South Africa '09

A few weeks ago the South Africa team went to My Father's Hands Ministry in Camden, NJ to talk to and serve those who are less fortunate, and all in all it was a really interesting experience.

I have never been to a soup kitchen before so I really didn't know what to expect; when I walked in the workers who were already there gave us our instructions for our jobs and right away we started working, some of the jobs we were told to do was to fold clothes and display them on tables so the people could easily get to them, place out drinks, serve the food and just sit down and have a conversation with them.

As the day went on there was a group of people that got together and started singing praise songs and this actually shocked me. I'm not really sure why but I guess I just really didn't expect that; but during their singing I saw that a lot of these people were some of the nicest most appreciative people and actually have a really strong heart for God. It was really nice to see that even though they are living a rough life and things maybe haven't gone their way they can still stand and raise their voices to God.

This is the verse that came to my mind when I was thinking about this and that verse is Jonah 2:2 which says: "In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help and you listened to my cry." That verse pretty much says to me that even in the hardest times of life we can call upon the Lord and he will be right next to us and will always love us.

So as all these teams leave for their trips, I'm positive that we will encounter some difficulties. I just ask you to pray for all of us that we will call upon the Lord and we will hear him answer and know that he listened. We look forward to coming back and sharing with you how he worked through us.

Justin Wiess - Junior - Commissioning Service April 8, 2009