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Ministry Moments, Day 1, Team Africa

Stories from first day of ministry in Johannesburg, South Africa.

On September 6th we joined Impact Africa’s outreach team to evangelize in squatter camps (informal settlements of the low-income families of the residents of Johannesburg).  In teams of three to four we headed into the communities to build relationship and speak about our sweet Jesus. Here are a few of our favorite moments:

Before beginning our outreach ministry, we prayed over our day and asked God to show us specific qualities, such as clothing items or color of shoes, of people we would encounter during ministry. As the prayer time continued, a few distinct images were common with several members of our team. Red was seen multiple times by our team, to one it was a bandana and to a few it just the color. Another image that appeared during prayer was a mama in a black shirt nursing her baby.  

A favorite moment from Bianca – “The first house my team visited was a group a four people that kindly greeted us and invited us to sit and chat. We began talking with them we learned a few simple details about their lives and share about ourselves as well. As the conversation continued, we asked each of them what they learned at church it was clear they only understood that God created the world and gave the ten commandments for His people to follow. We then explained the gospel and shared our testimonies. Our new friends loved that we were bold enough to share our own stories and felt compelled to give their lives to Christ! Praise the Lord!! On our way out, I noticed a red bandana hanging on the fence of our new brother and sisters in Christ. How amazing that one of our prayers from that morning came to fruition in our ministry time?!”

A favorite moment from Hannah – “We were invited into the house of a man and his three-yr. old son. We began having conversation to get to know him and after learning more about this man’s life, we asked about church and he said he didn’t attend church nor did he know much about Jesus. That gave us a beautiful opportunity to evangelize and share about what Jesus personally did for him on the cross. Although he listened to us, he didn’t seem to understand the importance of what we shared. Then we asked if we could pray over him for something specific and he shared about the chest pain he had been experiencing. As we began to lay hands on our new friend, we prayed for healing and I felt the Holy Spirit so tangibly. I prayed Isaiah 61 and that he would be an oak of righteousness, not being swayed by the world but instead deeply rooted in the Lord. As I looked up after praying, he was shocked to share with us that he was fully healed, and we noticed a beautiful sincerity in his eyes! We celebrated and began to leave but noticed a tree on the man’s red shirt!      

A favorite moment from Aleena – “During our afternoon outreach ministry in a neighboring we walked into the house of two sisters. The one with the black shirt had twins, Wayne and Shane. The other sister started talking to Michael while we started talking to Melissa and Hope. Hope was the sister who went to church but left due to the pastor—Melissa knew about Jesus but did not go to church or pray. Then Michael started reading scripture John 1:12, Matthew 6:33 and Psalms. Then Hope started a conversation with Michael and was intently listening; Melissa started nursing her child while listening as well. After the scripture they asked us to pray for children and husbands. During the prayer Hope rededicated her life to Christ, and although Melissa was not ready to give her life to Christ yet, she was still interested in all we had to say.”

If you think back to our morning prayer, you will find that each story told above has a key element that matches an image revealed in to our team before ministry even began!

We are overjoyed to experience these sweet moments during our first day of outreach ministry and the Lord already used our team as vessels to grow the Kingdom. We are so excited to be in apart of the movement of the Holy Spirit in this city and we are so thankful that Impact Africa is allowing us to be apart of their ministry.

Until next time – team Africa 🙂

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