The Harvest

 

LETS GOOOO! Day one of ministry is complete and let me tell you, it was a mad success! The Lord really went before us and moved mountains in this community.

Many of you have asked what ministry is going to look like during our time here in South Africa and this blog is here to answer all your questions. YAY!

Adventures In Missions has a wide rage of ministry partners all over Africa and this time, my squad has the opportunity to partner with Impact Africa. In a future blog, I plan to tell you all about Impact Africa; who they are, what they do, how they got started. For now, I want to tell (and show) you about a ministry called Community Outreach they do here at Impact. 

Community Outreach is simply evangelism. But, here at Impact, they take the extra steps to follow up with those they meet and supply the discipleship needed for those who give their lives to the Lord.

We loaded the van at 8:30am and made our way to a community called Eskom. Before we began ministry in Eskom, KB (our translator) gathered us and told us about the community we were going into and encouraged us with a reminder of God’s power and authority. In Eskom, there’re many people who have come from all over to find work in Johannesburg but unfortunately, they’ve either struggled to find jobs in the first place or lost their jobs in recent years.

After KB shared, Chiara (one of our racers) opened us up in prayer and then we broke off into our groups and tended to the harvest set before us.

The first house my group went to, we were able to plant seeds in both a mother and child then pray over them as they shared their hearts and needs with us! While half of our team shared their faith and who Christ is to them to this mother, I found myself a little friend to talk to. She spoke little English but enough that we were able to play and laugh together. We began to ask this little girl if she and her family went to church or knew Jesus. When she told us “no”, we asked if we could pray for her and she lit up with excitement and said, “YES”.

A few moments later, their neighbor came home. Immediately, his woman and her infant son were highlighted to me. Even now, I can’t seem to pinpoint why the Lord highlighted this family, but in the moment I began to have some small talk. Her son was just old enough to walk and when she put him down, He immediately ran towards me to give me a shop. (Shop is like a fist bump but they stick their thumbs up and flick them with each other. Hard to picture, I know, but in the blogs to come I’ll take pictures for you to see. It’s the common ‘handshake’ the kids do with each other and it’s an understatement to say we picked it up quickly). When this infant ran over to me, I asked the mother her name and her son’s name and something happened that I can’t really express.. like at all. I just felt the Holy Spirit stir up something in my heart that made me feel super connected to this woman and her son but reading her body language, you could tell she was a bit more reserved and wasn’t too interested to hear about us or why we’re in their community. A few moments passed and they began to walk away to continue on with their day and I felt overwhelmed that I would more than likely not see them again. Without really thinking, I laid hands on this house and just began to pray over it, over them, over their needs, and their salvation.

There isn’t an ‘end result’ that I can use to wrap this encounter up in a pretty bow for you but I know the Holy Spirit orchestrated that moment and led us there with divine intention. I may never know the Lord’s reason behind it, but I do know that the Lord is pursuing that woman and her son and He invited me into just a moment of their life so I could pray over them.

That stop was a sweet way to enter into the community and by the end of our time with our new friend, we were all feeling filled and encouraged to keep going deeper into Eskom to share the gospel.

 The next family we met, we had the chance to help a mother hand washing her family’s laundry while leading her to Christ! Two of our girls were pushed out of their comfort zones yet the Lord showed up and we got to welcome a sister to our heavenly family! (AMENNNN!)

It was incredible to watch the Lord soften her heart and fill her with more joy as the conversation continued while also watching two of our girls experience the Lord showing up for them when they feel like they aren’t capable of doing the task set before them!

The thing about evangelism is that we, oftentimes, get too intimidated by the thought of what to say or not really knowing how to answer the questions people ask us about the Bible or even God himself. But the reality of it is that we are talking to people we don’t know about a God whom we love that changed our life in a dramatic way.

That’s it. That’s all evangelism is.

It’s actually very simple but the enemy tries to plant lies in our minds that we have to worry about what to say, what’s not acceptable to say, what’s appropriate to ask, what’s culturally respectful, or that we can’t answer questions because we don’t have the whole bible memorized, or that we’re going to trip up on our words while praying therefore we can’t pray right, and the list goes on and on.

But the truth of it is, we don’t have to worry about any of that. The Holy Spirit is the one who does all the work, we simply get to be there for it. The Lord softens hearts, the Lord sets the harvest before us, the Lord is already working in each life we encounter. But instead of being a God who is power hungry and does it all on His own, He invites us to be a part of his movement in the very thing He created in His image.

The last house I want to share with you was just a sweet time of rejoicing with a fellow sister in Christ. One thing I love about African culture is that all momma’s answer to ‘momma’, even when it’s a 24 year old white, American who calls them that.

So this testimony is about a woman we called momma and how my team was able to sit with and hear her testimony. She immediately welcomed us into her home and allowed us to sit in her ‘front yard’ area. We asked her who the Lord is to her and immediately she began to share her life story and all the ways the Lord protected, provided, and blessed her throughout her whole life.

Momma was a picture of hope for us. Walking through this community, we at times began to feel overwhelmed by the spiritual needs and the reality that we can’t help everyone. But it was Momma who reminded us that there are believers IN this community, sharing the Lord’s story and goodness even after we’re gone.

In the midst of brokenness in a lost world, there’s hope. There’s more hope than we can even comprehend or see. But that’s the beauty of the Lord and His authority over all things.

 

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is hope!