South Africa

I got a co-leader, Cory, the day of the trip, he was a complete rookie. He had never even heard of Teen Mania before...but we worked well together!

We had a great team of 23 high school/college students and throughout the trip, many of them had the chance to lead someone to the Lord for the first time. We even had a guy come on the trip who wasn't a Christian (he thought it was a humanitarian trip), but halfway through he committed his life to Jesus:) It was truly awesome! 

Before we left Texas, one of my girls, Sara, was short $2,000. You don't get to go on the trip if you don't have all your money. Sara is from NYC. Her family doesn't have extra money and she wasn't sure if their family was going to still have a place to live when she got home.  She came to Texas for the training because she wanted a small vacation away from the reality of her life. Our team came together and prayed for her and within 24 hours, she had ALL the money she needed! It was so awesome for the team to witness God's provision/miracle because they were all expecting more when we got on the field.

We spent the first half of the trip in Johannesburg working in the squatter camps. We would have one group stay at a central location to do Jabulani Kids (VBS) and the other groups would go out door to door. We did this in the morning and afternoon. We switched the groups going out and staying for Jabulani Kids and my coleader and I switched between Jabulani Kids and door to door. At Jabulani Kids, either Cory or I would give the gospel message after the team led songs, story, games...it was awesome! One afternoon we had over 400 kids show up! Over the whole time in Johannesburg we saw 335 children commit their lives to Jesus. 

The door to door ministry was also amazing...we would help the people with whatever they needed - dishes, laundry, sweeping...and we would talk with them about life and what they believe.

We prayed for people to be healed, to get jobs, for salvation...the list goes on and on...and we saw God answer those prayers. There were two guys that got phone calls for jobs right after we finished praying for them--and they quickly called back and took the jobs. We had a pregnant woman who was on bed rest and couldn't do anything get cleared from her Doctor the next day and return to work. We saw people who had trouble walking start dancing and praising Jesus. We saw people who were stuck in bondage get set free. We saw a child who was possessed, be freed. We saw the lost surrender to Jesus.

One of the most exciting things that happened was while we were doing Jabulani Kids at Kya Sands (Squattercamp) the second day of ministry and there was an older lady there the whole time. After I gave the net I was going to talk to the mommies and that lady was gone. A few minutes later the woman was back and she came up to me and asked me to pray for this child that was hobbling behind with the use of a walker. A second ministry group (MIG) had shown up a few minutes earlier, so I gathered both MIGs over and we prayed for Lillian. The woman was praying with us, which was neat. While we were praying, Sara (one of the missionaries) had her hands on Lillian's knees and she felt her bones shifting. When we had finished praying, another Sarah grabbed Lillian's hands and pulled her away from the walker and then she let go of her hands and I stayed behind Lillian--in case she fell--and we asked her to walk.

Lillian's first step was VERY hesitant, but when she saw she could do it, she got this HUGE smile on her face and she walked quickly over to Sarah. 

We spent a day learning about how to minister to Muslims and went to an area of Johannesburg where there are MANY Muslims. We got to tour a Mosque and ask questions. There are so many similarities between Christianity and Islam, but they miss out on the Love aspect of God. It really is sad. We were able to have some conversations with Muslims, and the missionaries are continuing to develop relationships and they are seeing God do some pretty incredible things in the lives of those people.

Then we went to Kwandebele for our village trip...