Week 4 in Africa

Hey friends,

Another eventful week! Lindsay and I had the opportunity to lead the Bible Study on Wednesday night in Amper Daar. We chose to focus on the topic, “What does it look like to surrender your life to Christ and to follow Him?” Before we started the study, I was able to share the story of how I came to know Jesus and what my life looks like now as a new creation. After my testimony, we went through three different verses: Romans 10:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, and Luke 9:23-25. Romans 10:9-10 says, “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” I think it can be a confusing concept of what it means to really believe in God because it’s easy to grow up thinking that you are a Christian if you simply say you believe in Jesus. A helpful analogy that Lindsay and I were able to share involves a famous tightrope walker who was on top of the Niagra Falls. There was a crowd on top of the waterfall and the tightrope walker was performing for them. He asks them, “Do you believe that I can cross this tightrope?” They all say, “Yes we believe that you can!” He does it successfully and they applaud for him. Next the tightrope walker asks, “Do you believe that I can cross this tightrope while pushing this wheelbarrow?” The crowd once again says that they believe that he can do it. The tightrope walker again crosses successfully and the crowd applauds. Next he says, “Do you believe that I can cross this rope with a person in the wheelbarrow?” The crowd again says that they believe he can. The tightrope walker asks, “Ok, who wants to get in?” The crowd is silent. They confessed that they believed in the tightrope walker but no one wanted to get in the wheelbarrow. I think this analogy relates a lot to Romans 10:9-10 and what it means to really believe in your heart in God. Really believing in God with our hearts means that we must jump into the wheelbarrow. What is keeping us from jumping in the wheelbarrow to follow Christ? Is there something that we are not surrendering to the Lord? Is it the pursuit of success, a relationship, or even just our own unbelief?

And once we’ve surrendered and jumped in the wheelbarrow, what does it look like to follow Christ? I think Luke 9:23 can shed some light on this question. It says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Jesus gives us three things in this verse that we need to do in order to follow him: deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily and follow Him. We must deny our own sinful desires and repent (turn away from our sin and turn towards Christ) to follow Him, and we can only do this by believing in Jesus. The verse also says that we must take up our crosses daily--meaning that this is a continuous, daily process and it’s not going to be easy.

On Thursday, Lindsay and I had the opportunity to meet up with Lebo to grab coffee in the cafeteria. We worked through one of the Life Issues books (a book series that goes through the book of John) and followed up with her on the Bible Study topic from the previous night. Throughout the time we’ve been in South Africa, a lot has been going on in her life. She realized over the past three weeks or so that she has not been following Christ like she thought she had been her whole life. She never before realized the weight of her sin apart from God. She has had a lot of barriers that she has been working through since then. She’s had a difficult time growing up--both of her parents passed away when she was a child and there’s a lot of pain there.

Throughout the past few weeks the Lord has really revealed a lot about Himself to Lebo. He’s the only thing that can heal her pain and bring her real joy. When talking through the wheelbarrow diagram last Thursday, she said that she didn’t feel like anything was keeping her from jumping into the wheelbarrow (becoming a Christian) but she wanted to there. We talked through what Romans 6:23 says about eternal life in Christ being the FREE gift of God, all she had to do was take it, and she did. Lebo giving her life to Christ is one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever witnessed. She speaks of the joy and freedom that she’s found in the Lord and is amazed by Him. She’s already thinking and praying about how she can glorify God in all that she does. Her passion for the Lord is contagious. Praise the Lord for bringing Lebo into His kingdom! What a gift it has been for me and Lindsay to experience this! I’m realizing more and more each day what a privilege it is to be here serving the Lord in South Africa. Seeing how only the Lord can change people’s hearts and desires but the Lord chooses to use broken people like me to share the Gospel is incredible and something I don’t think I’ll ever really understand.

After our time on campus, it was time for another cultural excursion! Our cultural excursion this weekend consisted of camping at the Pilanesberg game reserve. We camped on Friday night and went on a safari all day Saturday. We had a blast and saw all kinds of animals! Elephants literally came right up to our kombi!

Prayer Requests for this week:

-Praise for Lebo becoming a Christian and prayer that the Lord would fan the flame within her
-Prayer for time with the girls as they are taking exams and starting to go home
-That the Lord would fuel a desire in these girls to know Him
-Prayer for the Joint Winter Conference from June 24th-26th (that girls would want to come, prayer that the Lord would speak through the speakers and the conference and penetrate hearts with His Word and prayer for logistics of the conference)
-Our team would be rooted in the Lord and be joyfully dependent on Him
-God would be glorified by the time we have left on campus

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

-2 Corinthians 4:16-18