So much has happened in this past week. I can’t believe that my team has been in South Africa for two weeks already! Last weekend we had the opportunity to go to a soccer game at Orlando stadium in Soweto. It was a huge game because both teams were undefeated: the Orlando Pirates and the Golden Arrows. We had a blast cheering on the Pirates (and they ended up winning too!) The crowd was hyped up the whole game blowing their vuvuzalas, dancing and cheering. Below is a picture of the stadium and of Me, Lindsay and Lawton enjoying the game (in our Pirates shirts of course).
Driving through the townships in Soweto was a huge eye opener for me. These townships are where people were sent from Johannesburg to live during Apartheid. Seeing little children peer over fences outside their homes at us really struck our hearts. Spending most of my time so far in Johannesburg, I hadn’t experienced much of the poverty that exists in parts of South Africa.
Time on campus this week has been incredible. On Monday night, Lindsay, Kira, Tebogo and I were spending time in Amper Daar and in our last hour decided to go visit a second year girl named Lethabo
on the second floor. We had met her briefly before but didn’t have a whole lot of time to talk with her. I was absolutely exhausted at this point and my heart wasn’t really into hanging out with anyone else. When we walked in, she and a group of about five other girls were having a Bible study. They invited us to stay and are going through a book including difficult topics for college students. The girls meet nightly to pray, encourage each other, and learn more about the Lord. What a sweet surprise for us to see! The Lord really met me where I was and I think He really used that experience to thaw, or soften, my heart. His power is made perfect in my weakness.
Wednesday nights are the Campus Outreach evangelistic meetings and Bible study in Amper Daar. This week’s Campus Outreach meeting was one of the clearest times I’ve heard the gospel—the Lord really opened my ears. Jeff, who is on staff with Campus Outreach in Johannesburg, spoke about a movie called 127 Hours. This movie is based on a true story about an adrenaline junkie named Aaron who is adventuring in a desert-like climate when he falls into a narrow canyon and his arm is pinned under a rock. This canyon is very deep and Aaron has no way to call for help. He is there for days, and eventually runs out of food and water. His arm, being pinned under the rock for so long, begins to decompose. Aaron has tried everything to free himself and it gets to the point that if he wants to live he will have to remove his arm in order to escape. That’s exactly what he does—and as a result, he lives. This movie raises the question to me, what if I was Aaron--Would I do the same thing in order to live?
After the movie clip, we went through Jeremiah 2:13 which says, “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” The things of this world have such a hold on us, and seem quite appealing at first glance, that we have forsaken God and the spring of living water that He has offered us, in exchange for the world’s broken cisterns. We have taken things other than God, some of which can be good by themselves, and made them the center of our lives—whether these things are relationships, sports, academics, etc. It’s when those things become idols, or the center of our lives, that we run into a big problem. God is jealous for us, and as our Creator, He wants to be the center of our lives. These idols consume us, and keep us from having a real relationship with God, like in the clip when Aaron is pinned in the rock. God wants us to be free from these things.
In Matthew 5 it says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” If these things are keeping us from making God the center of our lives, we have to get rid of them, just as Aaron did when he had to remove his arm to free himself from under the rock. This is our only hope to truly live and experience the joy to be had in a relationship with Christ.
The Campus Outreach meeting was a nice transition into the Bible study. We went through Romans 6:23 which says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our God.” We also used a cool visual called the bridge diagram. The wage, or what we have earned, from being sinners is death—not just physical death but a spiritual death, a life apart from God. The gift of God is eternal life. How do we get from a life apart from God and a life that will lead us to death, to an eternal life spent with God? I, in all that I am, have no ability to do anything but sin. There is no way that I can be sinless. Nothing that I can do, or try to do better, will earn eternal life for me. I am always going to miss the mark of perfection, whether directly in my actions or through impure motives. How then do I get to spend life with a perfect God? Only through Christ. This is because Christ lived a perfect and blameless life. He, alone, deserves to spend eternity with God. He became sin on the cross, and paid the penalty of all of our sin through what He endured on the cross—not only an excruciatingly painful death, but He was also forsaken by God. Jesus bridges the gap between our imperfections and everything that is perfect in God. By repenting, turning away from our sin and running towards Christ, and by putting our faith in Christ, we can have a relationship with God and spend eternal life with Him. Every time I read this verse, it becomes more and more real to me. It was really cool to see the girls in Bible study respond to this verse. Some of the questions we asked afterward were “which side of the bridge do you think you’re on?”, “how do you get to the other side?” and “what is repentance and what does it look like in your life?” I know I’ve said this before, but it is so evident that the Lord is working here and wants these girls to know Him. To see the excitement and awe in their eyes as they learn more about Him is incredible.
Below is a picture of me, KK (one of the leaders in Benjemijn), and Lindsay hanging out before going on campus and a picture of one of the most beautiful places on UJ campus-the fountain!
Please continue to be praying for our team and I would love it if you could pray these things specifically:
-That the Lord would continue to be working in these girls and that there would be openings for spiritual conversations
-Clarity as to who is spiritually interested and which girls we should be investing more time in
-Unity for our team
-Boldness in our conversations
-Prayer for our braii (barbeque) tonight-it’s a big ministry event for us!
-That the Lord would be glorified and His name proclaimed throughout the nation
Thank you all for your prayers and support!
With love,
Lauren
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