OUTREACH REPORT!!

Outreach Report!

It’s been some of the most incredible months of my life. This outreach has been really unique and different in almost every way from my DTS outreach.

Highlights!

DELFT! We started outreach in Delft, Cape Town, South Africa, a poor colored community (that is the way the South Africans would describe it). The thirteen of us slept, ate and worked in the Apostolic Faith Mission church for 2 weeks. Our ministry during the time turned out to be primarily children’s ministry. Street kids and neighborhood kids came out from the woodwork as early as the first day and we spent all our free time playing games with them and talking to them (it’s an Afrikaans speaking community but most spoke English also). Most of the kids’ ministry was unstructured, but some of the structure activity was for a group of kids who are at risk, either from abusive homes or have AIDS. The whole community became abuzz as the kids would go home every night talking about all the fun they had that day. We worked with many many kids, but there is one story that stands out. His name is Denver. He is a foster kid, actually…was a foster kid. We fell in love with him the first day- he was quirky and hilarious, about 9 years old. We practically took him in, he stuck to us like glue. We prayed for him several times during our team prayer time, praying that he would find a better home than the one he was in (Denver was being neglected physically and emotionally) and that the church would continue to look after him when we were gone. The last day we were in Delft, Auntie Freida (one of my favorite Aunties, the purest gold heart you’ll ever come across) calmly and sweetly announced that the Lord had spoken for her to look after Denver and that she would be looking into the adoption process.

Update: since we left the kids continue to flock to the church, Denver is being taken extra care of, and the church has unified their separate feeding projects (run from different peoples’ homes) and are running it out of the church’s kitchen (before our visit the kitchen was largely left untouched), bigger and better than ever before.

MUIZENBERG: we had two weeks of lectures in Muizenberg before heading out to our next South Africa location. The lectures were a great way of getting filled up and refreshed. The definite highlight of these two weeks, besides climbing Table Mountain of course, was getting to translate for our Argentinian guest speaker.

RETREAT: outreach seemed to get better and better as we arrived in Retreat, Cape Town, South Africa. We worked with a guy named Pastor Bradley who is incredibly passionate and gifted in youth ministry. We were able to go into a high school every day for four weeks and talk to students… about life, struggles, sports, God, dancing.. anything they wanted to talk about. Our purpose during the time was to encourage, motivate, support, edify the students. We (slowly but surely) developed amazing relationships with these (mostly Xhosa) students. The highlight from this time I think would be the girls’ club we started the second week there. We met with GIRLS ONLY!! One afternoon each week and played games and danced and shared something short about identity and value (women in the Xhosa culture have very little societal worth and therefore most of the girls we met had incredibly low self-value and negative self-image). It was incredibly to see these girls go from totally skeptical about our presence in their school to totally open and receptive to our encouragement and advice. Even though it was only four weeks, the whole atmosphere of the school seemed to change. Many of the girls wrote us notes the last week sharing how our time with them had given them strength when they were close to giving up and reason to believe that someone loves them and that therefore there is something about them worth loving. My only regret was that we couldn’t stay longer. I would love to continue on the girls’ club. I learned so much about leadership, youth ministry, and myself during this time, I can’t even begin to write it all. We also had a TON of fun and we learned and experienced that ministry is not supposed to be heavy, it’s life-giving, exhilarating and heaps of fun, even with the challenges.

CAMBODIA! It was really hard to say good bye to South Africa, but Cambodia has been a great surprise! It’s opposite from South Africa in virtually every way, but as much as we loved South Africa, we love it here too! We have two main ministries here. One is teaching English to elementary school kids (K-6). The other is spending time (teaching English, playing games, and doing arts and crafts) with girls that live in a “safe house.” They have been rescued from the human trafficking industry or other really severely abusive situations. The girls range from 5- 22 years old. “Our purpose” here is similar to that of our time in the high school- to love on, be a support to, encourage and bring joy to them through simple things like playing a game or having a chat. They soak up the love and attention like sponges. I’m grateful we are there 5 days a week and can’t imagine how difficult it will be for us to leave in December. I’ve made two “sisters” already. I’ve also really enjoyed teaching 1st grade English. The students are so cute and love learning English. I have no idea what I’m doing. Normally that would freak me out. But a lot of what I learned in Retreat has come in handy- I don’t have to stress, or try too hard, I can take it easy, be spur of the moment, have fun, and trust God to teach me as I go along.
The aim of outreach is to bless others. I think.. I know.. we have done that. Still I can’t help but feel like the most blessed person in the whole wide world. The team has been incredible (fun, whole hearted, passionate, silly, wise, and dedicated) and the relationships made, built (and being built) with people in South Africa and Cambodia have been a precious gift from Daddy God. He is an extravagantly good God.

Thank you to everyone who has made our ministry possible!!

If you have prayed, helped financially, ever read any of my emails or blogposts or supported me in any other way I’d really like to thank you – in paper! Please email me your snail mail address as soon as possible!!!

Thanks for reading. I love you people!