It is hard to believe that we are celebrating four years in South Africa this year! To God be the glory!! Thanks to your prayers and support, we have truly settled in here and consider South Africa our home. We are so honored to serve with such great fellow staff members at Impact Africa, and hearing all of the testimonies that each person brings to the table on a weekly basis is like living in Acts. Pulled up some pictures reminiscing about this time:
We just wrapped up a big summer season that was filled with short-term missions teams coming out and serving for a week or ten days at a time. Our home church from Virginia, The Victory House, was also able to send a team this year. Kindle and I had the amazing opportunity to lead their trip, and we saw a lot of testimonies, and fruit! One of the team members, Oxford, made a little video about the trip that we’d love to share. WATCH IT HERE: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ACfrjacuy7md4Tlp_X33hW_isfJrkmKa/view?usp=sharing
After years of doing missions all over the world, Kindle and I both believe that Impact Africa facilitates some of the best missions trips anywhere. We plug people into meaningful ministry that supports a long-term, sustainable mission and are able to do lots of face-to-face evangelism. Lives are truly transformed!
Impact Africa also just welcomed our Fall Semester interns a couple of weeks ago(some pictures of them in action below)! When interns show up, I always give them this Leonard Ravenhill quote: “The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.” There truly is a shelf life to each season God sends our way. Some seasons are pivotal and special. It is up to us to get the absolute most we can out of those seasons. For our interns, our prayer is that they would be filled with a revelation of the worldwide need for evangelism, and that they would take a missional heart into the rest of their lives—whether in full-time missions, ministry, or in any vocation God calls them to
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This semester we are teaching them worldview, cross-cultural communications, and Zulu as a language class.
Kindle also teaches a weekly discipleship service. Our prayer is that these classes will give them tools to use for the rest of their lives. I particularly love our cross-cultural communications textbook. It is a super easy read and will help you understand your friends from different cultures. Here is a link to it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ministering-Honor-Shame-Cultures-Foundations-Essentials/dp/0830851461. I truly believe this is a must-read for Christians.
A heartfelt thanks to all of our prayer and financial supporters that have kept us here for the last four years! It is an honor representing you on the mission field.
We made it back from the States a month ago, and were just in time for me (Ryan), to debrief our outgoing class of 15 interns! That was a huge blessing and answer to prayer because the majority of the internship class had been with us for around nine months.
Debrief is one of our favorite times of the year because we are passionate about setting up our outgoing interns with the mentality needed to sustain their fire, and ply the vast array of new tools and deep ministry experiences they gathered while with us at Impact Africa.
Pulling back the curtain on debrief a little, here are just a few of the subjects we hit on during debrief:
-Finding your new community when home, and how to create new and lasting friendships (many of our interns are going to new places like jobs, new churches, or colleges). -Navigating the emotions they feel when going back, like nostalgia for the mission field, alienation from old friends, or negativity toward their passport culture. -How to stay plugged into missions, even if full-time missions is not their ultimate calling. -Knowing the potential traps that are ahead of them in terms of difficult relationships, past besetting sins, or even just allowing themselves to return to their old spiritual status quo.
We had a few weeks of just a couple interns, and then we welcomed our summer interns(pictured below) on June 3rd! Woohoo! We have a class of nine, and they will be with us for eight weeks. Our summer classes are very leadership and service-centered as we raise them up to help host our summer missions teams. We are currently in the midst of immersion week, meaning that they are getting the Impact Africa culture and ministry training needed to have a powerful summer with us. Kindle will be focusing on pouring into our summer interns spiritually through regular preaching and equipping sessions, and I will be leading the charge on the big-picture side of things by setting up the whole internship team with pastoral leadership and care over the course of the summer. We are believing for a big impact on our interns and for a big harvest in the local communities we will be doing ministry in this summer. There are many people who are ready to give their lives to the Lord but have yet to hear the gospel! We can’t believe that the year is already half over! Thanks to everyone who invests in us and prays for us to make living in South Africa a reality. It is so rewarding seeing these interns become bold as lions on ministry, and seeing them carry that same boldness back home at the conclusion of their internship time. We are so blessed to see Impact Africa alum all over the world, and changing the world in their spheres of influence. Nothing tops a hands-on ministry, and I think that practical experience is what sets a missions internship apart from a typical ministry school or gap year experience. Learning about doing the works of Jesus is one thing, but actually DOING the works of Jesus brings a level of maturity and revelation you just can’t beat.
It has been a while since our last newsletter, and we are sorry for our absence! 2024 and 2025 have been tough due to the passing of Kindle’s younger brother, Janson, and some health problems within the family. That being said, you can start expecting monthly newsletters from us here again, along with regular social media updates. You can drop our Facebook group a follow here.
