A month and a half ago, my team arrived in Johannesburg and were thrown into a ministry that I had no idea would radically change my life.
Evangelizing in the squatter camps here has been the most interesting thing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve mentioned a little bit about this ministry in past blogs, but let me paint a picture for you:
We carry our Bibles and water bottles down long dirt roads, lined with tin shacks that are hot to the touch underneath the African sun. We pass shacks that function as community bars, hair salons, or snack shops. We see men sitting in groups on the side of the road, drinking, smoking and playing cards together. We greet mamas (young women) and gogos (old women) dressed in colorful skirts and dresses, hanging their laundry on a line to dry. Little children run barefoot through piles of trash and hop over trickling grey water streams. They always run to us to greet us with hugs… the kind where they don’t even slow down before slamming into your legs and wrapping their arms around your waist. We duck underneath laundry lines and barbed wire, and shuffle between old spring boards that function as walls or front doors. We hear upbeat music and laughter from around every corner. Most people would see pictures of this place and would call it anything but beautiful, but that’s exactly what it is to me, because of the people I have had the blessing of interacting with.
I want to share a few of my favorite stories from evangelism!! You’ll notice that my favorite conversations are the ones that challenged me most. Also, I’m going to be sharing some parts of these people’s life stories and some things we have talked about, so in order to best honor them, I won’t be using their real names! 🙂
One of my favorite interactions was with a group of three men that we found sitting on the side of the road together. Let’s call them Steve, John, and Sam. Steve was clearly the man in charge here, and it didn’t take long in our conversation with these men to realize that John and Sam would do whatever Steve told them was right. Steve said he believed in God but not in the Bible, and his two friends just nodded in agreement. So we sat with Steve and taught Him about how the Word of God is living and active. When he told us he sees the Bible as a history book, we shared with him tons of miracles we have witnessed in his very own community. We told Him Jesus still does the things that He did according to the Bible. His eyes lit up at that, but he was still so stubborn. He fired question after question at us, and laughed when we didn’t have a solid answer. He asked almost impossible questions, with the clear intention of trying to prove us wrong. He asked things like “why does God allow suffering” and “why does God let Satan oppress people?” and laughed when we had to think about them. We gave the best answers we could, but I felt discouraged by Steve’s motives to disprove us as Christians. At this point it was time for us to leave for lunch, and Steve and John started to walk away. But Sam came up to us and asked more questions, but this time out of genuine curiosity. He had broken away from his friends and what they had been saying about our conversation, and decided that this was something he wanted for himself. From this interaction I learned that even just one heart touched out of a group of many people is enough. Sam wanting to continue our conversation even though it wasn’t a popular choice reminded me to never give up on ushering people into the Kingdom. The words we say WILL take root in someone’s heart, which means it’s so important to never stop giving every single one of those conversations your all.
The next conversation that will definitely stick with me was with a 35 year old man I’ll call Danny, who is a Sangoma. Sangomas are well respected among the Zulu people of South Africa, because they perform rituals that they believe can heal people physically, mentally, or even spiritually. They also believe that they must pray to their ancestors to be able to receive those healing powers. In this ministry we encountered a lot of these Sangomas, but Danny is so different. Every other Sangoma I have seen in passing or tried to talk to has wanted nothing to do with a group of Christians. They assume our only intention is to tell them they are wrong. But Danny welcomed us so openly and sat down to chat without a second thought. I learned so much from that conversation.
Sangomas wear feathers and colorful beaded necklaces, bracelets, and anklets to represent healing spirits, and to show their status as Sangomas. You can spot a Sangoma easily by these accessories. I asked Danny what his necklaces meant, to which he immediately responded by pointing at my own necklace and asking why I wore mine. Without hesitation I ripped my necklace off and explained it meant nothing to me; that I didn’t have to wear it for any reason other than liking how it looked. Then I asked him, “why do you wear yours?” He answered “it’s tradition” and “my dad wore these.” I wanted so badly to ask “but why do YOU wear them,” but then the conversation steered towards ancestors. I asked why he believes he needs to pray to them. He briefly explained the whole healing power thing, but then once again, said “it’s just tradition” and “my elders taught me how.” I finally spit it out. “Okay… I understand it’s tradition, but why do YOU do it?” …As soon as those words left my mouth, conviction hit me like a truck. That question laid itself so heavy on my heart, because I should be asking myself that question about my own faith. I’m not a Sangoma, and I don’t wear symbolic feathers and beads or pray to ancestors, but I have definitely fallen into a habit of doing/believing certain things because “it’s just tradition” or “it’s just how I was raised.” But do I really know why I do those things? I realized I still had some more digging to do.
