South Africa - 2009

Laura Haase

This July I had the privilege and amazing opportunity to go to Johannesburg South Africa, on a mission trip! I would like to start of and thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your contributions. I greatly appreciate the generous amounts of money, and the consistent prayer! I could not have gone through with the trip with out you and the Lord (of course!). I want you to know I thought of everyone of you while I was 17 hours away! I believe, even though you weren’t actually with me, that I brought you all with me.

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I went to training camp in Garden Valley, Texas at the Honor Academy. The Honor Academy is a college internship on the campus of Teen Mania. While we were there we spent most of the day preparing for our mission trips. (There were people going to all different countries that were there training also) There were 27 people on my team, and they were from all over the US and Canada! We spent 4 days in training, sessions, team-building activities, and worship. The more time I spent training the more I got excited about actually going to South Africa!

We finally left around 4 in the morning to head to the air port and on our way to South Africa. The plane ride was about 17 hours. Although it was long, we got pretty spoiled. We had personal TV’s, (that were attached to the seat in front of us) meals, and music. When we got to South Africa I expected it to look totally different, almost exactly like the Lion king or something. It looked pretty much like a suburb except that once you started heading to the outskirts of Johannesburg it became poorer, more rural, and run down. We stayed at this Youth For Christ campsite and actually got pretty spoiled. We stayed in cabins with lofts and bunk beds. We also got served breakfast and dinner (we got to enjoy peanut butter and jelly for lunch everyday!). The only hard thing was that we had no heating and during the night time it would get down to 30 or so degrees but during the day time it was in the 60’s and 70’s. There were also wild monkeys that roamed the camp, and we had to be careful to lock our doors because they had gotten into rooms in the past!

When it finally came down to the mission work we went to this city called Kyasans which was kind of like a suburb off of Johannesburg. Most of the people in this city had come from Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, their economy crashed and a lot of people lost all their money. The government then deported these people to this small city (or village) called Kyasans. Although the government provided limited clean water, and drove around a few times a week handing out loaves of bread – these people lived a very hard day-to-day life. Most of them have no money, no jobs, and between 4 - 6 people in their families. They even go 3 - 5 days without food. These families stay in one room huts that are made out of anything, from newspaper to wood, to wire fence, to cardboard. All they have in their houses is what they were allowed to bring to this village. Jobs and clothing are scarce. Due to the lack of warm clothing – a lot of people got severely sick or died during the winter season. Most of them have already lost hope and were just living day to day wondering how much longer they will make it. On top of this – these people are outcastes and looked down upon. Most of the white Africans living in South Africa build high brick walls around their neighborhoods to keep everyone out. It broke my heart because while we would drive to this little village, we would pass these nice neighborhoods with two story houses and then we’d see a huge brick wall and just on the other side of the wall would be little shanties that the rest of the city lived in.

Although the neighborhoods and shanties in Kyansas screamed poverty and desperation – the people were welcoming and full of love. They didn’t warm up to us too much on the first day, but as the week started to progress they looked forward to our comings. They had smiles that just beamed and they would rejoice over even a small bag of chips or a quarter. Although we could tell they were ashamed of their small huts, they would welcome us in and make sure we had a place to sit. Most of them had such joy even though they had little, which is really convicting because back at home I never seem to become satisfied with what I have.

What we did while we were in Kyansas was get to know the people, love them, serve them, put on a VBS, and share the gospel. We would walk through the neighborhoods and first just get to know the family and what their history/culture was. After that we would offer to serve them, like cleaning dishes, washing the laundry, fetching water, cooking, ect. I got laughed at quite a few times and people would continually ask me “You?! YOU do MY dishes?? YOU??” I would laugh and simply offer again. This was very absurd to them because they’ve never been shown that kind of love where they are, and to think that white people (especially white Americans!) wanted to clean their dishes and their laundry for them! Besides that, we would talk to them about the gospel. In my city, most people, even if they don’t attend church, at least know of Jesus or have heard of him, but when we’d ask these people if they knew, or what they believed, most of them never even heard of Jesus. We were also able to invite them to a church because they had just started a church (called Lion of Judah church) up on a hill that held services in a white tent. We were also able to invite the children to a VBS that we put on in the soccer field. During VBS we go to play with the children and give them little worksheets and pamphlets about God. The children were so beautiful and I’ll never forget their eyes… I remember a quote I saw once that was under a picture of an African child that said “I saw Jesus in their eyes.” These children stuck to us like glue and literally would not stop hugging us and holding our hands. I wanted so badly to take them home with me. What really hit me the hardest was when we found out that most of the children had HIV and AIDS. We found out they most of them won’t live past the age of 14. That made us even more eager to reach these children with our message and spoil them with our love and affection.

While we were there we had about 150 people saved, and witnessed some physical and health healings, as well as answered prayers about jobs! One of our groups even went to this one house and was trying to start a conversation with an elderly woman. She didn’t want to talk so she went inside, and her granddaughter (in her 20’s or so) came out and started talking to them. She eventually told the group that the previous night she had had a dream that they were coming and that they looked exactly as they did then, as they did in the dream. We hadn’t been to that part of Kyasans yet either. Another day, me and my group went to this one little group of houses and started talking to the people there. There were 3 women and a man named Milocco. Milocco had been out of a job for a while and was barely making ends meet. He also had two children who were living in a city far away and he would only get to see them about twice a year. As we continued to talk to them, me and my friend Taylor asked if we could do his dishes for him. He looked a little taken back, but went to get the dishes and the tub to wash them in. As we were washing, our leader (Trace) continued to make conversation with them. Milocco kept looking at us and asked Trace, “why would they do this for me. They are so kind, what makes them do this?” We then started talking to him about how God had sent us there and how we loved him even though we hadn’t met him before and that we wanted to serve him. We then started talking more about God and Christianity and Milocco continued to question us and ask how he could have a relationship like we did. Milocco and the 3 woman neighbors were later saved that day. Before we left them we prayed with Milocco about finding a job and the next morning we saw his friend. We asked him where Milocco was and he said that Milocco was offered a job that very next morning!

God really worked in that little city of Kyansas and in the hearts of the people there. You could see a visible difference in the atmosphere and the people from the first day we came and the day we left. I am so blessed to have experienced a mission trip like that and to take part in something God was doing. It really opened my eyes to see that there is more to the world than just the bubble of a suburb I live in. I know that God loves them just as much as he loves me and to explain that to those people and see the realizations on their faces is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. I can’t thank you enough for all your support and prayers, and thank you for being a part of this trip with me. You all are truly a blessing.

Thanks again and God Bless,
Laura