Thursday, January 15, 2015

PLAY 101

It's often hard to describe what goes on half-way across the world in a way people can grasp. Especially if your ministry is in it's grass-roots beginning stages. But I want my friends to know more than "She's helping with some kids thing." So here's my attempt to explain PLAY as best I can...
What Lisa does is run Christian leadership outdoor adventure camps for Jr. highers. Here it is quite normal for the more wealthy kids to go to a camp out in the wilderness that contain things like high ropes courses, ab-sailing, wall-climbing, and military-style obstacle courses. But Lisa offers these camps for free to the kids who wouldn't be able to afford something like that otherwise. Each child is nominated by their teacher as a potential leader in their school who should experience some leadership training. The camp is designed to train up leaders, teach a break in the segregation and racial issues that plague South Africa, give tools for facing common difficulties here like rape statistics, and present hope and Jesus to these students. Camp takes place 4x a year on school holidays. Each camp has students from several different schools. The curriculum is derived from The Purpose Driven Life and everything all flows together quite nicely. It's hard to understand all of this without seeing it. But after being at camp this last week I get it. It's beautiful. And very effective. They do physically challenging things all day as a team that push them beyond their comfort zones and teach them to be a leader while they hear talks about how that fits spiritually. Out of the 54 kids that came to camp last week, 43 chose to follow Jesus and were baptised! A lot of these kids just haven't been loved on enough or told Jesus cares about them personally and when it's put in a game and lesson written for their age and cultural challenges, it clicks and it's amazing to watch. The impact and difference a week like this makes in these student's lives is absolutely mind-blowing. And each person who supports Lisa or me is a part of Jesus radically making a difference right here. I wish every one of you could come on out and PLAY with us!!!!







2 comments:

Karen Southwell said...

Welcome to the team Liz. I feel so honored to have been part of this amazing organization and look forward to many more camps with equally wonderful results as this one. God's hand is clearly on PLAY, Lisa, and all who wish to and do contribute.

Unknown said...

This is awesome Liz! Keep bringing your passion and making a difference!