The Daily Grind

Some days it’s so easy to get caught up in all the big events that you lose sight of the moments everyday that make up life. There are so many things that I get to be involved in on a daily and weekly basis from working with our students to high school ministries to youth ministry at my church. I have seen the Lord do so much through each of these ministries over the past year and I’m so grateful that he has allowed me to be a part of it.

DTC

It has been such a privilege to walk this year’s journey alongside our DTC students. Throughout the good times and bad, the struggles and the victories, the highs and the lows, the Lord has been faithful in working in each of their lives. Day in and day out, I get to do life with them whether it be hanging out in my room with the girls, making dinner together, or doing ministry.  Those nitty grittys of life are some of the moments I cherish most. They are the moments that give me a glimpse into their hearts and how the Lord is growing them as well as how I can be encouraging them. It’s those moments everyday that make it all worth it.

As I mentioned in one of my previous updates, I have had the opportunity this year to mentor one of our students named Grace. What a joy it has been to be a part of her journey in her walk with Christ. The Lord has developed in her a teachable spirit which has promoted so much growth in her life. Yesterday as we met for our weekly discipleship time, she recounted to me all that the Lord has taught over the past year through her classes, life at WOL, and the people around her. She started the year out as one of the most quiet and shy students, often timid when it came to meeting new people or trying new things. She was mostly outwardly submissive but admitted that she often struggled to have a good attitude towards certain people, situations, or conflicts. She would run away from conflict at times rather than dealing with it. Throughout the year, however, the Lord has really softened her heart and has made her so keenly aware of her motives and attitudes. She no longer lets things fester in her heart but is quick to admit where she is wrong whether it be her motives, attitudes, or responses and seeks to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in those things. She humbly approaches conflict with the desire to resolve the issue and always willing to admit her role. She has grown in the way she approaches new people and situations and has become intentional about building relationships with people for the purpose of pouring into their lives. There are so many other things that I have seen the Lord do in her life and look forward to seeing how the Lord continues to grow her use her in the lives of others as she goes from here.

High School ministries

Throughout the year, I have been involved in three different high school ministries. With these ministries, we have the opportunity to utilize Christian clubs that students or teachers have already established. Most of the time, these groups meet during their lunch breaks and we get to run their time together once a week. Normally, we will play a short game and then dive into a short devo followed by small groups. At the beginning of the year, we started out with two different schools, Queens High School and Krugersdorp High School. However, due to circumstances outside of our control, we were no longer able to keep going to KHS but the Lord was faithful in the midst of that discouraging situation to replace that school with another one in a massive community called Soweto. This city was one that WOL had wanted to get in for a while but have not had a chance to plug into until now.

There are already so many ways that I have seen the Lord’s hand in this ministry in the short amount of time we have been there. First of all, being a new ministry, it’s hard to anticipate how many students we would actually have and most of the time, it starts out slow. However, we have been welcoming up to 50 students which is huge considering the fact that the ministry started less than 2 months ago. Over the past few weeks, we have been talking about who God is as well as the plan of salvation. Two weeks ago, we shared the gospel and saw about 20 students trust Christ as their Savior! Last week was our closing week for the year so we decided to just spend some time in small groups since we had not been able to do small groups up until that point due to the short amount of time that we had. I started out with a small group of about 10 girls, however, as we got talking, I noticed that our group gradually increased from those 10 to about 25 as students immerged from their classrooms and joined in on the conversation. I started out the discussion seeking to encourage them in their daily walks with the Lord. We talked about what it means to really live out your faith and gradually they began asking more and more questions, really seeking to understand what a relationship with God is all about. Even after we finished our small group time, students kept approaching me with different questions. One of the girls mentioned during the small group that she felt distant from God and wanted a genuine closer relationship with Him and afterwards came up to me and said, “I don’t have to wait until I’m old to live for God. I can still do it while I’m young.” It was so encouraging to hear her come that conclusion for herself and talk her through it. I’m so excited to see how the Lord continues to use this ministry in the lives of these students who are full of questions and hungry to know and have a relationship with God.

Youth

In the two years that I’ve been here, I’ve had the privilege of being a youth leader at my church. I’m so thankful for the many ways the Lord has allowed me to see this youth grow over time. When I first arrived, there were a lot of teens but not many who were really serious about their walks with the Lord. We had close to 80 teens on some Fridays but most of them In these two years, however, we have shifted our approach to youth ministry as we have begun deepening the messages and topics as well as having small groups afterwards to really gauge where everyone is at and help them to see the implications of the truths we were sharing in each of their lives. As the messages got deeper, the youth got a bit smaller, however, the teens began growing more than ever. At the beginning of this year, the youth did a missions trip to Welkom, a place three hours away. This trip was a turning point for many of the youth. Teens that had grown up in church made a decision to trust Christ as their Savior for the first time and others made the decision to get baptized shortly after returning home from the trip. Since then, many of these teens have grown tremendously. There is a large handful of teens now being personally discipled by different youth leaders and are taking initiative to really get involved in ministry. Recently, three of the girls started a prayer ministry in which they take prayer requests from the youth group using a prayer board where people can post their prayer requests. Each Friday before youth, these girls sit down in front of the board and pray for the different requests of their fellow teens. It has been such a huge encouragement to see so many of the youth really getting serious about their relationships with the Lord and I praise God for all he has done. There have definitely been times when I question whether we are really making a difference in their lives but when I actually sit and reflect on how far God has brought this youth, I can’t help but be thankful for all he has done and for allowing us as leaders to be a part of it. There will always be highs and lows but there’s no denying that God is at work and I can’t wait to see how he continues. 

I pray that I never get too busy to notice God working in the daily grind of life.