Sunday

by Carl Siewert

Sunday was a day of worship and celebration after all the hard work put in during the week.

The day started with the team worshipping at Shofar Wellington church.  This is the church that Meyer, Louise, Stephanie and Cornel attend. The church sets up a worship center every Sunday in the gymnasium of a local school.    

Shofar provided many of the same qualities of other churches around the world attracting a younger generation. (I have had the privilege to worship previously at Hillsong London and Elevation worship - Columbia SC campus).   There were greeters with “contagious joy” to welcome us at the door.   The congregation was fairly multi-cultural (as it will be in heaven).    The service opened with extending praising of the Lord through music.  There was about 40 minutes of music which we understand was a bit on the short side.    The mission team did not know most of the songs but was thankfully in English and we quickly felt like participants in the worship.

Then Pastor Neils spoke on the strength of Matthew chapter 5, the beatitudes from the sermon on the mount, challenging us to see the those blessings through our relationship with Jesus Christ.  I was struck by the idea that being “poor in spirit” is not to be focused on ourselves in anyway but to be focused on Christ.  This is the basis by which we can then move towards having faith and then being able to have the other blessings Jesus spoke of (Matthew 5: 4-9).

The service ended with a challenge to identify where we have doubts and where we want God to open us fresh to new Faith.    This convicted me in areas I had struggled during the week with the complexities of South Africa.   I asked God for a new Faith that He will continue to move forward and provide hope to those suffering in South Africa.

After that the team went to the Mosaic Community Center for a celebration of what was done this week. Everyone was very happy to see the walls completed and the cabinets back in place in the kitchen!   After a few words and worship songs, everyone went through the rooms of the center to pray of the rooms.  We prayed that God would use the spaces to help the children and others in the community.  We prayed that God would strength the workers and volunteers as they help in this goal. And finally we prayed that God’s Word and Truth would grow in the hearts of all involved.

Most of the team had lunch at a market with stalls of food styles from around the world.   I had Tunisian Brik with Ostrich meat.

After some down time in the afternoon, the day concluded with a wonderful meal at Stephanie (one of the Mas of Wellington) and her husband, Kiffie’s house.