Well, it's been 3 weeks since I've been back from my mission trip in South Africa.
It's hard to know where to begin when hundreds of memories constantly flood your memory.. Even as I'm typing now I'm wanting to share all the great stories from our group and ministry in the refugee camps. Instead I will share the overall fabric of our group that made this experience awesome for me!
The entire group on the trip was 65 people with our youngest missionary being Abi who was 5 months - she was our Project Directors, Jacob and Betsy's child! Also our oldest missionary was Grandpa Joe came along to witness as well as share in nanny duties with his wife, Sandy to watch Abi. We had 6 Team Leaders and 54 missionaries! My team had 19 people including myself and my co-leader Mike -
I know I am biased but I have to say that my team was so fun and we had alot of fun serving and witnessing together in South Africa. There were definitely our bright shining moments, but we also cried together as well as we saw some very tough situations occuring within the communities in Diepsloot and Kya Sands (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/06/29/world/20090629SAFRICA_index.html)This is an article I found online describing the crime in the very area we were in written a year ago.
But among the seeing the poverty and condition of living there we did see many healings, salvations, even saw some of our own group members receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost and get water baptized, but out of all these awesome and wonderful things, I believe it is the things we did not see, that left me so encouraged at the end of this trip. WHAT? Yes, the things we did not see... Before you begin to rebuke me, I will explain.
Our group went out to ministry 6 days of the week (saturday was 1/2 day of ministry) with the goal to constantly penetrate and spread the gospel to young and old within the squatter camps. I would say we were very successful with our mission teams goal with reaching over 600 salvations this summer! But it was how I saw our team handle the tough situations that will forever change my life.
One day, towards the end of ministry, I went to check on one of my MIGS (small groups of 4-5 missionaries) and saw two of the girls in that MIG crying and asking me to come and pray over this baby. I followed them into the shack they were in to see a mother crying and holding her baby in a blanket. As I got closer, I saw the baby's eyes were almost welded shut with some ooze coming out of it, and saw a purple or bluish liquid coming out of his mouth. The mother reported not knowing what was wrong with the baby and that the clinic could not tell her either. He had been like this for a few weeks. We prayed over the child and prayed.....AND prayed...but we only had a small span of time before we had to be back at our bus to leave for the day. Should we keep praying or leave? We started to leave and my co-leader Mike asked if the woman was saved.. I didn't know so I asked the girls who had been at the house and they said they didn't ask her. We went back into the shack and decided it was worth being late to present the gospel to her and share with her how Jesus died for her. Even in the emotional state we were all in.. She accepted Christ... and I remember getting convicted that in that moment, I had let myself and my team be more interested in seeing that baby healed then this woman spending eternity with Christ. I repented and as we walked back to the bus me and the two girls decided to prayer walk still believing that that child would be healed!
We prayed to the bus, and when we got on the bus we shared the story and prayed as a team for this child. In that prayer one of our guys in their MIG said that God shared with him that the next time that mother washes her child's face, that disease and sickness will leave him. I remember a spiritual release happening like never before. My tears stopped and I realized that our GOD is sooo much bigger than us! He is bigger even when our focus is more on seeing miracles than believing in them! He is bigger than us choosing miracles over salvation and HE is bigger than even our motives. In that moment I had peace in knowing that this was from the Lord and that he was going to heal that child and I had to accept that I may not get to see it. I knew in my heart that God was so much bigger than I made HIM out to be and I repented of not believing that He would heal that child. A couple days later that MIG had a chance to go back to that hut and the mother reported that the child had been healed from whatever it was - it was GONE!!! PRAISE GOD!!!
This is one of the moments where the teens on my team encouraged me to believe in our God no matter what we see! This also showed us that we may not always get to see the end result of our prayers but we have to believe that our prayers are being heard. This encouraged me for the rest of the trip that even those people who did not choose to receive Jesus Christ, that someone else would share with them and continue to water the seed we planted.
I was very blessed to have such an amazing group of people to work with this summer. We truly served one another in this way. We grew in love with the word and continued to share God's love even as we left South Africa and our team led people to Christ in the airport on the way back.
