South African Mission Trip: "Transition"

Written by Youth Pastor Scotty Jarrard;

Let’s try this again.


Corina was not the only one there to greet us. Pastor Greg, Dr. Davis (one of Corina’s professors and an IMB Missionary), Bother Lloyd and his wife were also there to give us a very warm and compassionate welcoming to Cape Town. After we got all of our luggage loaded (you would be surprised how much luggage 10 people can accumulate), we headed to the seminary that would be our home for the next 2 weeks. As we were driving down N2 (one of their interstates), Pastor Greg and Brother Lloyd were trying to explain to me the situation of South Africa and why things were the way they were there. All of that time I tried my best to listen to what they were telling me but I found it very hard to concentrate on the conversation due to all of the things that I was seeing. Everywhere I looked alongside the road we were traveling, there were these villages made up of make shift “shacks”. These shacks were made of everything from rusted tin roofing, plastic, pallets and pretty much anything these people could find. I remember saying to myself, “how could anyone live in these things?” Here in the U.S., we put our yard tools in bigger and better sheds than these people were living in. So many things started racing through my mind but the main things that stood out the most were some of the things that people had said to me and a couple of the members of the team. “Why are you going on a mission trip to Cape Town? Isn’t that a vacation spot?” and “Why are you going there when we have so many people in need here?” That is when it really hit me, “We are a spoiled and selfish nation!” I am not trying to down play the situation that our nation is in but the truth is, if you simply live in the United States, you are among the top 15% of the richest people in the world. The U.S. has never seen poverty on the scale that we witnessed in these 2 weeks. The U.S. is up in a whirlwind about 10% unemployment and yet, we were among township where 1,000,000 people lived in an area a quarter the size of the city of Blairsville and the unemployment rate was 92% (and believe me, unlike a lot of the people in the U.S., these people really want to work but I will talk about more of that later). Once again, I know that there are a lot of bad situations in the U.S. but, when it comes to a majority of South Africa, we don’t even come a close second.

When we finally made it to the seminary, it was far from what most of us had expected. The whole place was surrounded by a 7 foot tall fence layered with constantina wire (razor wire) on top of that, with 2 steal gates entering the area. On one side of us was a type of government housing and on the side was a Squatter’s Camp (that’s what they call the villages that I spoke about on the way from the airport) separated by the interstate. (To me, the accommodations were more than I ever expected and I don’t want any of you to think that we were in any great danger or that we are something great for staying in the area we stayed. Compared to some of the other areas in Cape Town, we were in a very safe area. I am just doing my best to paint a picture for you so that you can understand the things we witnessed on the trip.) Pastor Greg asked us to just settle in for the rest of the day and try to rest because he had a very busy time planned for us. 

As we all settled in, we gathered together and tried to make sense of the things that we had seen on the way to the seminary plus, we got to hang out with Corina which was AWESOME. It was really a blessing to have her there in place because she was able to help us make sense of things around us. She amazes me the way she has made herself available to God’s will and is truly be a servant to the people of South Africa. I can remember back a year ago when Corina told me that God was calling her to Africa and I would give anything if I could have told her then, what I know now. Corina was not called to South Africa, God created her for South Africa.


More to come!