I am overwhelmed.
Monday morning, teams seven:eleven and Beloved One piled into a condor with all of our bags and headed for South Africa. Our team was dropped off at the mall in Nelspruit, South Africa, while Beloved One traveled on the many hours to Capetown.
With just a phone number and a name, we traversed through this very western mall, packs and all, to find a place to eat lunch and wait for our contract.
Linda met us at a coffee shop, where we got to know one another and learned what our ministry would look like in Nelspruit. Linda and her parents, Bob and Sue, live in Back Door, which is a township twenty minutes outside of Nelspruit. A township is where the Apartheid government forced the black population to live in sub-standard conditions during their reign in South Africa. The resulting population is undereducated, mostly unemployed, and missing a generation or two due to AIDS (infecting 1 in 3 people). There is very little electricity or running water in most of the community, and to give you an idea of the government’s involvement in trying to help here, you can’t find the place (which is huge) on a map because it officially doesn’t exist. For two weeks we are working in Back Door with Iris Ministries doing feeding programs, preschool visits, hospital visits, and prayer ministry.
Next week we will make the four-day trek to northern Mozambique to assist in the reconstruction of an orphanage that was destroyed by the recent floods. We’ll be taking as many food supplies as we can carry and possibly things like soccer balls and toys, but much of the ministry will be otherwise – praying, preaching, healing, evangelizing, etc. – just asking God what He wants us to say or do. We’re all pretty excited to be trusting God in this way, and taking the risks He called us to when we left five months ago.
To do this we need $5000 US which we need to raise as a team before Valentine’s Day. We will be setting up a special account for this in the next few days, but if you feel led to donate please send me an email so I can make sure you get the information you need.
I am overwhelmed by the amount of need in Africa – the evil and death and destruction I witness every day. I cannot come close to making a dent in the need here, conditions that are rooted in spiritual, political, and traditional ties. No humanitarian effort can restore what has been broken here, nor can it begin to bring connectedness to the first and the third worlds present in this land. For the first time, I am overwhelmed by a desire to do anything, and everything, to bring life and peace and reconciliation. And I am overwhelmed to know that I cannot do any of this on my own, and that the only hope that this vast, breathtaking continent has must be found in Christ.
check out www.hope-for-africa.org to learn more about our contacts and Iris Ministries in Back Door!
I know a place where no one’s lost,
I know a place where no one cries,
Crying at all is not allowed,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
