Smash Camp: Welkom

This past week myself and 14 other individuals were privileged to travel to the provence of Free State and the City of Welkom (pronounced Velcome). While we were there our main goals were to tell people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and have them make a connection with the church we were mostly working with Thabong Baptist. In the area there was many churches unfortunately most of them do not preach from the Bible. Instead they make up doctrine and basically create a cult. Thabong Baptist was the only church to our knowledge in the area that preached from the Word of God. 

We arrived on Saturday and spent most of the day unloading and getting to know the people and the kids at the orphanage where we were staying. We had spent most of the morning and afternoon traveling so we just relaxed on Saturday

Here is our group and most of the kids from the orphanage.
Also click on any of the photos to enlarge

Sunday we went to Thabong Baptist for the morning service and got to know the people of the church. We returned later in the day to play some games with the teens as they would be working with us during the remainder of the week. 

Monday was when we starting getting busy, we woke up early spent some time reading the Bible and then talked about it while we ate breakfast. We then loaded up Horacio (our trailer, yes we named it) and headed out for the 20 min trip to Thabong Baptist. Once we arrived we were divided up into groups and we headed out into the township surrounding the church. 

Here is a picture of a typical township, this was not the one we were in. 

We went from door to door asking people if they would like to hear about the good news of Jesus Christ. This was challenging due to the fact that the people of Thabong speak Sotho and I do not. However there was 2 girls from the orphanage who spoke Sotho and they were able to translate and speak to the people also. No one that my group spoke to accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior but we planted many seeds and encouraged many people to come visit the church where they would hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ again. 

Heading out to invite kids and share the good news. 

Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Thursday went mostly the same. Kids in Africa were on holiday from school that week so we invited them all to come to the church to play some games with us, each day we had 90-150 kids come to play games with us. After we entertained them for a few hours we invited them inside the church were we sang some songs, did a skit and then we presented the Gospel to them. Many kids came to know Christ during these times and many also promised to bring their parents to Church so that they would be able to hear about Jesus Christ also. 

Wednesday was a little different because we had planned on running a soccer tournament with the kids, however it was raining so we did not think that many kids would want to play soccer in the mud and rain. So we went to the field and were going to tell the kids to come back the next day. A few kids showed up and before we could tell them to wait till tomorrow they started playing. So a few of us stayed a played soccer with them while the rest of our group went around and talked with the people who lived around the field about the Gospel. Myself and my friend Muzi stayed to play soccer with the kids and needless to say we got dirty. 

I found out from this match that I am slightly better at soccer than a
9 year old South Africa wearing flip-flops in the mud.

We also had the chance of attending a Revival at a church about 40 min away on Tuesday and Wednesday night, our group leader John Page spoke on Tuesday and my friend Romeo spoke on Wednesday. While we were there we were able to teach the kids of the orphanage and of the church the importance of reading the Bible everyday and we gave them some Quiet Time Journals to write in as they study the Bible. 

Thursday afternoon we headed home, exhausted but satisfied in Christ. If you would like to know any more about what we did or about the Gospel please contact me any time by email, Skype, Facebook or whatever you choose.