Mama=middle aged woman
Gogo=an older woman
Yebo=yes in Zulu
Coco=knock knock
Welcome to home base. Deipsloot is the squatter camp where we spend most of our time in. Squatter camps are basically government housing for the people of South Africa (you can look them up if you want to know more). In Johannesburg over 10 million people live in squatter camps. For Impact we go out Tuesday-Friday and evangelize. Going house to house within these communities helping with laundry, dishes, chicken gut cleansing, playing with the kids, just anything people need. Over the chores we help with we get to ask people about their lives and love on them the way Jesus would. We get to show them our faith and ask about theirs. It’s the building of bridges between two different cultures and it is one of the most beautiful experiences. Every single time God shows up by planting seeds, salvations, healings, and watching people have breakthroughs in the faith they already have. God loves his children and from this has come miraculous stories of the Lord’s faithfulness.
Soooooo here are a couple of my favorites:)
On our second day ever of evangelism my group prayed a prayer of believing for healing that day. The very first house we went to we got to pray for a Mama’s stomach who had been hurting for the past week with non-stop
nausea and throwing up. At first she was very weak, but as soon as we finished praying she was jumping around with joy that her stomach was healed. That she was no longer in pain. That she was free because Jesus healed her. Seeing this woman jump and be joyful led us to keep seeking out people who needed healing. Then the very next house we went to was an old Gogo sitting with her daughter outside. She had traveled from 2 extensions over to get to see her daughter. Taking her many hours because she could not walk without the help of two people and could not see but an inch in front of her face. We quickly started asking her questions of when her eye sight started going out and when her legs started going bad. As we asked we realized that she hadn’t even seen herself in 30 years and that she had not been able to walk well for about 15. From there we got to tell her about Jesus and how he was God in the flesh who came for her. The one and only God who is good and does ALL things for good all the time. Who loves us endlessly, calls us beautiful, who died on the cross to live in relationship with us. A God that gives us an authority to pray for those around us and heal
just as He did in the bible. That Jesus paved the way for us to be able to come to her that day and heal her. She was ready. We first started with her eyes, laying hands on them and praying for healing. She could see better, maybe about triple her sight before, but she was not fully restored. So, we prayed again, knowing that the Lord wanted her to see the creation He had made for her all around. This time she could see even farther, but not fully still. Next, our translator asked us to pray over water for her to wash her face and eyes in because that’s what he felt the Holy Spirit was telling us to do. We obeyed. Walking to get water from the pump and praying over it for our sweet friend to wash with. She washed her face twice saying, “ I believe” in Zulu. She could see. She was healed. By her faith and our obedience God used us as his vessels. SHE COULD SEE. But our time there wasn’t done. She could still barely walk. We decided to pray for full body restoration and have her walk with us as an act of faith. The further we walked the straighter her back became and the less of a limp she had. By the end she was dancing !!! DANCING !!! Our God is a God of miracles. I then got to take a picture of her and show her what she looked like. She had so much joy. She went from not being able to see herself for 30 years to seeing her face and seeing the people who love on her. She got to dance with her daughter and the people around her. God was faithful, he always is. Because of his love for the Mama and Gogo he healed them. What a good God.
Another one of my favorite days was when we were put in a different extension of Diepsloot then usual and we were with the 11n11 squad. Which was intimidating because it was in an area we had never been and evangelizing with people who had 11 months of practice with evangelism. There was no way we, well I, could compare with people who were older, more experienced, and were more spiritually mature. So with this insecurity we stepped out for the day. My group was Carter (an 11n11), Luke and Jack (guys from my squad), and Calvin (our translator who is 19). Then me. The youngest and only girl on the team that day. As we walked through extension 13 I prayed for the Lord to give me an opportunity to “show off” because everyone who was speaking in my group that morning was speaking with such authority from the Lord. They were speaking with the idea to glorify the kingdom and not themselves. They were walking humbly and right there I was stopped in my tracks. I had been silenced that morning because I wasn’t evangelizing for the glory of God I was evangelizing to bring my credibility higher. The Lord knocked me off my feet and made me sit in prayer all of lunch reevaluating my heart. Praying to evangelize to bring people to him not to bring glory to me. By the time we left for lunch I was set on only speaking if it was what the Lord wanted me to say and that the words were from the Holy Spirit COMPLETELY, absolutely none from me. As we walked through the community we walked into a home of two high school
girls, a Gogo, a Mama, and a 2 year old boy. Immediately Jack took the lead leading us into the conversation of Jesus and telling his testimony to the Gogo while Carter did the homework and helped the high schoolers study for their exam. I sat in silence rocking the little boy to sleep in my arms. This is where I was supposed to be. I was content. I didn’t have to speak to show kingdom. I could
just love on this little boy like Jesus would have and that was enough. That was the exact heart posture Jesus was trying to get me to that day before being a vessel of encouragement and truth. That it didn’t have to be extravagant because Jesus wasn’t. He washed the feet of those around him and helped with the lowest of things to do. Kingdom is doing the things that not necessarily anyone else wants to and I needed a kingdom mindset to glorify Him. When it all had clicked with me and the precious boy was finally asleep I slid over to the high school girls and gave them my testimony, letting the Holy Spirit flow out of me like he never had before, glorifying Jesus in every sentence, making him the Hero of my story because that’s exactly who He is, the Hero. Those two girls ended up giving their lives to Jesus that day. Two salvations. Two new sisters in Christ I gained that day. Live like Jesus. That’s all it takes is denying ourselves. Christ is free, but relationship and kingdom you have to lose everything. And for me that was my pride.
A Mama. Lying there. Upset. In tears.
“Coco Mama”
“No no”
“Are you sure Mama”
“No”
“Coco”
“Yebo”
We step inside her home.
“Mama, what is the matter”
“God doesn’t love me anymore my husband has a girlfriend” (this is a translated conversation)
“Mama, he has never stopped loving you”
“I don’t go to church and my husband is leaving me, but I pray”
“The Lord wants you Mama”
“He does?”
Our translator said, “ The Lord is so in love with you. He says you are beautiful, he says you are kind, he says you are amazing.”
“Yebo,” says the Mama.
Psalm 139 says that the Lord knows everything there is to know about you. The Lord loves you no matter what part of your walk that you are in and he is faithful in telling you even in your darkest moments.
Evangelism is hard but it is genuinely one of
coolest things I have ever done and every conversation is a lesson I can learn from and for that I am so grateful.
