This past week in South Africa was my squad’s PVT or parent vision trip. Most of you know that both my mom and dad were able to come out to Pretoria for the week and do some ministry alongside us. It was so good to see them again and it was an awesome experience seeing them jump in head first to missions. With that being said I want to tell you about a cool moment that happened to us on our outreach day.
On Friday, we were taken to a local shopping complex to go out and share the gospel in the community. Since being here in SA, I have discovered a passion that the Lord as placed on my heart for evangelism. Similar to how my dad loves real estate and my brother has sales, I have found that God has gifted me with a strong desire and passion for evangelism. So, I had the opportunity to share that with my parents. However, when we got to the mall, it turned out to be a lot harder than going door to door. There were not many people to talk with and it was hard to spark up conversations with busy shoppers. As a result, we went for an early lunch. Our group decided to buy some extra burgers for the parking lot workers at this mall in hopes of opening the door for a conversation about Jesus. Cy, Paige, and myself went out and began to hand out the food and pray for the different workers. To our dismay, this almost got us kicked out as the management told us they don’t allow any religious organizations or such in the complex.
As the mangers walked away, a lady rolled down her window as she was driving by. She asked “What are you doing?” I replied “We’re Christian missionaries and we are going around praying for people today.” To which she asked us “why?” I then explained how we wanted everyone to experience God’s Love. She then said “I think I need that…” Cy was quick to tell her to pull her car over into the open parking spot.
When she stepped out, this lady, Shantel, immediately began to weep. Through her tears she explained to us that her brother has two kids and no job. The reason she was at the mall was to buy him groceries for the next two weeks. Similarly, she also had two kids and her and her husband were struggling not only financially, but also in their relationship as well. To top it all off, she even mentioned how she’d thought about taking her own life. She was still weeping. “God has just been quiet.”
We began to speak truth into her life and explain how important she was to God. We prayed over her multiple times and then read her Psalm 139. She told us that we were the answer to her prayer and it just so happened that we were at the mall at that spot at that exact time.
God moves in great and awesome ways, never without a purpose. My parents were able to watch and experience this awesome Holy Spirt set-up encounter as well. If Shantel was the reason that we were there, the whole week was worth it.
On another note, we were hoping that we could get detained for an hour or so just to say we were arrested for preaching the gospel, maybe another time haha!
