A Blessed Nation

Two married missionaries named Hein and Helene led our team, they were connected to a church led by a women named Impau. Impau was an exceptionally amazing woman considering how prominent male superiority is in South Africa, and the accomplishments of her churches ministry. Her church ministered to a community of 80 severely abused children living in an orphanage being run by a women named Catherine and her staff of 4 other people, as well as a Namibian refugee camp with a population of over 5,000 people 99% of which being HIV positive, all living in tin homes. The church also runs an HIV/AIDS hospice called the Mortele Sunrise Hospice. Through Hein and Helene’s relationship with Impau our team was able to be apart of her ministry to all three of these communities.

Out of our entire team there was only one person on it that had an idea of what Africa was going to be like, whom the people were, what their songs sounded like, and what their love for one another looked like. I think it was a shock to us all when the “wild” land, and animals of Africa weren’t what put us into states of wonder and amazement, but rather it was the people who did it, and the truth of just how present God was in their lives.

The facts about the communities always found a way of unfolding before us; 99% of them are infected with aids, over half of the children in this community are wandering orphans who have lost their parents to disease, all the children at that orphanage have been brutally abused, one in particular was raped twice as a two year old. Every time we left one of these communities I would spend the rest of the night asking myself how these people who have suffered so much, could be so alive? It was horrifying, and after you found out what they lived with, you looked at the joy within them and the light and hope that they held in their eyes and your jaw drops in awe. I used to think in a place like Africa if you weren’t with God, then you were alone, completely and utterly alone. But after almost 3 weeks of being there, it dawned one me, we are never alone, and nothing will ever separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:35). The true personality of Jesus shines through the darkness of Africa.