Participant Blogs

"All of us have the devine spark within us and we so desperately need the breath of God to bring us to life and light. Jesus wants to set the church on fire so the world can warm themselves around us and find light and safety. We are here on earth to be a home and a refuge for the lost and broken. But first we must learn the art of togetherness and celebration. To welcome people into the party of true freedom of finding Jesus we must first be students of that very way of life. We need to...

My Global Challenge Expedition! It started off much differently than I could ever thought of.  I always thought I was this strong, flexible woman that can do all things and love every single person! Then I enter the world of Global. I surprised myself and actually, God come to show me the real me! I've cried the first few weeks and wondered why I'm here. I thought I was weird because I did not know myself! But through all the sadness I still had a lot of happiness inside of me! Fortunately I knew some people from klersdorp that was...

I never understood the meaning of faith or believing until my journey at Global Challenge started the 10th of January 2014. God opened my eyes to a whole new world...  Since July 2013 I have been praying about what God wants me to do with my life.  Finishing Matric and unsure about what my purpose and calling in life is.  The only thing I knew was that God has great things in store for me. But this blew my mind and stretched my "picture of God" beyond what I ever knew..  Trusting in God for all my finances to go...

  We were welcomed by a bunch of crazy, ukulele-playing servant leaders singing "Welcome to the Global Challenge. This will be the best year that you ever experience." My excitement overcame my fear and uncertainty, and before I even knew it my parents were gone and I needed to become a part of this whole new family. Like my dad described it, he isn't losing his 2 children this year, he is receiving a whole lot more of them. We were made a part of this community from the very beginning, going to Baviaanskloof for the first weekend and just...

Think global and act local….. I remember those words as part of my environmental politics class, green politics as they call it hahahah…… saving the universe by thinking of the impact of your actions to the globe and acting locally. Little did I know that this would soon apply to me. A year after global and I’m still alive in this big world I finally realised I am ystervrou material. I must say this year has been quite a ride. There were times in my mind I lived in three countries at the same time, I sometimes could hear the...

Grace. It's a beautiful thing. The one word that we have really journeyed on this year. And every day I continue to learn more and more. And of course our Luke 10 journey was no different. Grace. The only reason why the God of the universe in His all-knowingness would choose to speak to us, in our brokenness, in our selfishness, in our little faith. The only reason why the God who is able to do all things chooses 4 South Africans to go to a small town in the Andes mountains of Ecuador. Grace. The reason why I am...

           Started off this sweet country by spending 2 nights in the Tel Aviv Airport. After this we camped beside the Sea of Galilee and karyoke bar ( not really , just felt that way from our lovely neighbours haha) It was so cool having bible study there, reading about Jesus's life. It kinda made the scriptures more real, seeing and being in the places where Jesus did ministry.   Next we went to Jerusalem. We helped out the church we were staying at by picking their olive trees and cleaning their gardens a bit and...

Canada   We are now in Canadian air space and as we look down we see no snow what so ever!! BIG disappointment as in our minds Canada “is” snow. After n little speed bump at customs we were picked up and drove to Ignite Camp and Retreat Center the place we would call home for the next month and a half. After all “formalities” were done and over with we got settled in, and we were overjoyed at all the freedom we had. We stayed in our own cabin hidden in the “woods”, in the kitchen we had a...

Three weeks after we have left Cameroon, we as a team were busy with the debrief.  I wrote my team the following letter, I think it shows a bit of every day life as a team of Explore Africa and the challenges we were facing....enjoy! Dear team, While debriefing Cameroon I came to the conclusion that we had quite a bumpy ride behind us.  And by this I don’t only mean the road between Cameroon and Gabon.  All of us had challenges, personal challenges, team challenges, cultural challenges, maybe even God-challenges.  All of us learned lessons.  For most of us...

Our time in Philippines only started after almost 5 days of travelling! 117 hours in total! We arrived tired but our spirits were quickly uplifted as we stared into the faces of the short term group that joined us there! It was so nice to have fresh conversations and to exchange some stories of the past year! They also surprised us with treats from our country: rusks, chocolate, sweets and biltong! Our expectations for the Philippines were big and we were ready to start our ministry! The days were very busy and with the draining heat, our energy levels were...