Encouraging the Church

This week our team has been preparing to split into 2; a Swaziland team and a Kenya team.  It will be a bitter sweet separation.  I will definitely miss all of those going to Swaziland but I am more than ready for a smaller team and to get settled in Kenya and start my internship.  I do not yet know what kind of internship I will be involved with but I am sure that it will involve encouraging the believers that are already there.  One of the biggest realizations that I’ve come to thus far is that we are not coming to these countries to establish a church, the church is already established – we are here to help bring up leaders in the church and help mobilize them to go out into their own communities to show Christ.  The biggest part of the ministry I was involved in Atteridgeville was doing exactly that.  Almost everyday this past week and a half we spent at least an hour with a woman named Lydia.  The entire left side of her body is paralyzed because of a stroke a few years back, she spends most of her time sitting her bed in a tiny little bedroom.  She does not spend her time complaining, or dwelling on her circumstances instead she praises God for how good He is and how blessed she is.  She continually thanks God for not taking away her ability to speak or sing because even though things are not always in her favor she can still praise and worship Him.  We have sat for hours and just listened to her sing, if all I could have done this entire time in South Africa was sit beside this woman and encourage her it would have been enough.  No missionary will ever be as effective in the field as a local would be.  If we really want to see a change in this country and if we want to see a generation rising up and placing God at the center then we need to start within this culture and mobilize the locals to evangelize one another.