South Africa - 2007
January 16-28, 2007, Henry Weigel
Travel and the Routine
The trip was organized by Stan and Julie Wagner. It consisted of Stan, Julie, Barbara, Sharon and Ryan from California; Doug from Norfolk; Lee from Fayetteville, NC and Chris Teague and myself from Centerpointe Church in Fairfax, VA. We left Washington from Dulles in the late afternoon of Tuesday, January 16, 2007, on South African Airways. It was a nonstop flight lasting about 14.5 hours. (Incidentally, on the trip home we were on the airplane about 19.5 hours, as it made a refueling stop in Dakar, Senegal, along with an onboard security check). We arrived at Johannesburg at about 3:00 PM local time on Wednesday and were picked up by the missionaries Steve and Glenda Evans. The time here is seven hours ahead of Washington time. We traveled by car about two hours in a West Northwest direction to Rustenburg and stayed at the "Stop & Stay" motel. Rustenburg is where the Bible School is located. It is slated to be the premier Bible School of South Africa. Glenda was just a little girl when her missionary father worked at establishing the Bible School. It had deteriorated over the years and she was greatly encouraged to see our team come in and do significant renovation. The work involved window replacement and glazing, hanging dry wall, floor and wall tiling, plumbing, and corrugated, galvanized roof replacement. A "Construction Missionary", Charles Hasselbring from another part of South Africa and South African brothers and sisters joined us. Charles directed the work effort. The $2,000 our church had advanced for the project was used to purchase various material including the new galvanized roofing sheets. The Evans were very thankful for the funds.
Daily Devotionals
At lunch time we had our daily devotional time. My turn was on Friday, Jan. 19. I spoke on the subject, "The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength," citing Nehemiah's statement (Neh. 8:10) and moving into Jesus' example (Heb. 12:1-3) when He endured the cross because of the joy that was set before Him – namely the joy of reconciling sinners to God. I compared the joy with the ballast in a ship that keeps the ship stable in storms. In the same way, the joy of our salvation keeps us focused on the things that are eternal and acts as ballast in us and keeps us righted as we face the storms on the sea of life. I concluded with a personal example of rejoicing in tribulation based on the first few versus of Romans 5. A number of people remarked at how the devotional had ministered to them. Guess what, the next day I was put to the test – I lost my wallet! I tried to "practice what I had preached" about rejoicing in tribulation. Others also prayed and helped me look – to no avail. I called Grace and had her cancel a credit card and an ATM card. I gave it up and thought the wallet was gone along with over $200 and the credit and ATM cards. My attitude was that if the wallet with its contents were not found, I would praise the Lord and rejoice in my salvation. That evening I found the wallet. Two of my roommates who were still awake joined me in rejoicing over the found wallet. Praise His name! Church Services
On Sunday (1/21) we went to an Assembly of God church, Grace Community Church, in a shantytown not too far away. It was well attended and lasted about three hours. Yet, it did not seem long at all. It included a lot of worship time – including dancing before the Lord, a drama presentation of Adam and Eve and the snake in the garden of Eden, and a word brought by the Church's Pastor along with an altar call for salvation. The drama was presented by the Sunday School kids. After all that one of our group, a pastor from Norfolk, preached the sermon. He started with the story of the Garden of Eden as had been presented in the drama. He put that in his notes a day or two before. The drama was a confirmation of his message. After his message he invited people to come forward to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Quite a few came forward and we assisted in praying with them. At the end the Church's Pastor called on me to come forward and pray for their Church, which I was honored to do. After the service we handed out some beanie babies to the little ones. Several people from our church (Laurie Horanburg, Rosalyn Johnson, and Donna Fahlsing,) had contributed beanie babies, to hand out. Denise Peitzman had her day school class bring in beanie babies, T-shirts, hats and wrist bands to hand out.
Other Ministry Opportunities
On Sunday afternoon we were taken to an open market where various local artists and vendors made their wares available at a negotiated price. The trick was to be willing to walk away without the item and the vendor followed you and brought the price down. At one place where I bought some carved animals I talked to the two guys that ran the shop and told them that we had come at our own expense and were working for free at the Assembly of God Bible School. I thought one fellow showed great insight when he responded by saying, "That is why America is blessed." I talked about Jesus and asked if they believed in Him. They indicated that they did. But it seemed to me that it was a historical belief rather than a "putting-your-trust-in-Him" faith. So I brought in the basic Gospel message of John 3:16-18. I may also have referred to "Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him." Then I asked if I could pray with them there. They agreed, and I did.
A pre-school is conducted on the grounds of the Bible School. It has about 80 kids including first grade. They expect to add about 20 more kids. They learn Bible stories and songs – a neat ministry outreach because many of the kids come from non-Christian homes. We also handed out beanie babies here.
We also visited the Lighthouse Children Home. It is operated by A/G missionaries and takes in children that are HIV positive, have been abandoned on the street, or abused at home.
The Safari
On Friday (1/26) we went on a picture safari. It was amazing! We saw herds of elephants, zebras, giraffes, wildebeests and many other animals including rhinos, wart hogs, various antelope-type animals and a cheetah. What an ending to the trip!
