Love from South Africa

Jack, one of the students, sharing his testimony with the team. SMASH Port Shepstone SMASH (Students Ministering And Serving Him) is a missions trip we take every year with a group of 30-40 teens & young adults to take them outside of their comfort zones & expose them to missions. On the first day after going to the church where we were serving for the week and fellowshipping with the members for a bit, we had some training on how to share the gospel and your testimony. Quite a few of the students had never really shared their testimony before & it was so encouraging to see some of them get up afterwards & share what Jesus has done in their lives with the rest of the group. David, one of the students, sharing the gospel with a vendor. On the following two days, the team had the opportunity to apply the things they had learned as we went out to the surrounding community handing out invitations to the Family Fun Days and the Women’s Conference that we would be

Spring Braai Day  On Spring Day, we held our annual Spring Braai Day; an opportunity for us to welcome both young and old, saved and unsaved for a fun day of activities, delicious food, and fellowship. Thank you to all who prayed for this event! This year we had over 150 people who came out to join the fun. 24 of those people trusted Christ as their Savior as a result of the gospel message that was shared and 2 chose to rededicate their lives to the Lord! Leaders Conference  Since our last update, we have had two more Leaders Mid-year Conferences, one in Potchefstroom and one in Welkom, training youth, pastors, and leaders on the importance of discipleship in their personal lives and ministries as well as how to practically make it a priority and live it out. This was the first year that we held one of these conferences in Potch. We had 5 churches represented and about 47 who attended. Many of these churches were attending for the first time and benefited greatly from ou

Cape Town Our week in Cape Town was full of wonderful opportunities as we met with pastors & leaders, catching up & finding more ways to serve them. We also held our annual Mid-Year Leader's conference where both Thato & I had the opportunity to share on different aspects of children's ministries. Over the last few years, we have brought teams to Cape Town to help various churches run a Holiday Bible Club. Pray for these churches as they will be running Holiday Clubs for the first time without our help this year. We are excited to see what the Lord does through them! We had a great time serving alongside Arthur & Lucy in CT. Leaders Mid-Year Conference This past Saturday, we had our annual Leaders Mid-Year Conference in Joburg & Putfontein (about an hour away). It was such an encouraging & challenging time as we looked at 'Passing the Baton' in our youth ministries. We welcomed a special guest, Ken Dady, who has been a Local C

WOW Conference  At the beginning of June, we held our annual Women of Worth Conference. As always, it was a fantastic time as women from many different churches came to be encouraged in God’s Word. This year, we looked at the life of Mary and what it looks like to sit at Jesus’ feet on a daily basis. We look forward to opportunities later in the year to take this conference to ladies at churches in other parts of South Africa and are excited to see this ministry continue to grow. Satellite Camps Later in the month, we had the opportunity to run two weekend satellite camps. The first was in Potchefstroom where we held our first ever satellite camp last year and the second was in Hamanskraal where we partenered with two DTC alumni at their local church. Our theme for both camps was ‘DO SOMETHING’ and Thato had the opportunity to challenge the kids & teens at both camps to start being active in their faith. They responded well to the challenge & we had the privilege of

The month of May held quite a bit of excitement as we got married not just once, but THREE times. It was such a privilege to be able to celebrate with our friends & family all over the world. Our first & official wedding took place in South Africa on May 5 & the following day, we had a traditional welcoming where I (Ashley) was welcomed into Thato’s family. After a few days away, we made our way to the States where our second wedding took place. The following week, we had the opportunity to witness my cousin also get married & afterwards headed to the Bahamas for our third & final wedding. We are grateful to the Lord for the precious time we had with friends & family whom we will miss dearly until the Lord gives us the opportunity to see you all again. The Lord has so graciously provided for us in so many ways with housing, furniture, home goods, & more & we cannot be thankful enough. Since returning back to South Africa a week ago, we have been slo

  Last week, we had the opportunity to partner with a group of 37 second year students from the Word of Life Bible Institute in New York as they came for their second year Missions Reality trip. Our goal was to give them a taste of the reality of full-time missions. While they were here, we had the opportunity to partner with other churches, organization & ministries in addition to introducing them to the different ministries that Word of Life South Africa does. The week in review... SATURDAY - We started out our first day taking half the group to Witbank, a city 2 hours away, in order to help one of our partnering churches in one of the townships to build a fence around their property. The other team went to Zakariyya Park, a community about an hour away, to work with a church where one of our alumni leads the youth group. There, the team ran a one day Holiday Bible Club for the children in the community. SUNDAY - Our team went in 3 different directions, some to Grace Ba

What an amazing time we had in Mozambique serving alongside the Word of Life team there. Every year, they partner with a local Christian school to run a camp for their high school students. One of the most exciting parts of these camps is the opportunity to share the gospel with these students, many of which come from difficult family backgrounds & either non-Christian or Muslim homes. The first camp was for grades 7-9 & the second camp was for grades 10-12. Between the two camps, we had a total of about 100 students. The theme of our camp this year was ‘Do Something’ & we challenged the campers to take action in their walk with the Lord. Our whole team of 13 staff, interns, & young adults agreed that this is one of the most difficult camps we’ve worked at as we counseled teens who were really struggling in different areas but praise the Lord for providing us with the strength & wisdom we needed to minister to each camper’s needs. Some had been coming for year

Leader's Kickoff - Joburg | Etwatwa | Welkom We started out our year with our annual Leader’s Kickoff. Like always, it was a great time being able to connect with youth leaders & pastors from the different churches that we have the privilege of coming alongside in Joburg, Etwatwa & Welkom. Our theme this year revolved around living gospel-centered lives. We also did some training on how to ‘gospelize’ our ministries in order to create passionate disciple-making disciples who will take the gospel outside of the church’s four walls. In addition, we shared about ways to evangelize to different people groups with other religions within South Africa. Overall, the Leader’s Kickoffs were an awesome time of encouragement as we all start another year of ministry. Discipleship Training Center This year we welcomed 13 new students to the Discipleship Training Center (12 guys & 1 girl). They are just a few weeks away from completing their first term. It has been s

Summer Camp We ended the year in usual fashion with our end of year summer camps. We began with kids camp with 72 campers. Our theme for all of our camps this year has been ‘identity’ & has been a great topic for both teens & kids to think about who they are in Christ.  This year, we saw 8 kids place their trust in Christ. This year at teen camp, in addition to serving on the worship team & as a lifeguard, I also had the privilege of serving as a Unit Leader which gave me the opportunity to be over a group of 5 female counselors in order to encourage them & come alongside them as they ministered to their campers. What a privilege to watch God work not only in the the camper’s lives, 50% of which were new to camp this year, but in the lives of each of these counselors as well, all of whom I’ve discipled to some extent over the last few years. I am so grateful to have been able to see the Lord use each of them to turn hearts towards him as they the