Morena
ke modishi waka, ga ke khloke selo. Before coming to South Africa, I
challenged myself to learn at least a couple of words in the different
languages that they speak here. There
are eleven official languages, so it was no easy task! One night, one of the
student leaders, a bubbling third-year student named Mapula, taught me Psalm 23
in Pedi, her native tongue. When I was about seven, my grandma taught me Psalm
23 and it was the first anything of the Bible that I had memorized, so I wanted
to broaden my linguistic horizons and pick it up in Pedi. Why not right? The
verse reads “The Lord is my shepherd, I need nothing more.” The verse talks
about trials for sure, but I have learned in the past six weeks of ministry
that the verse applies to sharing the Gospel as well. The truth of the Gospel
is so powerful that we do not need to be gifted orators or all-knowing
evangelists who spit out Scripture memory verses every other word. Just
proclaiming the Gospel is enough because it is as simple as telling the Good
News and letting the Holy Spirit do the work.
Ministry has been so much fun, but
it has also taught me a lot about humbling myself before the Lord and serving
others, putting their needs before my own. The first few days of ministry, my
partner Caitlin and I would knock on one door after another. We would look at
each other and smile awkwardly, not knowing if we should run as we heard
students approaching their doors. “Heeeeeeeyyy! We are here on our summer break
and we just want to get to know South African students!” They would stare at us
with blank expressions, sometimes scared and maybe looking for some sort of
hidden camera. After the initial introductions were made, and we explained that
yes it was winter in South Africa, but summer in North Carolina, the students
welcomed us into their rooms and we were always in for a treat! South Africans
love to talk and they would answer all of our invasive questions. Abbie was one
of the first girls we met. We met her as she was walking to the bathroom, so Caitlin
and I chased her there, and then back to her room. She was so confused! We
invited her to get ice cream and asked all about her family, her favorite food,
whether she liked to dance or not, you name it, we asked it. Abbie really
opened up and through her we met Sisipho and Muwanwa.
Students
here are pretty open to listening to us talk about Jesus because many grew up
going to church. Caitlin and I were not exactly expecting a talk about
ancestral worship though. One afternoon when we were trying to start a
Gospel-centered conversation, some girls gave us insight into traditional
family myths and told us stories of women who claim to be witches. Then another
friend from Zimbabwe explained that when you find money in the depths of the
forest, you take it without asking questions and thank the ancestors that left
it there. I guess we were not fully equipped to answer questions about this
secret magic, but it challenged us to further emphasize the deity of Jesus.
Jesus claims, “I am the way and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Jesus is the only way to life, on this
Earth and beyond and it has been amazing to see Abbie, Sisipho, and Muwanwa
learn more about Jesus and want to investigate him more. It is sad it is coming
to an end!
Para mis abuelitos: Cuando estaba
chiquita, mi abuelita me ayudó a memorizer el Salmo 23 y todavía lo recuerdo!
Me lo repito a mi misma de vez en cuando cuando tengo algún probleman. Asi que
cuando llegué a Sud Africa, también lo quize aprender en por lo menos uno de
los once idiomas oficiales. Conozco sólo el primer verso, pero voy a seguir
intentando porque Dios es el mismo Dios en cualquier idioma, en cualquier país.
He aprendido que sólo decirle a alguien el evangelio es suficiente para que
ellos lo crean, porque en Romanos dice que el evangelio es el poder de Dios
para la salvación de cualquiera que crea. Dios fue muy fiel en ayudarnos al
equipo de 20 a venir aquí y se ha asegurado que todos nos llevemos como una
familia. También hemos visto a muchos jóvenes crecer en su fé gracias a las
conversaciones que hemos tenido con ellos. Ahora siento una gran emoción para
contarle a todo el mundo del poder de Dios a través de Cristo!
-Bettina
Lemm
Doing ministry in the dorms at Wits
was not at all what I expected. The
girls in the dorms were so welcoming and love to invite you into their room and
talk for hours. There were three girls
that my ministry partner, Jaimey, and I had the privilege of getting to know. Their names are Mmule, Masana, and
Nqaba. All of them are Christians and
want to grow to walk with the Lord. We
would spend time with them almost every day, and often would take them out to
play soccer, tennis, or games from their childhoods. It was really awesome getting to know them
and how different their lives were from ours growing up. Through investing our time in these girls we
really became close to them and loved getting to study the Bible and pray with
them. It did feel like a little bit of a
barrier that all the girls we were encountering were Christian. We really wanted to encounter girls who were
non-Christians, so we started praying that God would place non-Christians in
our path. Then we met Ishara, a Hindu,
Jehaan, a Muslim, and Kuda, a Christian but we don’t know if she was truly
walking with the Lord. We got to spend
some time with them and began to share our faith with them. Unfortunately, they were fourth years and
would typically do their own thing, so it was really hard to get in touch with
them to hang out. We also spend time
with some girls on the Wits women’s basketball team. Their names are Odie, Pam, and Neli. All of them said that they were Christians,
and we prayed with Odie after Pam’s stepmother died, but we don’t really know
what any of their lives look like when it comes to their walks with the
Lord. We tried to spend time with them,
but they would often not show up to the things we invited them to, and Odie
never seemed to be in her room. Jaimey
really had a heart for the basketball girls, but it seemed that the Lord had
others who He desired us to reach.
We have the Joint Winter Conference
(JWC) coming up, which we have spent the past three weeks recruiting for
it. Jaimey and I have two girls coming
to the JWC, which is really exciting for us.
Masana is coming and we get to giver her her first English Bible, which
was kindly donated by Katlyn. It is an
NIV Bible that has cross-references, which will be really good for a young
believer, such as Masana. The other girl
we have coming is Karabelo, who is a girl that Jaimey met out on the lawn in
front of the great hall. It is
completely God’s doing that these girls are able to come and really want to
come to the JWC. I would like to ask
that everyone be in prayer for everyone at the JWC and for all those who were
not able to come. Pray that no matter
their circumstances they will draw near to God and walk in a deeper
relationship with Him.
-Kelsey
Cawthorn
Ministry on
the campus of WITS has been a very interesting process for my ministry partner,
Mallory, and I. Instead of being placed
in Sunnyside Res like the rest of our CO Charlotte girls, we were placed in
Jubilee Res with the CO Indy girls to do ministry. This has presented us with numerous
challenges to overcome but it has also been a huge blessing. Jubilee seems to be the only place on campus
where the security guards actually take their job seriously. A few examples being; you have to be signed
in and out of the building by an upperclassmen, the upperclassmen can only sign
in 3 people at a time, the security guards get antsy when you sign in and out
of the building multiple times per night, and if they found out that we were
part of campus outreach they would get really angry that we were going door to
door. Because of all of these strange
rules at Jubilee, Mallory and I were never able to go to res until after dinner
so we usually only had around 3 hours in the dorm per night. This was hard but it made us really value the
time we had in res with the girls. Despite
the challenges, one benefit of Jubilee was that it was filled with student
leaders! We were able to spend time
getting to know their stories and their heart for ministry was super
encouraging for Mallory and I. I am
fully confident that the Lord is going to use these girls to advance the gospel
throughout Jubilee! Please pray that
these girls would continue to be bold for Christ in Jubilee!
-Devin
Carter
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