ADVENTURES for CHRIST

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; in Him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him.” 
​Psalm 28:7
 
It was 02:30. My alarm started ringing in my ear. We crawled out of bed and braved the crisp night air as we packed the final luggage items into the already-laden vehicle. Puffs of white mist lingered on each breath, as we hooked up the trailer and then set off into the dark. I sat awake in the overflowing back seat of the wildebeest, thinking back over the previous few days and weeks. It had taken so much prayer, packing and preparation to get to this point. God is so faithful and He truly is our Provider. We had spent weeks organizing different ministries in schools and churches and arranging Bible and literature distributions all over the country. I felt the 2.5 tonnes of Bibles and books that were being pulled behind us bump in the night and gently sway the vehicle, almost as if to agree with the thoughts I was having.

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For days we had been allocating books and Bibles to different ministries, wrapping them all separately in plastic to avoid dust and water damage and packing them into boxes, carefully labelling and colour-coding each box to ensure that it arrived at its designated location in mint condition. We had spent many hours in meetings, many hours planning messages and presentations and many hours in prayer. Now here we were, on the cusp of an adventure for Christ.

We spent the next two weeks travelling across the country, up through the arid countryside of the Northern Cape and Orange Free State, into the bustling streets of Pretoria, into the lush green Kwa Zulu Natal, across the meandering hills of the Eastern Cape and homeward bound down the flamboyant Garden Route. This stretched over 4,000km and included conducting 45 meetings, 4 church services, 3 school assemblies, a Biblical Worldview Seminar in Pretoria, a Bible College Consultation, a Youth conference of 7,000 people, ministry at 4 Missions, 25 presentations and sermons and recording 20 devotions for Radio Khwezi. We also delivered over 2.5 tonnes of Bibles, books, Gospel booklets, tracts and audio visual materials to 18 different ministries, Missions and churches, in 6 of South Africa’s Provinces.

​After the lively conclusion of the Bible College Consultation near Pretoria, which included 100 delegates from 30 colleges and 20 countries, we had to briskly make our way through the afternoon city traffic, out to a secluded mission station in Secunda, in time for our evening meeting, when we had a blowout on the highway. The team efficiently worked together to do a pit stop tyre change in under 12 minutes and still made our evening meeting in time. This was just one of the exciting hiccups during our escapades.

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On 24th of July 2018, Christian Liberty Books hosted another Home Educators’ Open Day. The theme was Church History. Dr. Peter Hammond held the parents and young adults programme in the boardroom. He covered a Survey of the first 1500 Years of Church History, focusing mainly on the Middle Ages. I organised and ran a concurrent children’s program. Alpha started the morning with a devotion on The Greatest Commandment from Matthew 22:37-39, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” After this we sang a song about the Greatest Commandment and the Great Commission with actions to memorise the “memory verse” of the day: Matthew 22:37-39. We then linked these to the purpose of the Church, which then helped us flow naturally into Church History.

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I immediately got started on the Church History and broke it down explaining that the “Church” is a translation of the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ which means being called out, so the Church is not just a building, but rather those who are called out of the world to be God’s children in His service. The Church is God’s Body and His Bride. We then discussed what History is and how it is important to know our history, so that we can learn from the past in order to do better in the present and future. I gave an illustration of how, if I wanted to bake a cake, I would use the recipe of someone who had already figured out the perfect mixture and method, rather than knowing that I need eggs, flour, milk, cocoa powder, salt and then deciding to put 1 tsp. of flour, 49 eggs, 4 tbs. of Cocoa, 8L of milk and 2 kgs. of salt. So we saw how it was very important to rather learn from other people’s mistakes and successes in the past. So then we put the two back together and found that Church History is the story of God’s people getting together in His Service from the beginning until now.
 
We moved on to some interesting characters in different eras of Church History. We started with Perpetua, the courageous 2nd century martyr in Tunisia, North Africa. Perpetua had such a strong identity as a Christian, a daughter of Christ. We played a game, in which we ran around asking each other ‘yes/no’ questions, trying to discover our given-hidden identity. We also discussed how we, as believers, get our identity in Christ and not from the thoughts, or words, of our friends and those around us.

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Rev. John Clifford gave an exciting rendition about St Patrick, the missionary to Ireland who was kidnapped by pirates. We did some painting and Irish dancing, before marching off to lunch singing the Romans 6:23 Marching Song. After refuelling our energy tanks, we moved onto Martin Luther - the spark that God used to ignite the Reformation. We made our own scrolls containing ideas of what changes are needed in the Church today and afterwards we got dizzy playing Pin-the-95-Theses-on-the-Door. We ended the day with Alieske giving a presentation on Mary Slessor, the fiery Scottish Missionary to Nigeria. We built our own little “mud huts” like the one’s the people from Calabar lived in. The children got very creative with banana-leaf walls and colourful roofs. Alpha even taught them how to authentically weave with banana tree leaves.
 
