Transkei Outreach

I just got back from a week on the South coast. We took a group of students from the Baptist Theological College (BTC) on an outreach. The goal was to give them exposure to mission work and at the same time help a local ministry. We joined up with Crusade for Christ (CFC), which is based just south of Margate. For a couple of days we worked on their new farm, helping with some physical labour. In the evenings we attended a good old fashioned tent crusade.

LOUD! That's all I can say. The tent crusade was ear shatteringly LOUD! But it really is amazing to see people who truly enjoy worshipping God. Not only do they enjoy it, but you can see that they're having a good time. Dancing, singing, clapping, it was all there.

For something different we took the team into what used to be the Transkei (now part of the Eastern Cape). There we met up with Pastor Lionel who is busy starting a new church in an area without any churches. Our job was to lay the foundations of the church building and start building the walls. We had 2 days to accomplish this.

Day1: We laid the foundations. Fortunately someone else had already done the digging so we only had to mix concrete and pour. The area is very poor and the Pastor actually had to buy water, by the barrel, for us to use in mixing the concrete. Fortunately the recent torrential rains had filled the foundation trenches with water. So we were able to use this water for the concrete and never had to touch the bought water. God truly did provide. He also provided when we ran out of stone (after pouring only half the foundation). Again the rain provided. Rain water running down the side of the road had uncovered vast quantities of stones for us to harvest. We had only to collect them. By 5pm we were finished, literally and physically. But then we still had to run an evening service at the Pastors other church!

Day2: Still reeling from yesterdays efforts we set to work again. This time it was brick laying. We had brought a professional brick layer with us, and one of our team, Solomon, had also done a trade course in it. So the 2 of them worked all day laying brick! The rest of us mixed and delivered cement and bricks as and when needed. Again, after a full days work, we had to run an evening service. God really did test our resolve. But the team came through with flying colours.

We covered a few more ministry opportunities before the week was out. All-in-all it was a great success and we feel we really were a blessing to CFC and Pastor Lionel (who would've kept us for a week had a he had the choice).