This is a journal I wrote while I was on a week long mission trip in South Africa.
You'll read stories about my adventure to South Africa, interactions with the locals, the amazing food, and most importantly how God used that week to transform me, t...
Psalm 121:1-8: (I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.)
The morning started like most except, a crazy wind storm had swept through Joberg overnight. We woke up to some very frigid conditions. Walking on the tile in our bathroom this morning was utter punishment, but like Matt Stoeckle prayed over us before we left,
"We will endure hard times while we're here."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
We made our way to Soweto and started setting up for the day. We started with singing a few songs from the previous day such as, Jesus Loves Me, Boom Chaka Laka, My Lighthouse, and I Am Not Forgotten. We had less kids than yesterday but still had a few new faces in the crowd. Ryan then led the kids through the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. We also went through our memory verse, Romans 6:23 (For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.)
The kids were then split into separate groups. The red group went outside with Uncle Jon to play balloon stomp and tag for game time. The blue group stayed inside to do crafts, we made clothes pin animals. The kids on the blue team were very creative and really enjoyed making the crafts! I was able to help my best buddy Reitumetse make a sparkly pink & purple butterfly. It was probably the manliest thing I've done on this trip so far.
After crafts we took the blue team outside for games and the red team came in for crafts. We got all the kids tied up with balloons and then the chaos ensued! The sound of balloons popping and kids shrieking filled the air. After the smoke had cleared and all the balloons were popped, the kids were all laughing and having an excellent time. Tag was the next game we engaged in, mostly to have the kids run off any excess energy left in their tanks. Once tag had concluded, the kids lined up at the door and made their way back inside.
Singing filled out the rest of the morning, and when all was said and done I heard a few of the new kids say,
"I'm coming back tomorrow!"
Hearing that was really encouraging, but I must remind myself that yes, holiday bible club (HBC) is meant to be there for the kids to have fun but the reason we do this is to give these kids hope and to help them get to know more about Jesus and what He had done for the world. Lord willing also to set the platform for a few of them to come to faith!