First of all, a huge praise report: we have secured another round of 3-year visas for the whole family! When we had to go back to the States in September, our visa application that was in process in South Africa was canceled. We have been limping along ever since with extensions and failed attempts to acquire new visas. We ended up needing to fly to California from South Africa a couple of weeks ago to apply for visas in person, and they got processed in one business day. This is nothing short of miraculous, given that this process is usually long and tedious, but we experienced a lot of favor this time around. We are still in the States at present, but will be flying back to South Africa in about a week.
Kindle and I continue to direct the Global Internship program at Impact Africa, and we currently have 17 young American missionaries serving as interns and learning the ropes of ministry in a cross-cultural setting here in Johannesburg. It has been an awesome group and an awesome year so far! “It’s amazing to see them arrive at the beginning of a semester timid, but leave at the end of the semester bold and full of fire and faith to share the Gospel! Kindle is currently running the women’s discipleship side of things for our female interns, and they are being greatly impacted through it. I (Ryan) have been leaning in with Impact Africa’s student ministry, and have also taken on the responsibility of managing the ministry’s financial database.
Here are a few updates from the internship and the ministry we work for as a whole:We sent our interns on a week-long trip to Lesotho, where they were able to experience what more rural ministry looks like in Africa outside of Johannesburg.
The Impact Students department hosted an amazing 3-day camp last month (Ryan helps with the planning and logistics of these camps). We had 40 amazing students attend, and many gave their lives to the Lord, get discipleship, and get baptized. The camp theme was “Transformed,” focusing on the basics of the gospel and following Christ. We as a ministry get to journey with many of these students for years, and it is amazing to see things click, especially these foundational things, during camp week for some.
Impact Africa’s (The organization we are on staff with here) as a whole is growing! They opened up Promise Home number five! The Promise Homes are a safe place where we as a ministry foster babies until they are able to find their forever home in a nurturing and caring environment. You can check out the Baby Rescue department here! Our interns volunteer here regularly. Here are some pictures of our kids out playing with some of the Promise Home babies, and celebrating one of their 3rd birthdays at a park!
2024 has been an awesome year so far, and the Bridgford household is quite busy with two kids in the mix. We’ve attached some pictures of John (6 months) and Evie (2 years) here so you all can see how they’ve grown. John is just the happiest guy around, and Evie is talking a lot and running around everywhere. It has been a very sweet season so far.
Here are a few highlight updates for you: We had an awesome Spring semester internship class of twelve individuals! We saw so much growth in each of them, and loved getting to mentor them in missions and life. Since John was born in January, it was great having our two new internship staff members, Bailey and Kyle, here in Africa helping us out now. We had two great camps, and I (Ryan) had the pleasure of preaching some to the highschool students that we got to facilitate. I am getting more involved in Impact Students at Impact Africa (our high school ministry department). My role here expanded at the beginning of the year and I work with big picture planning, scheduling, and national staff and volunteer training. We are in our summer internship right now, and have had fourteen interns here this summer! It has been a pleasure pouring into their lives as well. Summer is busy season for Impact Africa, and these interns have been doing so well helping us lead teams. Kindle’s parents and youngest brother were just here on a missions trip with their church Blue Ridge Bible Church. It was a very special time. We loved hosting them! God moved and many people got saved through the ministry that happened. We love hosting missions trips as the communities get an even greater saturation of the Gospel in these months with more boots on the ground. Here are some pictures for you to get a peek at our time! And currently, we are gearing up for our Fall semester internship! We’ll have a class of twenty – one of our biggest yet(answer to prayer!!)! We are excited for the increase, and so blessed to be a part of what God is doing out here in South Africa.Now that we’re back into the swing of life, we’ll be getting regular newsletters out again. We love you all!
Love you all! We are so grateful for your support!
We have had an amazing year here serving in South Africa, and as we reflect we cannot help but feel overwhelmed by the ways God has moved in our lives, and how He is moving in South Africa! Thousands of hours of quality ministry happened, countless lives were touched through Impact Africa’s outreaches and ministries, and the Kingdom was advanced in South Africa. At the internship, we had 31 individuals participate in the internship program, and logged over 1,250 hours on the field, and over 260 classroom hours through trainings and classes.
Our last batch of interns for the year departed just before Thanksgiving, and we had an amazing semester with them. A definite highlight was the fact that we were able to take our interns across the border into Lesotho for the week on a surprise mission trip, and they got to experience what ministry in rural Africa is like. Going from the densely populated townships of Johannesburg where thousands live in 12′ x 12’ shacks that are all crammed together, to a mountain village full of shepherds, animals, and less than 300 people in Lesotho is quite the change of pace.
