Participant Blogs

God is no longer part of my story… Oh the gravity of You, draws my soul unto its knees I will never be the same, I'm lost and found in you. (The Rend Collective) During debrief I was listening to Mike from All Nations drawing parallels to the story of Abraham, the father of our faith. He was explaining that Abraham walked straight to the altar to offer Isaac because He believed that God is a God that can resurrect!  That is the father of our faith. Bold and confident. Faith in a God that is bigger than him, bigger...

Fadwa*. Our first visit was two weeks ago to a highly pregnant Fadwa. Today we hold a little Maria in our hands. Perfectly formed. The little hands are a picture of perfection. Small knuckles, small nails. She clasps my finger, barely fitting her fingers around it. We are sitting on UN mats - a grim reminder of the brokenness and realness of their situation. But for a moment, the hurt and the ugliness of humanity fades in the glory of new life. In the beauty of creation. And Fadwa is a worthy mother, her circumstances forgotten. She walks with her...

"You opened up my ribs and played your melody, when my brokenness was all I saw in front of me..."     So, I broke my arm. In Colombia. Playing soccer. Can someone say Waka Waka?   Since that first night in casualties I've been comforted by God's promise that it is part of His plan, that He wants to use my casualty for a greater Kingdom reality. Having never broken any bone in my body despite some perilous adventures and other silly games on roofs, you have to be convinced of God's hand when this happens on my journey of...

I have always loved aeroplanes. I remember the first time I flew (PE - Joburg) and how my eyes were glued to the window the entire flight, just marvelling in the geography lesson below that books could not teach me. Even after flying a few times I would find my neck being kind of stiff by the time that we land because I was looking through the window the entire time. There was a time when I convinced myself that I'm studying the right course because I might end up working in an airport, and even spend my one vacation...

To you, the school of the nations   This is a thank you. Or an attempt at acknowledgement. To the countless faces and people that I have crossed paths with in the past few years.    I once heard a sermon of the way that we are rocks on a river bed, being tossed and turned and swept downstream. And as we bump shoulders with one another, a forming takes place. God determines the length and the depth but still - we are formed in different ways by the people around us.   Words cannot describe the forming that has...

 “ oh, what would happen if we were beautiful” - Tim Timmons   Sunday-afternoon in Guatemala City. The morning we took part in a beautiful church service, abounding in truth and peace. Now, however, the echoes of a woman preaching and screaming at the top of her lungs rise from the hill across the busy highway. My limited Spanish can make out a few things: glory and Holy Spirit and receive, receive, receive. I'm sitting a good kilometre away but my head wants to burst at the hysteria and the screaming. And with that a sadness engulfs my heart.  ...

Awestruck by a Holy Creator God   There has always been something about the Amazon that enthralled me. As a child I dreamed of going there but that was all it was, a very far-fetched dream... So imagine my excitement when I learned that our journey will take us right to the famous river and forest. In the airplane on the way to Manaus I was already blown away by the sheer magnitude of the river from above, just to realize that it is only an artery of the big river! To add to the excitement the plane literally landed...

Anyone that knows me will know that I absolutely love being outside and that being in or around mountains is without a doubt where I am in my happy place. So imagine my excitement and anticipation for our visit to the small town of Incahuasi high in the Andes mountains of Peru with Oom Hendrik. This stop on the journey was one of the main reasons why I decided to do my particular journey to South America in the first place and my expectation was well-met - the first day I wanted to jump out of my skin with excitement....

In the late afternoon dusk the city is settling down under a cloud of dust. A few blocks away the image of dreary stone coloured houses is broken by a blue and green kite that sweeps over and through the buildings. Yells of delight are carried on the early evening breeze toward where I am sitting. Sarah sits on the steps outside her house, crying. Her brother has passed away today. The image of a broken girl is a far cry from the one I met this morning before school. Laughing when she introduced herself, screeching as she ran after...

  The adventure of getting to and away from Venezuela was fast-paced and exciting; to such an extent that after our whirlwind stop in Trinidad and Tobago we sat on the plane and thought... oh yeah, we're going to Guyana. Having a sneaky suspicion that we might end up doing a Luke 10, while flying into the airport and seeing the expanse of the jungle around it, I had visions of trying to find a man of peace in a local village with the sloths as bystanders...    At the airport the travel team was charged with the task of...