On Jan 1st 2015 the countdown officially started for me, we have known God was calling us back into missions long before that date but for some reason when the calendar changed to 2015 it became real. Many people have asked when we are leaving and the short answer is that as of right now we plan to leave Augusta GA at the end of July and take a week or so to drive to my parents in Vancouver WA, visiting friends and family along the way. We then plan to fly to Cape Town South Africa on or around Sept 8th 2015. Eddie has to be in Muizenburg South Africa and settled in by Sept 21 (our oldest sons 7th birthday) to start a 9 month training program. While he is training for those 9 months we will be scouting the local townships and meeting with local pastors and community leaders to find a good fit for the ministry we feel God calling us to.
In order to explain well what we will be doing in South Africa you need to know a little about the country’s history as well as a little information about the different people groups in South Africa. I am not going to give much history/ people group description here but will write more in later posts. When Eddie and I were praying about where God wanted us to go and what we were to do we both got the exact same answer, we were to go back to the Cape flats in South Africa and work with the colored people living in the townships there. American friends please do not freak out, in South Africa 'Colored' is not a bad word but instead a name for a people group, my husband happens to be colored and very proud of it. Eddie, my husband did not grow up in a township, but some of the challenges he faced growing up are even worse in the townships.
So we will be pioneering a brand new ministry, basically we will be running an after school program during the school year and half day summer camp. There are currently very few ministries like the one we will start, if any, in the colored communities. When these kids get out of school there is nowhere for them to go and since most of their parents did not graduate high school there is no help with school work. Many of them end up in gangs or getting into other types of mischief. Studies have shown the best way for these kids to better their lives and get out of the townships it through education. One of the focuses of the after school program will be helping these children with school work and life skills. We plan to set up computers and teach computer skills as well as sewing and other life skills on top of school help. Another area of need is food, unlike here in the USA they do not have government assistance or school lunch programs, many families buy food once a month and when its gone its gone, sometimes a week or more before the next paycheck. We plan to provide the students with a high protein snack during the school year and a lunch during the summer. For some of these kids this will be their only meal that day. Another huge area of need is the gospel shared at their level. We plan to run VBS type programs in the summer and use children’s Christian curriculum throughout the year. When my husband volunteered at our church’s VBS for the 1st time he was pleasantly surprised, he had never heard the gospel shared in a way kids could understand it and it was fun, something most kids in South Africa would not say about church or Christ. We also hope to bring medical teams in on short term missions, basic dental exams and hygiene are not taught and they do not typically receive preventive care other then shots. Kids who need glasses will just struggle and not receive glasses; they cannot afford the exam let alone the cost of the glasses.
Both pictures were taken in 2005 while we working in the Cape flats of South Africa.
So there it is a brief summary of where God is calling us and what we are called to do. I know this post will not answer all of your questions and may actually bring up more questions but I wanted to start somewhere. We don’t have all the details worked out yet and there is still so much to do but God has been faithful thus far. He has confirmed this calling many times for both of us and while occasionally it feels very overwhelming I love watching the details work themselves out. So there it is my very 1st blog post. I hope it gave you a little bit of an idea about where we are going and what we are going to be doing. I welcome questions so please do not hesitate to ask.
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