Participant Blogs

God is doing a new thing in Global Challenge this year by sending teams into the world without Global Challenge staff members as leaders. This sounded very daunting at first, but its actually such an opportunity to build next level faith. Now we can not rely on previous experiences, but have to truly trust Jesus in every choice and situation. It is after all the same Holy Spirit guiding all of us. At the foot of the Ngong hills, just outside Nairobi we had the opportunity to serve at Harvest School, where 21 Kenyan kids go to school knowing Jesus...

  Taking a 16 hour bus ride to Nairobi was quite an experience. Our bus driver was so confident in his driving ability that cars on the road seemed insignificant; he would proceed to gently run others off the road if they were in the way. There was no toilet on the bus and we stopped about every 5 hours, one being a break on the side of the road with no bushes… This poses as a much easier break for men than women. We arrived in style at our ministry point taking a taxi that lit up the night...

Our journey started in the airport at Johannesburg as the last of us said their final goodbyes to family and friends. The feelings racing through our hearts were of a variety—anxious for the unknown and excited for what is to come as we follow in obedience of God’s calling for our lives. Our first stop was Tanzania. Our time in Tanzania was supposed to be just a pass through, however our team felt the need to stay a night. A day of sweltering heat, broken toilets and interesting smells, we decided to do some street ministry after getting to a...

Our first ministry point in Kenya was with Joy in her 3 layer house. Almost like her impressive cakes she bakes. Usually a house has floors but this one is special. It's layered against a little hill just off Forest line road in Ngong. We were privileged to help out at Harvest School. The amount of pupils...21. This means very personal attention from staff that really love what they do. Kids in Kenya are well behaved and educated. They greet you around every corner, always smile, and even let you take the occasional nap with them while listening to a...

Our first trip as a group...destination...Dar Es Salaam. We arrived at 04:00 and opted for a snooze on the airport...which is actually a pretty cool roof with a bunch of merchants snuggled under it. We rolled out the sleeping bags and slept like babies at the back of an adventure shop thing. Our travel teams soon became pro at bargaining. So here we are in Legho Hotel in the heart of this bustling city filled with friendly people. We had supper on the roof with a panoramic view of the city. We officially are backpackers on a mission. It creates...

Smiling Swahili people everywhere, greeting us with "Jambo, kariboo sana!" (Hello, welcome here!), buzzing marketplaces, yummy chapatti and fried banana, tuk-tuk's piled with cashew nuts driving up and down dusty streets, African woman carrying bunches of bananas in big woven baskets on their heads, coconut trees, squatting toilets, mosquito net covered beds, team time at the end of the day on a roof in Dar Es Salam, and the excitement of the start of our journey as tangible as the hot, humid Tanzanian air! Everywhere we went and where we prayed with locals and answered their questions about Jesus, it...

I love Ephesians 3:17-18: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Being ROOTED and ESTABLISHED in love. That is so cool to think about. I spent most of my life believing I was not worth being alive. Having felt so much rejection from a mother who chose addiction over her children, a lie was planted in my core. Even after I had been placed in a loving foster family, the devil...

Movement, travel, journeying: these are central motifs in the Bible, as they are in Christian life. One reason is that these things jolt us out of what is comfortable, requiring us to step out in faith into the unknown and uncomfortable. And OH WOW have I been jolted these past 7 weeks. I came to Global Challenge with ALOT of preconceived ideas. About myself, about my walk with Jesus, about my future etc etc. I had Marié in a nice little box and all figured out. I thought I was taking a journey to Africa. This changed to South America....

No money, no phones, just the clothes on our backs and our Bibles...that is how we were sent out on our first Luke 10 mission. Four of us hitch hiked to St Francis Bay last Friday. Not knowing where exactly to go, we walked through the streets, intentionally looking for people to bless and pray for. Not by accident we stumbled across a youth group gathering that evening. We met Rachael, an American missionary, who invited us into her home for the weekend. We wanted to bless her with prayer, fellowship and encouragement, yet we were overwhelmed by the way...

So with training done we are sent out into the nations....and then we waited...at the airport. Airports are were people come and go. It's a place of excitement, sadness, expectations and for some a new beginning. Like a new promise that has been patiently waiting to be discovered. And this is how we feel. A new adventure on the other side of that boarding gate. A journey that will change our lives forever through the people we will meet. It feels like we only arrived yesterday for training and now we are on our way again. God has spoken words...