms and tell me to persevere. We are more than overcomers and conquerors, but sometimes we need a little push by someone we love to realize it.
Wishing y’all all the best,
Julia
