Snapshots of Ministry

Many of you have wanted to hear more about our work and ministry in South Africa. I have always found that hard to explain. On a most basic level, we help start and run small businesses that fund local ministry in impoverished areas. That way the doctor, pastor, nurse, hospice care worker, etc. can do what they're good at without worrying about finances. Worrying about the finances to fund ministry is our job.

This leads many of you to think, "So you do the bookkeeping for a car rebuild business and you're running a guesthouse for the World Cup. How is that ministry? Why should we support you?" The best way I know how to answer that question is to say this: I've always suspected but now believe that while we work for a mission organisation and love what we do, our biggest ministry occurs "off-hours," just loving the people we come in contact with, following Jesus' example as best we can. And God has called us to South Africa.

Here's a snapshot of some people that God has brought across our path. We are so privileged to love them and have a small part in sharing the hope of Jesus with them:

• discouraged teachers battling large classroom sizes and new education philosophies
  
• a homosexual who struggles to believe that God loves Him
• travelers from England who came to visit a friend and ended up going to his funeral
  
• a domestic worker who needs medical care for her daughter
• immigrants from Zimbabwe trying to start a ministry to families out in the township
• neighbours who tragically lost two of their children
• a security guard who never felt like he was treated with dignity by a white person

The other thing I have suspected and now believe wholeheartedly is this: we learn as much from the people with whom we share our lives as they learn from us. Maybe more.