True transformation in Christ was shown this month. We got to experience what it looks like to truly show grace and love and what it looks like to be totally transformed and created new in Christ Jesus.
The genuine love and the grace shown through the transformed lives that we met was something that impacted me so greatly. We partnered with Ingane yami a children’s village in a community just outside of Durban South Africa. The place, the people, the community and the love for Christ was so real and so powerful. Ingane yami is a place that works to restore and rebuild families. They have not only changed the lives of the children at the village but also lives in the community.
Ingane yami focuses on taking children who have no home to providing a home and a family. They bring in kids who literally have no one to care for them. The kids come from so many different backgrounds abused homes, gang homes, orphan homes and much more. They were alone and hurt but then were brought to Ingane yami to be given what they had never had before. There are currently six homes with a total of eleven children living at the village.
This month I got to be apart of these kids lives and serve with them. From serving in the preschool during the week, church, and work projects we were welcomed in with open arms. This place became like a home to me. They accepted us and really made us feel apart of their family. Most of our time was spent with these eleven children even when it wasn’t apart of ministry. Getting to spend so much time with them let me see them in a different way. The Lord truly let me see each of those kids for who the He has made them to be. Even when it was hard and I was losing patience. I never wanted to be anywhere else but spending my time with those kids. Their stories of being restored and transformed were so life changing.
Not only were their lives transformed but the community had been transformed because of this organization. Its started as just the children’s village but soon some of the workers started meeting for prayer and then soon a church was established from their sister church in the city. Since this church came they started impacting the community like never seen before. This community use to be one of the most dangerous communities around. So much crime and violence happened on the streets but now because of the impact from the church it isn’t like that anymore. The people lives from this community were changed and they started to go out and continue to spread the gospel.
The church members have such a heart for their community and their neighbors that it wasn’t something they wanted to leave as a mess, but they wanted to change it. One of the things we got to do, while we were there, was go out into the community once a week. We got to walk around, meet different people, and pray for the people we met. We would go visit one lady every week and just pray for her. Our last week we were also taken to the railroad station, by a young man from the church, it use to be a very dangerous place but we got to go there and pray over it.
This same young mans life had been changed so drasticly because one man had invited him to church. So this man came to church and then kept coming. He soon learned about the love of Christ and is now the only believer in his family. He invests so much into the community, to Ingane yami, and the church. He wants to see his community change and to see all the people in the community come to know the Lord.
That same desire for the Lord to be in the community was all through the church and every person we met. They loved the Lord so much and just wanted everyone else to know the same God that we know.
This month I got to witness and see what the true love of Christ looks like. How people from the same place can have just a huge impact and even with many hardships in their life they never give up faith. They only cling to God more and more. They serve and pour out all they have.
Ingane yami, the children and the people we got to live life with for a month became like a family to me. It was one of the hardest goodbyes I have ever had to say. I pray one day I can go back. That I can go back and see these children again and how their lives have changed for Christ and how their lives have truly been restored because of the Lord.
