Happy Sunday!! As the end of the race starts to creep in I want to make sure I am still updating you all and sharing stories. So today I thought I’d sit down and fill you in on our ministry here in South Africa, and a recent situation my team experienced that hit a little closer to home than others.
We got to South Africa almost 3 weeks ago, and it’s crazy to think we only have one more full week left… this country has been so sweet! The ministry we are partnered with, the people the Lord has allowed us to meet and how he continues to reveal what’s next and help me grow in intimacy with Him. We are partnered with a ministry called “Beats and Books” which has the mission to help grow students academically, musically, and spiritually. It’s led by a man from Zambia named Corninelious, (but we call him Corni) and a missionary family from Chile (Uncle Jonathan & Auntie Carla)! Meeting these 3 have been such a blessing, seeing their obedience to the Lords call on their lives is an inspiration. We only got to work alongside Uncle Jonathan and Auntie Carla for the first 2 weeks since their daughter who lives in the states is graduating college and getting married, so they took a trip over there to see her! These 2 have done and continue to do beautiful things for the Lord’s kingdom! We’ve all missed them so much these last 2 weeks! Be praying for their return home in 2 weeks, safe travels and that the Lord would be placing people in their path along the journey for them to minister to! Corni, on the other hand, has been here the whole time and what a man of wisdom he is! My whole team always says how we can’t help but listen to every word he says because he is so fixed on the Lord.
At Beats and Books my team does a variety of different things. The ones who know how to play an instrument offer lessons to the students, some make lunch for the students, admin and social media, and I work on literacy sheets, making vocabulary sheets that go along with the book we are reading as a whole ministry in our small groups.
This ministry is such a beautiful depiction of discipleship. The students are truly on fire for the Lord, want more of Him and have 3 amazing people as their mentors! The students lead worship with the musical skills they learn, excel in school because of the extra homework help and literacy skills they receive, and have the greatest gift of all, a community of fellow believers, surrounding them while they walk with Jesus!
Beats and Books is a space filled with the Holy Spirit and growing so much so they have outgrown their current place, a 3 bedroom house, and have bought a plot of land to build a place where the Lord can continue to bring more students into this beautiful ministry! Prayers as they begin building this new space for funding, and blessings from the Lord to just pour out on this ministry!
So yes! That’s what Team Harvest has been up to the past couple weeks!
🎶 🎶 🎶
Something about ministry is that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. If it was then we would be missing a key part of ministry. While the race has offered many beautiful testimonies there are also some stories that are a little scarier or upsetting than others. This is one of them, and it might get a little heavy. One day this past week my team went to the local coffee shop during our lunch break and happened to see a little friend we had met on the walk to the same coffee shop a week before. His name is Arno and he’s 10 years old, he goes to the coffee shop to get WiFi to play games, haha! This time we saw him, however, was a little different. When we had finished eating and we just talking with our buddy Arno an older man came up to us, sat down and started talking to us in a very strong tone. He began saying how it’s because of people like us who hangout with kids like him that he isn’t in school. And how this little boy knows he can make 200-300 Rand (about $11-15) everyday on the street instead of going to school because we give in. The man then asked us how much money we had given Arno today, and if we had bought him any food to which he responded “we have given him nothing, we are simply hanging out with him.”
This next part was hard to listen to and watch as Arno just sat and stared at the man not knowing how to defend himself. The man raising his voice and began to speak lies about a 10 year olds identity openly. He said “because he’s not going to school he will be a gangster by the time he’s 16”. This hit a little close to home as I have had people in my own life speak false lies about me. And as someone who over the course of the race has battled with identity simply within my own mind because of the enemy, not even having someone say it directly to my face, my heart dropped. I couldn’t imagine what was running through Arno’s mind, a part of me also felt a bit of anger towards the man. Thoughts of “how could he say that to a 10 year old?” or “Simply because of the difference in race how does he not know we aren’t his family? What if his family can’t afford his school fees therefore he can’t go to school?”. Immediately after the man finished talking he abruptly left and we were all a little shaken. We poured truth over Arno saying how we love when we get to hangout with him and that he shouldn’t believe anything the man just said. We also prayed for the man, that the Lord would bring healthy conviction, and make Himself known to the man and offer redemption to his life. Obviously the man is hurting in his own way, no one just lashes out in anger like that without some deeper within them causing that to happen.
While South Africa has come a long way in terms of segregation and the Apartheid the racial barrier is still seen in different ways. Sadly, this was one of them. This situation is something that still weighs heavy on my heart, but I know the Lord will reveal Himself to Arno and that the Holy Spirit is constantly interceding on his behalf (Romans 8:27). Please be praying for Arno and the man, that the Lord would reveal Himself to each of them and that the truth of his identity would wash over Arno.
It’s crazy to think we only have one more week of the race internationally… come May 7th we will be flying back to America where we will spend 2 days of rest at the AIM base in Gainesville before going to volunteer at a Young Life camp for a week! After that we have 4-5 days of debrief then… I’m home! I can’t wait to see you all, show you pictures, and tell you all the testimonies!! I love you all!
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