letter from South
This letter marks the last one I will write while still actually in South Africa. Our stay is coming to a close and my final letter in November will serve as a reflection on our time here.
This month, I will provide a few thoughts on how we have found our winding-down time – and on a recent trip.
Originally, we were only meant to be here for 12 months to serve the church and to soak up as much as we can. However, the opposite seemed to occur! Which in my experience as a Christian, is normally the way God works! Very quickly we realised that we were to train, serve and bless others rather than the reverse. And we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way!
We recently took a trip to America. It was half work/half play. We spent two weeks in the west of America visiting two of our churches within Regions Beyond. We both had the opportunity to minister at a week-long youth summer camp in the beautiful mountains of Montana. We arrived to find a group of 150 teenagers hungry for God. We held a seminar that spoke of being ‘called to the nations’. It was a privilege to share the amazing things God has done in our time in South Africa.
After a break with family, we returned and hit the ground running. One of our main focuses here has been youth work. Our young people are a delight, and we have been blessed to be able to get to know a handful of them especially closely. Children here have many challenges; poverty, broken homes, and abusive families. To be able to speak hope, truth and love into their lives has been a joy. Many of these young people are off to university. Which, in reality, is the only way to climb the social ladder and escape poverty. For most, that means leaving friends and family to work in the major cities where jobs are more available. One of our goals has been to help these young men and women into spiritual maturity so that they can maintain their walks with God.
As we begin to hand over our young people to an indigenous team that has stepped up over the past weeks and months, we are starting to face the reality that our time is coming to a close. Next time, I hope to share what that will look like.
