South Africa Ministry Update!

Family and Friends!
Can you believe we have been doing this for 5 months?! It’s crazy! I want to thank all of you so much for your love, support, and prayers. I’m sure you are all so curious about what my ministry is here in South Africa so here we go –

My team (7 people) is working with an organization called Beats and Books for the 2 months we are here. Beats and Books is an after school program for kids to get extra support, currently we have 18 students ages 12 to 16. During their time with us we give tutoring and music lessons! We have a guitar, a piano, and a violin! When students don’t have homework or a music lesson we get to hang out with them, do puzzles, and play games.
Apart from music and school we also do small group Bible studies. Last week, I was leading a Bible study and one of my students asked me if she could still talk to God when she was upset. I got to explain to her God’s desire to have a relationship with His children and how much He just wants to talk with us. We have such an amazing opportunity here with the kids!
Beats and Books is located in a small one-story house, the living room functions as the piano room and small library, one bedroom was converted into a violin and guitar lesson room, the second bedroom was converted into a space for working on homework and doing Bible studies, and the garage is set up as a space for games and homework.
Our students live in some extreme poverty and have difficult backgrounds and we have the opportunity to bless them with providing lunch for them. However, the lunch budget is very small and is just enough for some rice or a butter and mayonnaise sandwich. The kids are often still hungry and will ask if there is any more to eat. We do our grocery shopping for the week every Monday, if you feel able, it would be a huge blessing to be able to get some extra food for these kids’ lunches. You can venmo me at @annavanderwege or we can work out another way!


Things I have been learning recently:

Jeffrey’s Bay is a huge surf town. People from around the world travel here to surf. Because of this there are very beautiful, large houses overlooking the ocean and lots of surf shops around. Not far away are the slums, small houses made from aluminum sheets packed with family members and all leaning against each other. I’ve noticed that if you were to come for a vacation it would be so easy to never notice this extreme poverty right here. It made me wonder how often I’ve walked past someone God wanted me to help but was too caught up in my own world to notice.

I’ve also recently been learning a lot about the Holy Spirit. I just read the first book of the Narnia series by CS Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew. The lion (the God figure) just created all the animals and is giving them all instructions. The character Uncle Andrew cannot believe that the lion is speaking. Again and again he tells himself that it’s not happening and it’s not possible for a lion to talk, finally he comes to a point when he hears nothing but roars from the lion instead of words.
Have I ignored the Holy Spirit to a point that it is harder to hear when the Holy Spirit is trying to guide me?



Prayer Requests:
Some of our students have a hard time opening up to us due to their backgrounds. Prayer that we would be able to develop deep relationships with these kids during these 2 months is much needed.
Continued prayers for health are still very needed as well

Thank you all so much for your support, I’m praying for you all at home!