Community

I want to start off my sharing what I’ve been experiencing living in community. First off, we are doing a new thing. My ministry family consists of people of all different races from all over South Africa. Because of the recent end of apartheid, you just don’t see that here. Walking down the street, you hardly ever see a white and a black or a colored hanging out together. We hang out all the time. And although there are work places and ministry organizations that are mixed, we don’t know of any other group who actually live together. As an American, I feel a great privilege to be able to look in at the diversity of a people from a country with a past, forming a family.

Our diversity is beautiful. Our diversity is also messy.

We have different ways of interacting with each other, different ways to joke, our voices speak in different volumes and different languages. We eat different things and pray differently, worship differently, and think in different manners. We offend a lot and have to back pedal often. A few times we have had to sit down and argue things out. It’s important and good that we do this because we are a family and a body working towards the same mission. If you look at history, you see that every big movement arose out of really strong, committed community. And I think that if we’re able to do this with the extent of differences we have, the extent of movement potential is enormous. A mentor of ours told us that if we can’t do life in community together, there is no hope for the future of South Africa. He may be right.

We had a girl’s camp this weekend and it was wonderful! We had about 20 Xhosa high school students and youth adults from one of the biggest townships in South Africa. They were beautiful girls and were really eager to hear from God. They soaked in all the sessions like a sponge and it was amazing to hear them sing their praise and worship songs to God. A lot of breakthroughs happened on the second night and God really helped many to let go of things they were holding on to. We also did an outreach on Saturday with the girls and our guys at a local township. We had over 500 children and youth. I’m pretty sure we had the whole township out there!

To the extent that ministry with God in South Africa is amazing, it is also really hard. There’s a lot I miss about America, and I feel like if I count the challenges here, I would never run out of things to say. I’m just glad that God loves to lift up His children when they are down, because I am down a lot. I was okay letting God make me weak, so that He can be strong, but then He asked me to be nothing so He can be everything. And that’s a lot harder. But that’s following Christ. And that’s the road I’m trying to walk right now. It’s worth it.