Rural Outreach – Somerset, South Africa
“Now that I have seen, I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead. Now that I have held you in my own arms, I cannot let go until you are.” –Brooke Fraser
On Monday, March 28th 2011, my alarm went off at an extremely early hour. The sun hadn’t even pulled itself out of bed yet. It was 4:30am. I managed to climb down from my bed and take what was going to be the last legitimate shower for the next 16 days. We got on the road by 6am and proceeded to drive what was supposed to be 6 hours to Gazankulu, a city in northern South Africa. We were a 30 minute drive from the border of Mozambique! Our 6 hours drive turned into a 12 hour journey with lost tires on trailers and baakies (pickup trucks) that wouldn’t start. We didn’t get to our campsite until after dark. We proceeded to unpack our tents and with our torches (flashlights) on our heads, we put up all 3 tents. Then, said goodbye to the rest of the training team. We were a little apprehensive about saying goodbye. That meant we wouldn’t see the rest of our family for two whole weeks. In some of our minds, two weeks was an eternity.
Day 2: Tuesday - Set up day. Now is the time to get into leadership mode. I was chosen out of our leadership of MDT to be one of the team leaders for this outreach. It was a great experience over all but that story will come later. We started putting up our gazebo. Our campsite had no shade whatsoever at all so it was good that we brought that. Then we made our shower. Yes – I said it. We actually made a shower. It consisted of 4 poles, a tarp, and 3 large rocks to stand on. Can you say bucket bath? If the wind would blow, one of the sides would dip down and you could see everything going on around you including the people walking past. We would wave and continue our coveted washing for the week. I only had 3 “bucket baths” the entire time that I was there. Yum. We all got to the point of appreciating bucket bathes. So we finished fixing up our tents, making our fire, and everything else we needed. We were satisfied. The rest of the day was spent learning where and how to fetch water from the taps, cooking meals, getting to know our pastor, and playing with the massive amount of children the pitched up right outside our camp. 100 kids! It was a good day. We decided to go to bed early that night so we could start ministry and planning early the next day. We woke up about an hour later to what sounded like thunder. And sure enough it was. Within a few seconds it started to rain and we all had to jump out and cover our wood and put everything up. Within a few minutes, the heart of the storm was right over us and the wind was so strong it blew over our gazebo, shower, and it almost blew me over. It totally destroyed our camp and it leaked into all our tents. The amazing thing about that night was that each tent were singing their own praises to God through the whole storm. It brought a whole new meaning to praising Him in the storm.
Day 3: Wednesday – Reconstruction, Drunk Sangomas, & Freedom. We woke up the next morning to our campsite completely destroyed. We were frustrated, tired, and incredibly muddy. Unlike any other camp site out of any other team, we had mud and lots of it! We got to the point where we just took off our shoes as the mud represented shoes. It was about an inch thick to the bottom of our feet. So yummy! We wanted to start with ministry early this day but we had to reconstruct our campsite and try to cook meals over the fire. We got through the day with some tears but incredible team unity and understanding. I look back on this storm now and believe without a doubt in my mind, it was God’s way of telling us He was in control and that this was His trip. We are just the vessels. It was an incredible humbling experience! We ended up having over 125 children for children’s ministry that day! What a blessing from God to encourage us when we were down.
After the day was over, I was leading debriefing for my team and one of my friends mentioned he was feeling a lot of pain in His body so our team prayed over him. After we were finished, I asked if anyone else needed prayer for anything and that is when it got very interesting at our campsite. We were about to resume debriefing when a woman comes stumbling into our campsite and sits in our gazebo with her two very small children. Keep in mind we have no electricity so the only thing that is giving off light is our flashlights. She begins speaking to us as if we can understand her. All she was saying is “sorry, sorry” and other words and pointing to her neck. I knelt down beside her, and motioned to her that we were going to pray for her. I got about 5 or 6 words into the prayer when she started manifesting demonic spirits and I immediately started praying in the Spirit and my team followed as if we had planned for this to happen. She started crying, shaking, standing up and clapping in her language as if she was declaring something. I felt led to just hold her and pray over her. When I was hugging her, I could smell alcohol on her breath. She was drunk so it made this experience even harder. After we prayed for about 45 minutes with this sweet lady, we finally got breakthrough and started to calm down. By then, we had found a translator. After a few minutes of him talking to her, he said that he knew the woman and that she is either a sangoma (witchdoctor) who is still in training or just finished training. She goes to every village acting like this and everyone thinks that she is crazy. No one likes her. He said that it is impossible to talk to her when she is acting like this because the “ancestor” spirit is talking through her but that it was gone so we were able to communicate to her. AMEN! We had confirmation that we got the breakthrough! He then told us that she had been trying to tell us that her husband is very ill in his throat and wants us to go to her home to pray with him. We didn’t go because not all of us felt at peace with going. And I somewhat regret it now. But We prayed with her and for her husband and spent a little more time with her letting her know that she is loved and not rejected. We tried telling her about Jesus, but there is only so much you can do with someone who is drunk. The crazy thing is that I fell in love with this sweet woman. It brings me to tears even telling you about her now. Some of the other boys went to fetch water the next day and saw her with her children. At first, they didn’t recognize her but then realized who she was. She had a huge smile on her face and looked so happy. Thank you Lord for freedom and bringing us breakthrough!
