Participant Blogs

Please spare me a brief moment to just testify how faithful and powerful our Provider is. Global Challenge has been a dream of mine since I've first heard about it in 2008. I was just fascinated by the idea of visiting a dozen or so countries, seeing new places, experiencing foreign cultures and making memories that would last a life time. Due to the incredible amount of money needed to go and the fact that I already took a gap-year after school, it only stayed a dream. Thinking back now, it was truly God's plan because I wasn't nearly ready...

 

Our life changing journey began with enormous favour from God. After constantly travelling for more than two days we had a choice to make: we knew we needed to get to Chile in four days time to begin our ministry but our bodies needed rest, and our finances were limited... We didn’t even have enough money to travel to Asuncion in Paraguay to catch our flight to Chile. 

 

Turning water into wine. Telling fishermen to be his followers. Followed around by spiritually-hungry people, searching for truth. Feeding five thousand people with a little boy's lunch. Setting people free from law and leading them into grace. Yes, that's my Jesus. This same Jesus allowed Distant Worlds to get a taste of what that felt like during our week in the Andes mountains.

It was a dream come true. Rattling, shaking and bumping up zigzag mountain passes to the village of Incahuasi. This was where we would sleep for five nights. We drove for four hours on 100km on a single-lane, dusty, serpentine path. In the Andes Mountains. I almost couldn't believe it.

The mountains were colossal, stretching 3130m into the heavens. My eyes were as wide as saucers as we drove past mountain villages, with hand-sown rice fields and horse-drawn carts. The women wore the most beautiful, colourful, handmade clothes. Not much has changed in these villages from 100 years ago.

We shared bibles with many far-away schools in isolated towns. The average amount of students were 40 in the whole school. It was interesting to note that most of these people had never even left their mountain town. They didn't know about things such as beaches, skyscrapers of drive-thru McDonalds. They knew more about mountain trails than LonelyPlanet and their diet consisted of things they had planted and cultivated themselves. A whole new world. "Lord, what do I say to these children? We come from two different worlds. We don't even speak the same language - they speak Quechua and I only speak primitive Spanish. Holy Spirit, speak through me please..."

Since I joined Global Challenge in 2010, I always hear about these couple of places that ex-Global Challengers always speak about, those places that have been visited by many of our teams over the years.  You hear stories of God’s provision, challenges, teams sleeping on the streets, people turning their lives around etc.  Hong Kong is one of those places.  Though, what separates Hong Kong from places like India or Guatemala, is that there isn’t an established ministry point that all teams visit. There isn’t a foundation in place for teams to build upon.  Instead, teams tend to do their own thing each year. 

Since the birth of the vision of Distant Islands, I knew that Hong Kong is one of the places we have to visit, even though it doesn’t sound that “distant” to most and even though it’s only partially island...

The desire was stirred in my heart for our team to go and establish something that will last longer than the week that we’re in Hong Kong. My dream is to see a foundation being laid in Hong Kong so that future teams can go and build upon it and so that we can one day hear of all the fruit that’s being reaped over there.

Albie’s uncle and aunt have been residing in Hong Kong for the past 9 years after his uncle accepted a job as a pilot for Cathay Pacific.  They offered to host us for the week we were going to spend there, and luckily for us they live on an island called Lantau.  This came as an answer to a lot of prayer for accommodation to suit our budget.  The hospitality we experienced from Wim and Juanita, their kids and even Stella, the lady that works for them in the house, just blew my mind!  Never did we think on a Global journey we’ll be having rusks, boerewors, koeksisters, biltong and all sorts of other little huge blessings! Furthermore, we had the opportunity of spending real quality fellowship time with each of them and really got absorbed into their world.

In the area of ministry we reached a couple of dead-ends which raised a couple of questions within myself, especially after I felt so certain about coming to Hong Kong.  In the end we found an open door at 2 very well established ministries with a lot of international acclaim. They invited us to become a part of what they’re doing in Hong Kong and most importantly, what God is doing there.  It turns out that in the future our teams might have the opportunity to get involved in outreaches to muslim minority groups, prostitutes, drug-addicts and the poor and destitute living in the city.  What an awesome provision from God!!  Our prayer is that these contacts will be fruitful and that our involvement in their ministry will bear much fruit in the future.

After Hong Kong, all I can tell you is that we serve a Living God.  We serve a God that longs for fellowship with us.  We serve a forgiving but just God.  Jesus is Lord, and that’s all I know and that’s all there is to it...

This story started a few kilometers outside London when we met Seraniah, the owner of the campsite's Thai wife.  She told us about her small ministry for abused girls and also that they are in the process of building the first church on Koh Chang Island.                                                                       The Lime team was sent to the island to build - literally and spiritually.   We can't claim to have built a church, for the need was a small building next to the church: a male and female toilet!...

I am on a train to Sydney & just reflecting on the past 3 months of my life.  I am now on my way to Sydney, where wYw is flying out to New Zealand.

Written by: Philip Murray

The time has finally come to get a little bit of rest and just recap on all that has happened the last month or so.   It is nice to have a little bit of time for myself and to spend some time with God, if it is through Byble study or playing a little bit of guitar, I enjoy it alot.

  I'm currently in jbay at the end of our third week of training. This is my third time being involved in the process but it feels like a whole new ball game now that I'm leading a team...  The last 4 weeks have felt like a year, not in the sense of time dragging but rather in the exponential growth I have experienced myself and seen in my team. But before I elaborate on that I would like to give u a heads up on logistics so that you can see the full picture.  At the beginning of the...

Date: 04 April 2009 Place: Nazaret Village, Israel   Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up and where I was reminded about the Great Love of Jesus Christ. We have visited a place called Nazareth Village. in this Village you will experience how people lived in the time Jesus walked on earth. It was a great privilege to experience their way of living…   A typical work place... During our tour though the village it just gripped my heart to reflex on His crucifixion yet again. The hours and hours of torture He endured that led to be nailed hanging...

Normal 0 false false false EN-ZA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 JBAY, the beach, the surf, the ... wind.  So we started the first part of our global challenge journey for 2010. What did we do I hear you ask? Well, a lot ! We are currently busy with the Veritas Bible school program. We spend a lot of our time each day doing this course. It is really brilliant, my view of reading the Bible changed dramatically. We spent a lot of our time serving the local community, working very hard doing physically labour and spending time with little kids. It...