Our mission is not over simply because we have left the "mission field" - this trip has propelled us into knowing that the mission field is right where we are! It is in our city, our neighbors, our classmates, colleagues - the list goes on! We have so much influence and I know that this trip has taught me how to be approachable and how to approach people and have conversations that lead to a decision-making point in christ.
I remember as the trip was ending, not wanting to come home. I even grew bitter and upset at how "good" we have it compared to them, but God had to remind me that He loves America too! He wants all people to be saved and although we may have greater wealth than some countries - there are people in America that are spiritually poor that need to experience His love. God has opened my eyes to the greatest miracle ever which is salvation - and that we cannot take for granted the light we have inside of us and go out and share it with all - rich or poor, it doesn't matter!
Below are some pics from Ministry with brief descriptions! Also a copy to my facebook or photobucket albums which have many more pics. I'm working on a powerpoint which will hopefully paint even better of a picture of my time in South Africa!
Cool South African Teens
These are some awesome South African teens we met in Diepsloot squatter camp. They looked bored when we approached them so we stopped to chat with them. After realizing that they spoke really good English we just went for it. They were asking us about all the celebrities we had met in America so I took a big leap and decided to bring up another celebrity they might've heard of - JESUS CHRIST! They laughed and the most vocal girl - seen in the grey shirt with the hat, said that she had heard the gospel. So I asked her, what choice did you make when you heard it, did you receive Christ or reject the message? She said she rejected the message. Her friends seemed to be in agreement. Her and her friends went on to say their reasoning behind not believing in Christ. It ranged from the gospel being a "rich people religion" and questions about theology popped up, but God gave me such boldness with these teens like never before. I began to shift the focus from those things to God the creator and the reason for Jesus Christ dying. I spoke about the suffering found in the book of Acts for Christ's name sake and all of a sudden I was on my knees in the dirt looking up to these teens (they were sitting on buckets) and I was pouring out my heart and sharing some of my testimony. I was filled with such passion that I even shared why we travelled so far in order to share this message - because it is real and it changed our lives. I told them we aren't getting paid for this, in fact I specifically had to raise every penny to get here. After sharing I laid the same choices on the table - to accept or reject the TRUE gospel of Jesus Christ. I was able to lead all four to Jesus Christ that day because they accepted the message. My MIG and I were able to go inside one of the young ladies homes and begin to give them the next steps in how to walk out this decision! Such a cool moment!
Diepsloot Squatter Camp
Picture of one of the Squatter camps we were in for ministry on this trip. This is a typical scenery for the areas we witnessed in.
Kids in South Africa
This is a picture of some kids we were playing games with in the street. They had some fun circle type games that i picked up on with the words in zulu and when I spoke to another missionary - one of the boys (towards bottom of pic) heard I spoke English and he pointed and said "american, american" So I teased him the rest of the type because he obviously thought I was from there..hahaha
book of Esther
This is one of my missionaries, Lindsay, on ministry. She met this woman whose name was Esther and she asked her if she knew the story of Esther in the bible and she said she didn't and it was found out that this woman was not saved. Lindsay whipped out her bible and read the entire book of Esther to this woman and this woman was so touched that she wanted to receive Jesus as her Lord and Saviour!
Sharing the gospel to all!
This was a cool moment because as Lindsay was in this picture sharing the gospel to some kids in the alley, I was on the other side of our translator JJ, sharing the gospel with one of these kids' mothers and some other women. I thought this was a cool moment because as Lindsay began to share with the kids, these women gathered around to listen. But since Lindsay was gearing her message towards children I jumped in and went for it with the women. I shared my testimony and the power that this gospel message had on my life and I got to lead all four of those women to Christ. All the kids received the message and accepted Christ as well as the women (unfortunately, me and women are not pictured but I definitely remember this moment)!
Photobucket Album
http://s941.photobucket.com/albums/ad258/MissRhemma22/SOUTH%20AFRICA%20-%20MINISTRY/
theses pictures are not organized in this album but I'm working on it =)
Please comment with questions or anything and I would love to talk more about this trip!
