The World Race has 2 programs, mine is the gap year where we stay in a country for 3 months at a time, while the other is 1 month per country on average. I really feel like I have the better end of the deal here. I get to really settle into a country, get accustomed to the people, culture and especially dive deep into ministry- at least that’s what I expected. It was hard before I left home, not knowing what to tell people in terms of what I’d be doing overseas. But I expected that once I got here, it would all come together and I’d be able to let people know the clear ways I was furthering the Kingdom. Unsurprisingly, God had a different plan than mine, which has helped me grow in ways I didn’t expect. Instead of getting to invest 3 months of my life into one ministry and community of people, my team has jumped around to all kinds of different ministries. I’ve learned to make my flexibility and good attitude last and see my squad as a ministry opportunity in itself! So here is a brief overview of many of the roles I’ve stepped into over these 3 months:
- Carpenter: we’ve worked on building desks, cabinets, vegetable holders, giant picture frames and more with GLA’s carpenter, Lucas. He always has a mini-sermon to share, so working with him always filled me with joy, while we worked, worshiped and hear stories of the Lord working.
- Painter: took down wallpaper, sanded and painted the walls of a bathroom, painted railings, floors, desks, and varnished wood.
- Camp Counselor: I wrote about this in my last blog, but we led a camp for a long weekend when we first came here.
- Builder: helped in the process of building a log cabin-classroom by chinking hundreds of nails into the foundation.
- Rock picker-upper: spent two separate mornings picking up rocks for hours. Once for a flooring project and once for reasons never really revealed (you can read about it on Arielle’s blog: https://ariellesargent.theworldrace.org/post/no-one-wants-to-scrape-their-knee-on-a-rock). That day definitely pushed me to remember that I’m here to do anything asked of me, not simply things that I see meaning and importance in.
- Dog De-Ticker: one of our most consistent ministries has been helping at a dog shelter every Thursday for the past month, where I’ve had the job of checking puppies ears and paws for ticks and fleas and passing out dog food. I’m not a big dog person, so having a ministry that serves and feeds dogs has really challenged me to keep a positive attitude and Kingdom mindset of everything I’m doing is in service to the Lord.
- Squad Cook: my team has been a part of cooking for the 3 teams that are living in JBay, serving our fellow racers. We switch off who gets to be in the kitchen everyday to make meals with our lovely host Wendy! For the past couple weeks, we’ve been living in classrooms instead of our mission house, so we’ve gotten creative with making breakfast and lunch in a makeshift kitchen and dinner at Wendy’s house.
- Evangelist: we’ve had a couple scheduled times of going out into towns or malls to talk to and pray over people and share the Gospel. It can feel a bit awkward to start a conversation with someone at the grocery store or at a coffee shop but I’ve learned how easy and fulfilling it is to share Jesus with others. I’m hoping to continue growing in making this a habit of how I live and interact with others.
- Soup Server: initially for the last 2 months of South Africa, my team was supposed to help at a soup kitchen, giving out ramen noodles and playing with kids every morning. We got to go for one day which was such a fun morning and we would have loved to do that for 2 months. However, because of the weather and other reasons that we’re unsure of, we weren’t able to go again.
- Waitress: one night the squad helped out at a radio stations fundraising dinner. We spent hours helping prepare the venue and food, serve tables and clean dishes. It was a fast paced, fun and chaotic night! (And then the radio station invited us to their studio and had us on the radio as their thank you!)
- Blogger: it’s been really hard for me to lean into this and share my life over technology, but being able to write out what God’s doing in my life and let anyone read about it is a huge form of ministry too!
We are on our way out of South Africa and I’m so sad to leave. The community here invited us in, hosted us so well and has made our time here special. Apart from ministry we’ve had so much fun getting to know the community, going downtown to the beach or hanging out with kids living on the school campus with us. We’ve been able to travel outside of JBay a bit too. We visited Pretoria for a week to debrief month one and had a weekend in Cape Town a couple weeks ago where I hiked Table Mountain which was much more of a challenge than I expected when I agreed on a whim. We joined in on a dance night with another World Race-like program and got to learn how to Sokkie (an Afrikaans dance kinda like swing dancing)! My time in South Africa has been so busy and exciting, with so many highlights, those are just a few! Soon we’ll make it to Ecuador and make some more memories, I can’t wait!
