During this month in South Africa, my team and I are doing something called Unsung Heroes. Meaning our team travels throughout South Africa networking and looking for new Christian ministries and organizations for future World Race teams to partner. For one thing, this makes our ministry days look more like meetings and interviews and less like working one-on-one with children and the poverty stricken. It is also just very strange to get acclimated to this new job on the World Race.
Many of our days are jammed pack with potential ministry contacts and interviews. It’s exhilarating to see the way God moves and uses our contacts to lead us to even more Kingdom-focused contacts. However, there are days where it feels as if I have done nothing all day long in vain pursuit of an unrelenting lead.
One such day happened on Sunday January 11th. My team had decided to split into 3 groups to attend as many different churches in the Cape Town area as possible. Piva and Kamie went to the Portuguese Church. Colleen and Erika went to the church that had another contact with a sports ministry. And that left Molly and myself to go into Downtown Cape Town to follow up with a few churches. At the moment, my team is living in the outskirts of Cape Town at a parish house of one of our contacts. (Which was such a God blessing in itself)
Molly and I were not yet well versed in local transportation. So instead of spending the morning going to church in downtown Cape Town. Molly and I spent the morning walking aimlessly around the suburban community where we were living looking for a city bus or taxi. It was fruitless. We seemingly had failed for the day.
After almost 2 hours of wandering, we resigned ourselves to wait for the rest of our team to finish at church. However, we were not the group that had the keys to our home. So Molly and I went to sit at the park across the street. And that is where God redeemed our “fruitless” morning.
As we sat waiting, a rather sketchy looking man approached the two of us. Our danger radars were up and on. He first asked us for a cigarette. When Molly and I said we didn’t have any, he at first started to walk away. But something must have drawn him back. He returned to us. He sat down by the tree, and he began to pour out his life story.
His name is Mark. He was the son of prostitute, and he never met his father. He currently lives and takes care of his aunt. He wishes people were kinder. He wishes people were less inclined to hurt one another. He wishes there were no gangs and no drugs and no violence. Mark wants people everywhere to be generous with their thoughts, words, and deeds. He thinks the world would be a better place if people would just listen. He has dreams of what this world could be.
When Mark’s brought his tale to a close he asked us what we thought. Molly and I knew immediately why we had missed church. Sometimes when we fail, it is simply God redirecting our paths to His triumph. We spent the next 45 minutes praying with Mark, encouraging him, and asking him if he was involved with a local bible believing church. We shared words of encouragement. And we knew that Mark had touched our lives forever.
