Givers, Not Just Receivers
Rachel Jacobs,* from Elizabeth Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga, joined IWC to teach spiritually-themed dances to girls in Bongolethu using her cheerleading experience. She was moved by their obvious physical needs—during snack times the children devoured multiple bags of chips and gulped down four or five cups of water at a time. She also observed an emotional hunger. “They hug you so tight and they never want you to let go,” she said.
Fred “Chip” Luter III, young adult pastor at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, La. said in South Africa he observed in his youth a “brokenness and a sensitivity and an openness to the Spirit” that has not emerged during youth events at his church. “… When you have these teenagers that God … just interrupted the flow of their life to challenge them… [with] what it looks like to pour in, to be givers and not just receivers, I think that’s where impact will be made.”
“When I came here… I wasn’t really on fire for Christ like I am now, and it’s a shame that God had to take me out of my element and away from my family and friends just to [show Himself to me]” said Jacobs, “… I’m seriously on fire for Christ now.”
One of Luter’s students, Daniel Harris,* pointed out that it takes getting out of your comfort zone to really understand what God wants you to do. “… It pulls your heart strings, and it just makes you open. It makes you ready for anything that God has in store for you.”