After five years of working with teams in Sweet Home, a township outside Cape Town South Africa, I wanted to write up my favorite story. There are literally hundreds of stories. In January 2011, I was co-leading one of our short term teams. We had learned that one of the graduated students who was now attending the University of Cape Town would be helping us.
His name is Sinethemba. He was in the first graduating class for Bridges Academy. He grew up in the township of Phillipi which is next to Sweet Home. It would be an injustice for me to describe the difficulty and danger of growing up in these townships. To lose your parents only makes the transformation of Sinethemba a complete miracle. We thought he would help us for a day or two, but he spent the entire two weeks as part of our team. Sinethemba was the helper we didn't know we needed, but God sent us. Sinethemba was central to our team and helped our team achieve things that would not have been possible without him. I readily admit that God orchestrated it all, but He sent us Sinethemba.
We were running an OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) camp at the academy. These were all kids from the township of Sweet Home where we have been partnering for five years. One of the boys, he was probably 12, was acting up so we assigned him a “time-in” where we just take a break and sit with them for five minutes away from the activity. I asked him if he thought he would go to the Academy (Bridges Of Hope Academy http://www.bridgesworldwide.org/south-africa/bridges-academy/) someday? Surprisingly he said no and after more discussion I realized he didn't even know what the Academy was. It is a top-tier boarding school for kids just like him. We finished the time-in and I took him over to Sinethemba. We could see the Academy buildings in the distance and I asked Sinethemba to explain to him about the Academy. The boy listened intently. That boy was the most disruptive up to that point and was transformed into one of the best behaved. Later Sinethemba said he told him about the school, but he also told him about the food.
On the last day of camp I felt like God gave me an idea. I gathered all the boys, led them over to that same spot and asked Sinethemba to give them all a vision for their lives. I stepped back and just waited while this group of boys listened intently. I snapped this photo of one man who had been transformed by the Lord explaining his path to boys who are in his same situation. Nothing I could have done would have made that sort of impact on these boys. Nothing. Our mission and the mission of Bridges Of Hope had just come full circle.
This is the proof that the big differences in transforming a community come through relationships, not money and donations. If you want to make a difference, God wants your heart. He wants you to create a relationship.
-- Wood
I love this...Sinethemba was such a great asset to the last team as well. Just from a short few weeks I grew to know a bit about Sinethemba and ultimately gave me more of an insight to what these "Boys of Bridges" was going through. I am so happy to have met him and pray for these other boys who would soon follow Sinethemba's path from conquering obstacles such social depravity to following God's path as well as striving for a better life of their own.
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