The day was interspersed with many more action-packed games and exciting prizes, as well as breaks for juice and biscuits. The laughter and fun just didn’t stop. Finally home time came and we had to peel the last few unwilling little bodies away from the fun, fellowship and games. Thank You to our Lord for His protecting hand over these kiddies and for being our continued joy and strength.

​On Tuesday’s Dr. Hammond and I record radio podcasts for From the Frontline, in which we discuss topics such as Historical Events and Political Agendas. Seeing as the Mission runs this radio podcast, we have the liberty to freely and truthfully discuss many controversial issues, which are too often compromised and not propagated. You can see some of the articles I have written on the Henry Morton Stanley School of Christian Journalism website.

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 During National Women’s day, which was on 9th of August, we assisted with Africa Christian Actions’ annual anti-trafficking outreach to the malls. The day was very successful, as many shoppers expressed appreciation for the stand and interest in our pamphlets on human trafficking.
 
At Parow Shopping Centre, a woman described to one of our volunteers how a possible trafficker tried to recruit her. A charming man had approached her one day at this mall and upon noticing her being in search of a job, offered her a position to work for him for R500 per day. He told her that he would be able pick her up each morning from the mall and drop her off at the end of the day. He did not specify what the work involved. Significantly, he asked her if she was single and when she told him she is married he immediately declined his “offer” of “work”. Another woman told our team how her granddaughter was offered a job with a fake modelling agency. The teenager was required to send in photos of herself. Thankfully, her grandmother realised this sounded too suspicious and reported these traffickers to the police. We hope to help them report these people to the human trafficking resource line.
 
63 Volunteers helped us distribute over 6,000 tracts, leaflets and Gospel booklets and over 2,000 balloons with Scripture messages on them, in three shopping malls.

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Africa Christian Action has been conducting these Missions in the malls every Women’s Day since 1995. Over the last eight years, they have been receiving increasing resistance. Most mall managements gave a firm, “No”. Several stated that it was against their policy to have any religious charities, or displays, in their malls. By God's grace and after much prayer and approaching of many shopping malls, we did receive invitations to 3 busy shopping centres in the Cape Peninsula. At two of the malls, we completely ran out of Stop the Traffick! Tracts.
 
By God's grace, we were able to counsel over 22 people through our Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire, leading them through The Way of the Master and Evangelism Explosion questions to confront them with the Law of God and the reality of eternity. To each of these people we gave a free copy of the New Testament and The Biggest Question DVD. This one-hour DVD is one of the most effective Evangelistic DVDs available.

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On Saturday, 11th August, we hosted a Media Workshop, in which Dr. Hammond gave lectures on effective ways to use social media and other media platforms for sharing the truth and debating controversial topics. This Workshop had the theme of Cape Independence and we had long interesting discussions on the viability of it, the necessity for it and how to accomplish it. The event was very successful and a follow up event is in the pipeline.
 
All praise and glory goes to our Almighty God and King, who is our Strength, our Protector, our Refuge, our Redeemer, and our Father. What a joy and privilege it is to serve Him and be adopted into sonship, through the atoning Blood of Our Saviour Jesus Christ.

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“But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.”
​Romans 5:8-10
 
Thanks and Praise:
For the Lord’s protection over us during the Mission,
For the many doors He has opened and opportunities He has granted us for different Ministries,
For His Mercy and Grace that is new every morning,
For His unceasing providence and faithfulness.
 
Supplication:
Pray for the student ministry we have on UCT Campus that we would accurately and boldly proclaim the truth of our Saviour,
Pray for upcoming Home Educators’ Open Days,
For the Bible Study we have started on Campus – That it would continue to grow. That students would take a stand for the Faith on campus. That the Word would come alive to them and that they would have a hunger to know Him more,
For good health and energy,
For financial support as we are a Faith Mission,
For guidance for the future and discernment of God’s will for my life further,
For efficiency and effectiveness in being an ambassador of Christ.
 
Thank you to everyone, who has made this year possible so far. Please let me know how I can pray for all of you?
 
Thank you for your ongoing prayers and support. I am eternally grateful.
 
By His Grace
 
Emma Vaughan-Jones
Henry Morton Stanley School of Christian Journalism
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689-4480
Fax: 086-494-8070
emma@frontline.org.za
hmsscj@frontline.org.za
mission@frontline.org.za
www.frontlinemissionsa.org
www.hmsschoolofchristianjournalism.org
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