Hello Friends!

Thank you all again for your sweet words of encouragement to me over the past week, and for your prayers for my team! It is our last day in Johannesburg, South Africa, and although we are excited for our next location, we are all sad to leave! God has shown His abundant provision to me here in giving me such a wonderful group of young adult interns to do ministry with, all in my season of life, and all just amazing friends! God has brought me into deeper friendship with my squad here, and shown me more of who I am as a daughter of Christ. He has given me an awe of His beauty in nature, and given us a wonderful and comfortable base to stay in that has truly felt like a home for each one of us. I’ve had wonderful Sabbath time set apart for the Lord, as well as amazingly fun times as well! But best of all, the ministry here, specifically community outreach has been amazing!

I thought I would give a little recap of my last week here at Impact Africa. Honestly, I began this week slightly discouraged. A lot of the ministry we do at Impact is planting seeds, and often not seeing the fruit of those seeds until much later or not at all. Whether its evanglezing in the communities, leading kids programs and schools programs to share Jesus to little ones, or passing out flyers for baby rescue awareness, often times we do not see the immediate results of our efforts. But Praise Be To God, this week He has pulled back the curtain in so many ways of the ways He has been using the work that we have been faithfully doing here.

It is hard to decide what stories to share with you all, but I’ll share the most exciting one first :)! We had a college team here at Impact this past week for a short term mission trip, joining us for missions work. On Tuesday we took a group of all of us and went into the community for outreach, during this we began to speak with a woman who seemed to know Christ as her Savior. We shared the Gospel and asked if she had asked Jesus into her heart, and she said she had. The conversation was very broken up because there were several times she left and we weren’t sure if she would come back. But we waited and continued the conversation, and near the end of the conversation we asked her why she had a string around her wrist (a sign of ancestral worship). She did in fact say that she prayed to her ancestors, but the Spirit led us in the conversation to explain to her the truth of praying and worshipping the Almighty God alone. We were overwhelmed with joy when she said she no longer wanted to continue in these practices, and she prayed with us to do so! She also expressed a need for her child to have good education, but she said that the Impact School near her would most likely not be able to provide her with scholarships for her child to attend the school. We encouraged her to ask and see if there were sponsorship opportunities available at the Impact school and we also recommended a good church near her.

Later that week on Friday, we were helping at the Impact school, and she showed up there to meet with the principal. She had a huge smile on her face, and her child was already in one of the classes! She waved me over and gave me a hug, I couldn’t even believe that 3 days after we had talked to her she already had her child in the school, and was seeking true light! She met with the wonderful Christian principal for a long time, and I was even more encouraged to know that she was being disciplined and followed up with! It’s after short outreach interactions like the one we had with her where I wonder and pray that God would establish the truth that we spoke in the people’s hearts, and continue to lead them to Him. And He showed me so vividly through this experience, that He is truly using the seeds that we are planting to bear fruit, He truly is blessing the faithful work we have been putting in!

The second most clear way God showed me how He has been using us is through the Impact baby home. Throughout our time here we have been passing out flyers and going to clinics once a week to raise awareness of baby dumping, and provide resources for moms. This ministry was one of my least favorites to be completely honest because often times as we were headed back through the community that we had been canvassing in, we saw flyers rolled up on the ground or thrown away. Many people didn’t want to listen to what we had to say, and others sometimes even laughed at us. But as a team we always reminded ourselves that even if just one person got the help they needed, it was worth it. And I am so thankful, because this Saturday we really did see how worth it it was!

On Saturday we went to the Baby home where babies that had been dumped or given to Impact and now live and are cared for until they are adopted. They are all about  0-4 years old, and totally adorable! We simply played with them and held them for the morning. My heart truly burst with joy and praise that the little faithful work that we’d been doing over the past few weeks had contributed to those sweet babies having a bright future and life ahead of them! I held a 5 week old baby most of the time and just prayed over that sweet girl, God saved her for His good purposes, and I am honored that God has counted me worthy to get to play a part in the lives of the babies in South Africa!

I hope these two Ebenezer’s of Gods work through the seed’s planted by our team encourage you today. God doesn’t ask us to find ways out of our own striving and strength to do great things for His kingdom, He places us where we are for a reason and asks us to be faithful to Him each moment. He asks is to glorify Him, that is our purpose, and as we do so in the little and big, He is faithful to “ reap what we sow” (Galatians 6:7).

I will update you all after our first week of ministry in Eswatini! I’d love your continued prayers for joy and peace for our team! I love you all dearly and please let me know if there is any ways I can be praying for you!

Love,

Abigail