Our first few days in AFRICA!

Johannesburg, South Africa is amazing! The past couple of days we have been getting to spend time with our team and the leaders involved with campus outreach joburg. The first full day we were here went to the Apartheid museum to learn what that was like and how this country has been united together and gained freedom. We’ve also gotten to have some African food...which is delicious! The people here are beyond welcoming, it’s been such a blessing to be able to have this opportunity to come and see that the Lord has truly called our team here this summer and will use it for His glory.

On Sunday while we were at church I got a glimpse of how big our God is. As we worshipped our Lord I realized that they sang the same songs here as we do back home and that the pastor preached the same gospel. (I knew that that would be the case) but seeing it first hand opened my eyes more to see more of who our God is, the creator of the universe, of all nations. There was this reality that no matter the culture and how different we all are, the gospel remains constant, it’s never changing and unites all of God’s children together. Just thinking about that makes me say wow and puts me in a place to where I am in complete awe of God.

Monday was our first day in the dorms (they call them res’s) where we all got with our ministry partners and met the students of the university. Lauren Bice and I were switched to a res called Amperdaar. A few of the older girls, Tebogo, Ikho, and Pretty showed us around and introduced us to a few of the first year girls. It was so much fun to get to walk in their rooms and talk with them and just to get to know everyone. We are both so excited to continue to meet these girls and build relationships with them. We were reminded earlier that morning of the great commission, Matthew 28: 18-20 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age”. We have been entrusted with the good news of the gospel, that Jesus came, humbled Himself by death on a cross, died for our sins because He loved us and was raised, so that we can live in Him and be reconciled with our Father. By reading the great commission and hearing that command, how could we not go out and share this truth and what joy it brings. What a blessing we have been given.

Sunday night all the girls on the team got together and talked about things they wanted to be praying for this summer. One of the things I said was that I wanted to be interesting to the girls in res’s. And as we were in a dorm room meeting with a few students one of the girls needed to go study for a test but she said she didn’t want to leave because “we were so interesting’. That struck me. Seeing how God has answered prayers just in the first day and that He is with us continuously. What a sweet reminder to lean on Him.

Please pray that we would continue to go hard these next weeks, be bold in our conversations, remember that our identity is in Christ, that we would follow where the Lord would lead us., and for the hearts of the students here – that they would be softened by the gospel.

“All the nations You have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For You are great and do wondrous things; You alone are God” –Psalm 86:9-10

Thanks everyone! I hope y’all are not to hot in the states! I am excited to see what the Lord will do the next couple of weeks on the campus here, we’ll keep y’all posted!