All the apologies for my lack of communication with what I’ve been doing here in South Africa the past three months. I have not been the best at sharing. So much has been going on.
This place, but mostly the people, have become so dear to my heart. I’m not one to grow attached easily and I always keep a realistic view of each place and not growing too attached to a place or people. The knowledge of an end date is always kept present in my mind. In fact, my goodbyes always include the statement of, “I’ll see you in heaven.” I don’t make any promises of coming back or seeing anyone again because it’s just not realistic. But for once my heart hurts over that because somewhere along the way I let the guard on my heart down a bit. It’s not to the point of tears, but I don’t cry easily anyway. My heart aches though. I genuinely love this place and the community it holds.
All that to say this goodbye is hard. But maybe I’ll write a separate blog on the struggles of it. This blog though is on my ministry. Now that I’ve just given you some word vomit of all that saddening stuff let me get back to the topic promised by the title!
I’ve been living in Jeffery’s Bay, South Africa for the past three months. My ministry host is named Anita. She’s the one who assigns us to our ministry and does a lot of the behind the scene things like making sure we have food, money, and transportation. There’s definitely more, but that’s the jist of it. A woman named Wendy has been assigned to us to help us out with meals and has in many ways became “the mom” here to us girls. When I say girls I’m referring to my team of 7 and the two other teams I’ve been living with here. In total there’s 25 girls living together in a log cabin. Then there’s two guys named Mulder and Nickie who have taken us under their wings and became like older brothers to us. So many good times were spent with them.
Here in J-Bay there’s an organization called Global. The story of how Global came to be is amazing and could be a whole other blog in itself. The Lord has definitely been very intimately involved in every step and decision made. They’ve started a school here which has become one of the number one rated schools in South Africa. Every material donated! Even the land. Global also created a program to send out missionaries as well called Global Expeditions. It’s a super intense program packed with lots of discipleship which they kindly allowed us to be apart of. Those who have participated in past Expeditions have come back to J-Bay and started up businesses to build the community here and further reach those in need.
The Global community is amazing. I’ve never seen or been apart of something like this before. Each Sunday afternoon, they have a celebration to thank the Lord for moving in their weeks. They build one another up and the Spirit is very much present in them. The people apart of the community are now here pouring into several different ministries here in J-Bay.
Jeffery’s Bay although known for big surfing competitions is a very small town. The streets are filled with little boys who have ran away from home and are now homeless. The youngest I have seen was probably around 5. There’s a huge squatter camp that is a 10-15 minutes walk from the surf village area. The children are introduced to VERY sexual things at a very young age. Some of the girls working at the school with the kids from the squatter camps experienced the children touching them in inappropriate ways along with saying inappropriate things. Honestly, what’s stood out to me thus far traveling to different cultures/countries is that every country has its poor and homeless. Every country has those that are financially stable. Either way it doesn’t make much a difference. Every country has a need that needs to be filled because we live in a broken world. The need is Jesus. Ministry may look like going to the poor or could look like being the light in a work environment among what may seem like a normal place. Jesus is a need that has no boundaries.
Our place in all of this has been coming alongside the people in Global with their different ministries and helping them. The 25 of us girls were all split up each day for ministry. Some of the places served at while being here are Timon (building a daycare and working with kids with cerebral palsy), Beats and Books (an after school program helping with homework and teaching them how to play instruments for free), Ithemba (teaching classes for kids coming from the squatter camps and running after school programs), GLA cafeteria(pouring into high school students), and First Light (local coffee shop pouring into the community). All of us worked for 8 hours a day and then had the weekends off.
The first month we were here all of us did construction work for 8 hours a day. Lots of painting, varnishing, sanding, digging, and moving of things were done. Then we had a couple days off for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years. Christmas Eve we went to a watering hole with huge cliffs to jump from. Christmas there was a church service and then celebration pulled together by our fabulous treasures. After New Years we switched to our new ministries after meeting all the Global school staff, Global community, and the Global Expeditions. The new ministries were the ones I mentioned way above. That’s what we’ve been up to since!
The Global Expeditions group have sessions everyday for training (along with some CRAZY other stuff) and we were invited to join a couple. The sessions stretched my mind and have reshaped how I view a lot of things. Man, I wish I could explain them better or give you a podcast link so y’all could listen to them. I wish actually there was a podcast link so I could listen to the ones we weren’t able to go to. So so so good! The Lord knew just want I needed.
I came into South Africa with expectations. Actually, scratch that! I came into the Race with expectations. Expectations that I’d be living off the grid. Far away from what I consider “normal” society. Reaching people who were deep in a very obvious form of Satanism. I thought that miraculously I’d be experiencing crazy things in the spiritual realm and healings would be happening all around me. And while all those things could have been true or maybe have been for others on my squad who are elsewhere in South Africa that’s not what the Lord had planned for me in this season. It took me awhile to accept that.
I’ve really struggled with comparison here. In my mind I felt discouraged. “Lord, I just want to see and experience you within my ministry. I want to see lives changed!” God is always moving. I feel it in the chills that tremble through my body when He uses me as His vessel to speak. In my mind I didn’t feel like I was doing my job if I wasn’t healing or working with orphans. I didn’t feel like I was truly abandoning because I wasn’t living out of a tent or experiencing a near state of starvation. In fact, my life has been the opposite. I sleep on the top bed on my bunk bed. I have the privilege to have a small cubby for my clothes and a warm shower. Sure I share a room with 9 other girls and a home with 25 girls but we have beds and two showers! I was blessed with an amazing ministry here in South Africa. I worked at First Light each day with one other girl. And I couldn’t understand why…
Why my ministry didn’t look like what I thought it would… Why I was surrounded by Christians… Wasn’t I suppose to be here to “convert” others?
Then it hit me. When did I adopt the thinking of needing to work for the Lord to see it as good? When did the thought creep in that the number of lives committed or witnessing or being the vessel to healing was the only way God was truly working? When did I accept the lie that I was such a failure and felt so much shame for where I was at? When did I start believing I wasn’t enough or doing enough?
Doors to rooms of my mind have been unlocked and swung right open in the three months I’ve been here. This season as odd as it might seem was for me. And I felt so much guilt over that for awhile and told God I didn’t want to accept it by my thoughts that ran through my head of discontent over myself. Never in my life have I been poured into more. The Lord put me in a space exactly where He needed me. The need looked different than I thought, but wasn’t any less there. I got to know the community. Each person that walked through the door I was able to serve in some way. I got to know the regulars and bits of their stories. To encourage them in some hard things and laugh alongside them. I got to play with some of the orphan boys who’d come by the shop. They’d teach me some Afrikaans and then burst out laughing at my attempts. I also learned more how to cook under the guiding hands of a woman named Michelle.
I so desperately want to learn everything I can about the Lord. My desire to hear Him has grown tremendously. I’m really thankful to those who have taken the time to be interrupted by me to listen to my questions and pour out what they’ve learned. Out of the many there’s a woman named Clara. She’s come into the shop several times and ended up giving up her time just to speak life and encouragement. Another woman named Lynn gave up a morning to come and speak to me more about the prophetic. That’s something the Lord has put heavily on my heart. Annisophi a woman I worked alongside poured into me greatly. She understood the workings of my brain. The overthinking/planning/need for understanding life/the stress I place on myself for constant growth with the Lord and every environment. She has blessed me greatly and is so full of wisdom from Jesus. There’s so many others here who have made such an impact. The list could truly go on and on.
I think I’ve covered the majority of everything. As usual my thoughts are everywhere. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me!
I love this place and I REALLY love the people. This goodbye is going to be hard.
