Hey, my name is Angela and im 15...and actually just 2 days ago came back from a month long missions trip to South Africa.
I went with the organization Teen Mania, and it was an amazing experience.
The Sotho (su-too) people believed in whorshiping their ancsters, and believed they were a mediator between them and God, and they feared them and believd that the ancesters would protect them if they prayed to them and sacrificed for them. (They would sacrifice anything from animals to infants)
It was a Personal evangelism trip, and so we basicly would build relationships with the people by just getting to know them, or do work around the house (they are so hospitable down there, they always gave you the best of what little they had!)
We would introduce ourselves as going on a Life-exchange, which is just learnig about each others culture, which is what we were doing in preaching ther Gospel.
Some good techniques to help get on the topic of religion:
1. Ask if they could sing us a song in their language, then we would sing them a song that we knew in their language, and that was a church song, so we would ask them if they knew the song and then be like 'So you like church songs and go to church?'
2.Ask about their tradtion of marriage, or their own wedding, and then lead into 'Who married you? a pastor?' Its a smooth transition. (haha i figured otu that one!
)
3. We would ask them why they believe in their ancesters, they always said 'our parents and elders told us'...so we played the Telephone game...which was an exmaple on how over generations the original messege gets so garbled that it is tototally different from what started out.
4. As we ask about their daily rutine, we would ask like 'what do you do on sunday?'
Many churchs around them were very corrupt and would steal their money, and in one case we found someone who went to a church that the pastor said if they stop going he would kill her and her family. Most pasters around their have no formal biblical training.
We worked and stayed at Thrive Africa (
www.thriveafrica.org ) which is a ministry base that worked in the area we worked in (Qwa-Qwa).
The churchs we worked with, the pastors were trained by Thrive.
So once we would lead a person to christ, we gave them a card where the church was, so then can be now dicipled and nurished in their new commitment.
There were about 90 of us that went, we split into 3 teams. I was on Team GRACE(Going 'Round Africa Changing Eternity)
Our team as a whole lead 95 people to Christ, my MIG (Ministry group, that we went hosue to house with.) alone lead 17 people to Christ.
The key is going in with expectancy, EXPECT God to work in those hearts, For example, We had been talking to these group of people for about 2 days, in this one persons house, and by the second day i was feeling real good about it, and on the third day, i told myself 'Someone is going to get saved today'...and that day 11 people gave their lives to Christ!!!!!!!!!
It was an amazing humbling experience, and i am forever changed.
Next Summer i felt God calling me to Thailand, they are trapped in Bhudism, its a more spiritually difficult trip, because converting to a different religion can mean being kicked out of your family even to the extreme of being killed.
So please pray that I will be able to go...my parents are a little iffy about me going on a another one, because South Africa was my first trip.
God Bless yall,
Angie
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