I think one of the hardest times for me was about day 5 when we had just finished a big lunch and there were kids hanging around outside of the church on our campsite. One of the boys came to me while I was cleaning up and said “come” and took my hand. He proceeded to tell me by acting out the words that one boy was really hungry and he needed food. Our leaders back at the base had told us not to feed the children because then everyone would come wanting food and we just couldn’t give food like that. I said “ok I’ll be right back.” I went and talked to my team and they said not to do it. I looked down at the band wrapped around my wrist that says W.W.J.D. I went to the field and wept pleading with God to tell me how He would do this kind of ministry. I can’t multiply food and I can’t feed thousands. So where is the line? When is it ok to break the rules to feed a child? The hardest part was saying no when I had a full stomach. It broke my heart. I was hard to be there to play and minister to the kids and leave in 2 weeks time to go back to my fulfilling life back home with my laptop, clothes for every season, & enough food to throw away because you are too full to finish it. I will never throw away food again. I will eat smaller portions and eat all of it and remember the little boy who was hungry that I couldn’t feed. Because of that child, I will dedicate my life to Jesus’ ministry to feed the children, to love on the children and to tell them a man named Jesus who came to save.
We had a few different ministry opportunities that were really fun to be a part of but at times were an incredible challenge. The church that we were working with had just been planted a year ago by another OM team that went before us. There wasn’t much participation going on in the church. Actually, there wasn’t any participation. Pastor Abednego, the Pastor of the Somerset church, asked us to plan 3 sermons a week for our 6 services we would have during our two week stay. We actually had the opportunity to start the church. The day before we left, the Pastor told me that the people that had come to the church want it to continue on a regular basis! Thank you Lord! We also had MANY opportunities to do children’s ministry. Don’t worry – the amount of children at our camp reduced to about 50-60 by the second week so we were able to build relationships easier. We were able to have clowns, memory verses, games, and lots of songs that required us to run around like crazy people. They loved it, we loved it, it worked great. We were able to reach lots of children and only God knows what impressions we left behind. I pray that all of our hard work and love will be sown by the Christians in the community.
One of the reasons for going to rural Africa was to experience the way that the locals lived. We used long drop toilets, we cooked over a fire and we took bucket bathes. Another part of the experience is to eat what they eat. And that called for killing a chicken, de-feather and de-gut it, cook it, and eat it. When we found out that this was another activity we had to experience, some of us where apprehensive and some of us got very excited about the idea of this adventure. I am proud to say I was the latter. On our day off, the boys went early to fetch and buy a chicken while the girls slept in. And at about 2pm we got started. I won’t go into the gory details but I would like to prove a rumor to be true. When you cut the head off of a chicken, it does indeed run around for about 2 minutes without its head. It was very interesting! We waited awhile then plucked its feathers out by first dunking it into a cauldron of boiling water. It works wonders. I also found out I am allergic to chicken feathers. Who would of thought? I then cut it open to see all of its insides. It was very cool! We gave all the insides to one of the locals because they consider them to be a delicacy. We boiled and fried each piece of chicken and it was delicious! I don’t know if I would ever do it again unless I had to but it was a great experience and one of my favorite traditions of the Gazankulu (Bushbuck Ridge) community!
Overall, this trip was amazing! Of course, it had its ups and downs but the Lord taught me so much! The Lord blessed us so much with team unity. We have been back now for 2 weeks and we still have a special bond. God also showed me how much of a protector He is. We were warned on the first day that there were 3 men who were known to be thieves watching us from afar. We were also woken up every night to people walking around our tents that we had to scare away with our flashlights. Through all of the witchdoctors’ drums all night long to thieves and strangers in the streets, His hand of protection was over us the entire time. I also learned how important it is when you are doing any kind of ministry to always submit in every way. Our team was known for the amount of times we prayed. We prayed before & after we did ministry, anytime we planned our ministry and any other time we needed guidance or protection. Anytime we didn’t pray, ministry or planning would not go smoothly. The Lord drilled into my head that this was His work and He needed us to do exactly what He needed us to do so that His will would come forth in the community. I loved doing ministry like that because I was never alone and I knew exactly what needed to be done when He would speak. I learned so much and this was an experience I will never forget. Because of this trip, I feel called to rural Africa. My heart is there and will always be in Africa… for now at least. I believe this is the beginning of something very special! Thank you all for reading. And for all your support and prayers! They helped more than words can even express. I appreciate you all more than you know. Thank you so much! God Bless!!!!