Danny explained some history to me, about how when the Church came to South Africa, everyone had been praying to ancestors. He told me it was common for people to believe in/pray to both, which is where He stands. So knowing that Danny believed in God and prays to Him, I asked him if he owned a Bible like mine. He called one of his wives (yeah… that’s a whole other story) to bring him his Bible, which he immediately handed to me. I flipped through it, and noticed there is nothing wrong with the Bible he owned. It wasn’t some special book for Sangomas, it was a legitimate Holy Bible and it gave me hope. His reading glasses were folded around the cover and the pages were filled with notes. He had without a doubt been reading this Bible a lot. I was overwhelmed with feelings of hope for this man, but at the same time, my heart broke. This man knows truth, in fact it’s right in front of him when he reads the Word every day. But he twists the truth to fit his ancestral beliefs and practices, and uses scripture to try to justify beliefs that aren’t the truth of the gospel. I flipped through his Bible reading some of his notes, and asked if I could underline something for him. When he nodded in approval, I quickly underlined Acts 4:12. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” I handed it back to him so he could read it. When he looked up from the pages I asked him, “how do you feel about that?” Quietly, he said “good.” I asked him if he agrees with what the verse says. He nodded slowly, but quickly realized what he was agreeing to and said “I’ll have to think about it.” That still gave me hope. Having him read that verse and tell me he would think about it/keep reading it taught me TRUST. I had to leave Danny’s house to meet back up with the rest of the group, but I realized that I can still do something even if I’m not spending hours with this man. I can pray for truth to be revealed to him as he reads his Bible. And above all I can TRUST that God is going to keep growing the seeds that were planted in him from our conversation. He’s the only Sangoma I’ve met who let us talk about our beliefs with Him. He wanted to hear what we had to say, and that gives me hope. He is such a curious man and whether or not he recognizes it, I can tell he is thirsty for the truth. I learned that trusting God with Danny is the most important thing I can do. God is never going to stop fighting for him.
On our last day of outreach my group had the intention of going back to talk to Danny one last time and taking the conversation even further. But Danny wasn’t home, and it was totally part of the Lord’s plan, because it turns out I was supposed to talk to someone else that day instead. We stumbled across a group of men and women sitting outside a shack. After a few minutes of sitting with them, I noticed I wanted to pull one particular woman aside and talk to her one on one. I’ll give her the name Lily. Lily poured her whole heart out to me. She told me her life story and parts of it made my eyes water. She told me about her family leaving her and how she feels she was left alone to suffer. She told me about an abusive relationship she was stuck in, all while the boyfriend was sitting right behind us. She told me she felt she was “living in hell” and that she thought God had abandoned her in all of this. Before starting this ministry my prayer was that the Lord would break my heart for what breaks His, and this woman did just that. I was able to get her boyfriend to walk away for a little while, and she opened up even more to me. Something that stuck with me was that as soon as I started encouraging her and pointing her to scripture, she interrupted me and said “why is it that when you started talking it feels like a burden is lifted? I feel light.” This woman could FEEL the presence of the Holy Spirit as I read the Word and taught her about Gods love for her, and it was exactly the encouragement I needed. Not only did this woman trust a 18 year old white girl to pour her heart out to, but she could tell that God was with us in that conversation. On our last day of outreach, during the very last conversation I had in the squatter camps, the Lord used this woman to show me that He has been with me and has been speaking through me all along. I will never forget Lily, her heart to trust me with her story, and her ability to recognize that I carried the Holy Spirit… WOW. I prayed for Lily and walked away from that conversation in tears. I wanted that woman to know just how loved she was. But again, this conversation taught me to trust God with her life and her story.
Above all, these three conversations (and every conversation I had in this ministry) taught me trust. I can’t do much for them after I leave their community, because I can’t keep in contact with them or continue to disciple them. But what I can do is trust that God is fighting for those men and women. I can trust that God’s got them. I can pray that their hearts would be turned towards Jesus and towards the truth of the gospel. I have learned the importance of continuing to pray for the people I have met, and I would love it if you joined me in praying for them too!!
Thanks for sticking around for this super long post 🙂 My team and I leave South Africa and head to Ecuador so soon, so please be praying for safe travels and a smooth transition into a new country. See you in the next one!!
