FSBCS South Africa Mission Blog: Day 11

Our day 11 on this incredible journey is our final day and will really be two days as we fly back home and gain back many hours and go back through the time zones to the US. We are all so looking forward to seeing our families and loved ones that we miss so much and we are ready for this adventure to come to a close.

The rain kept coming - showers of blessings in Pretoria

We woke on Tuesday to continued rain in Pretoria. Since Sunday, it’s been raining off and on – mostly on – for 3 days straight and we are told this is very rare for the area as this is not a rainy season. The benefit for us has been that even though this has been a “summer” trip into the southern hemisphere, we really have been quite comfortable and many times cool, so we are thankful for that. As you can imagine, the day was spent packing and loading and transporting from Pretoria to Johannesburg and saying our final goodbyes to many new friends and brothers and sisters in Christ that we have met (or for some, renewed friendships). In addition to those at Hope Baptist, this includes our very gracious hosts, Peter, Sunette and Levson, at the bed and breakfast inn where we stayed throughout our visit. We also said goodbye to Katie’s friend Busi, who boarded a bus in Pretoria to begin her night-long journey back to Zimbabwe. It was such a joy to have Busi and her sweet spirit join us these many days – she was such a blessing to us all.

Antoine & Mel with our host, Peter

We boarded the plane in Johannesburg on Tuesday evening around 8pm and strapped in for the longest ride of all – almost 17 hours from South Africa to Atlanta. We have survived that and arrived in Atlanta and went through customs on Wednesday morning before 7AM. We are writing this final post while en route (another 4 hours in the air) from Atlanta to wonderful Phoenix and will arrive just after 10:00AM Arizona time.
As we reflect on this trip, we are blessed by so many things and could write endless paragraphs about how God arranged things the way He wanted, or as we have said many times, given us Divine Appointments. We are overwhelmed by the experience with the African people and our privilege to talk and pray with so many of them face to face. We are delighted by the many decisions for Christ that were made this week and humbled by the protection he granted our team even in the midst of a scary situation while literally stuck in the middle of a wild game reserve – none of us saw that coming, but our Lord did and showed us His love yet again.

Keith in the Johannesburg airport saying goodbye to
Julius, Cintia, Emmanuel and Daniel

While this journey has come to a close, we hope that you do not stop praying as the journey of Hope Baptist Church in Pretoria is a work of God in progress. Pray for Julius and Cintia and the leaders of HBC as they must now take on the monumental task of the followup of many hundreds of new connections that were made with the residents of Sunnyside this week. Pray that they not lose heart and give them the strength they need to nurture and harvest those seeds that were planted. Pray for the people of Sunnyside that were introduced to the ministry of Hope Baptist, and for those that were introduced to Jesus – pray that God is continually revealed to them and that lives are truly changed. Pray for this team at First Southern as we return home and that we are forever changed by this experience – that we are reminded daily and apply the things we’ve been taught on this trip. And finally, pray for future ministry teams that may make a similar journey in the future. It is apparent that this is a long-standing and fruitful relationship with our “sister church” in Pretoria, South Africa!

Thanks so much for following along on this blog and we hope you have enjoyed “experiencing” this incredible journey along with us. We mostly thank you for your prayer support, which was felt daily. God Bless.