Hello everyone, currently I am in Tsabong, Botswana preparing to move on to my final ministry site of Kokotsha (Ko-ko-tsa) where I will remain for the rest of the Race. My new team, Team (HEROES), is made up of myself, Cole, Connor, Megan, Nannie, Alexis, and Shelby. We are going to be living in a tent 300km (192mi.) away from the nearest grocery store, and with no running water or electricity. We will have to walk to get our water and then make a fire each night to boil it and cook food. I’ll apologize in advance, with the lack of electricity this will probably be my last blog while on the Race. While in Kokothsa, our ministry will primarily be serving the community in whatever way will help them the most. I am actually looking forward to experiencing this harsh environment, and seeing how God is going to reveal Himself to us in the following months.
Over the past three months I have been traveling back and forth between our two primary ministry spots of Kuala Lipis and Gua Musang, Malaysia. Truthfully, this has been one of the hardest times in my life. It seemed at the time that everything was going wrong: the location, the weather, the ministry, and so on. I asked God to grow me and do whatever he had to do to make that happen. God did exactly that, and I wasn’t prepared for what I asked for. In other words, be mindful when you’re talking to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, because He will answer your prayers, but not always in the way you might expect him to. I am glad for the experience because I learned things in Malaysia that will affect the rest of my life in a positive way. I now have a better understanding of what it’s like to be in a state of total brokenness, and as a result, a state of total dependency. I know what it is like to wonder if God cares, or if He’s even there for me. I know what it’s like to have a loss of hope. To be honest and real with you, I experienced depression for the first time in my life. I constantly was wondering where God was and cried out to Him many times. God told me if I truly wanted to change this world for Him, I needed to endure this time in my life. God took me to places spiritually and emotionally that I never thought I would go to in my lifetime, and I am actually grateful for this. In the end, God showed me that He is faithful, He is here, and He will never leave me nor forsake me even in the darkest times.
After leaving Malaysia, we flew to Johannesburg, South Africa where I was able to meet up with my parents for a week of doing ministry together. We had a great time catching up with one another, praying with one another, and doing ministry with one another. We worked with an organization called BEAM Africa Network. We stayed in the BEAM compound in Pretoria and would drive out to their ministry site in the township of Mamelodi. This township is extremely poor. Most of the houses are constructed with corrugated tin, and scrap wood. There are very few jobs, and most people have very little education. Mamelodi is a place of very little hope, very high crime, and a place where very few people are able to break out of the grips of poverty. While you can see and feel the despair among the adults, the children are beautiful with wide smiles on their faces. One day we got to play soccer with the kids, read to them, chase them, throw them, and just generally love on them. Then we had the great privilege of feeding them what would be their only meal of the day. In many homes there is no money for breakfast, no school lunch, and very little for dinner. It humbled my heart to see this and think about the fact that I had never been without a meal in the US. We also had a chance to sit in groups with the local people and talk to them about the problems they face. Our goal was not to make a laundry list of the ways we could help them, but help them realize that they needed to figure out ways that they could help themselves. The beauty of the BEAM ministry is that one of their programs is to help the locals get life skills to take into the work community to get jobs that will help give them dignity to provide for their families. We saw a graduation from the Life Skills course where one man said that “with the combination of the Life Skills courses, and his new found faith in Jesus Christ, he now had hope for the future, and no longer considered himself a failure.” His hope for the future was to one day work at a store equivalent to our TJ Maxx. That job to the people of Mamelodi, is a lot of time the best that they could hope for. They aren’t hoping to become and accountant, or a lawyer, a doctor, a plumber, or an electrician; they’re only goal is to make enough money to put food on the table that day. This 27 year old man got up at 4:30 in the morning to travel several hours to make it to class in order to give himself a chance at a future.
As I move forward to Kokotsha, I am so appreciative of the time spent with my parents. We were able to laugh, cry, and hammer out a lot of the details moving forward after the race. Following the race, I will be home for a very short time before heading to Rome, Ga. to work with Camp WinShape as a lifeguard this summer. I look forward to transitioning back to the US, and moving from one group of young people serving the Lord on the foreign mission field to another group of young people serving the Lord locally through camp ministry. I look forward to what the Lord will show me over the next few months and can’t wait to share my stories with many of you personally when I arrive back home. Thank you all so much for your support, none of this would have been possible without your assistance.
May God bless you and keep you. In His Mighty Name; Parker