As urbanized people, stories like The Parable of the Lost Sheep can take a bit of imagination to relate to. It is a surreal experience using parables about sheep in sharing the Gospel with an actual shepherd. Myself (Ryan) and several other team members were able to do just that. When we asked a young shepherd what he’d do if he lost a sheep one evening, he emphatically said, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I found it”. We got to use that classic parable from the Bible and it went straight to his heart with hardly any contextualization needed. Through that parable, he readily understood the spiritual truths we were communicating, and gave his life to Jesus.
I am also always amazed how many miraculous healings happen in rural settings. In the two hours we were in a village (we got rained out, so we weren’t able to do the whole day), we saw God heal five individuals of various ailments. It is amazing the hunger for God that exists around the world. The harvest is truly ripe!
In addition to village ministry, we were able to engage in several ministries in Lesotho that are outside of our typical routine in South Africa. We worked with an anti-trafficking non profit, several orphanages, and assisted in running youth services. At the end of the week, we took the interns on a horseback trail to a waterfall as a fun day.
On a personal note, 2023 has been an amazing year for the Bridgford family. We were able to move into our own house and off the ministry property, which has been an amazing blessing and gives some elbow room for our growing family.
Speaking of growing family, Kindle is 38 weeks pregnant, and we will be welcoming our baby boy into the world within the next couple of weeks. Please keep her in prayer for a safe delivery, and for a healthy little guy.
Here are some ways you can be keeping us in prayer:
A safe delivery of our baby boy
We recently changed churches when we moved homes, so prayer for plugging in quickly and building community is appreciated
An increase in finances as we are adding to our family, and since we have bills again now that we’re living off base
For an increase of individuals coming through the internship now that we have the staffing to handle more interns
Hello Friends and Family!It has been an amazing summer (winter here in South Africa)! It is our busy season with teams coming through on short-term mission trips, and we had quite a few churches, colleges, and youth groups join us this year. Our Summer Internship has a strong leadership focus, and it is great to see our interns transition from the new guys around, into confident ministers of the gospel and helping the ministry train and lead our short-term guests. You’d be amazed to see the transformation that an 8-week internship here can have on an individual.
Our Summer Interns arrived in early June, and recently departed. They were a power-packed bunch, and certainly one of our internship classes that had the most energy, and connected very well with one another on a spiritual and friendship level. Through their receptive and eager hearts, they saw many signs, wonders, and salvations over the course of their summer here. The heart behind the Impact Africa’s Global Internship (which Kindle and I direct together), is to equip these interns to do the work of ministry, and send them home with a heart burning for world missions and a desire to see their spheres of influence transformed by the light of the Gospel! Keep us in prayer as we prepare to receive our next batch of interns who will be arriving at the end of the month! We’re so excited to equip and disciple them, and alter the trajectory of their lives in a missional direction!
On a family note, we are doing very well and Evangeline is growing so fast. She is talking a ton, and can say a variety of words including: toy, mama, dada, Canada, and many others. Kindle’s pregnancy is also going very well, and our little guy(Yes, guy. We’re having a BOY!) is growing and doing a lot of kicking. She is due in December.
The internship department is growing, and we’re taking on two new staff members to help Kindle and I out(You guys prayed for this, so this is a huge answer to our prayers!!). They’re arriving in just one week! This allows Kindle and I to move off of the Impact Africa’s mission base, and begin renting our own place! It’ll be great to have space for the new baby. That being said, we will be needing to raise $1,000 more monthly to cover our new bills that will include rent, utilities, and the extra costs of having a new baby in the home. We also do not currently own a stick of furniture as our apartment on the missions base came fully furnished, so we need startup costs to purchase everything from bowls to a bed.
If you’d like to join our monthly team, or increase your support for us, you can do so here! Just choose the General Fund as the sub fund.
If you’d like to give a one-time donation to help cover our moving costs, feel free to do so here! You can select MOVING FUNDS as the sub fund.
Please be keeping us in prayer on these points: 1. Financial increase to allow us to step into this next season of our lives. 2. Continued health over Kindle and the baby. 3. For our incoming interns to be greatly impacted while here (they arrive August 28th).
We have exciting news! We are expecting our first child in early August! We are beyond thrilled to be walking this new journey in life, and are so happy we get to start our family here in South Africa. All of the appointments have been going very well, and Kindle and the baby are happy and healthy. Kindle is past the point where everything but pizza is nauseating, so we are celebrating that as well.
We have hit the ground running in 2022, and have a wonderful batch of 10 new interns (Pictured below) who have joined us for the beginning of the year. Already, we have been seeing signs, wonders, and salvations in the communities. It is always fun to train and minster with new volunteers, and I thought it would be fun to show you all a little bit of the mindset change you have to have when ministering in Africa:
One of the biggest things that we teach Americans who come to intern or minister with us is that in the African context you need to preach a gospel of power, not just love. Yes, Jesus loves everybody, but that doesn’t do you any good if you are going to incur the wrath of your ancestors upon yourself by following Him and Him alone. Salvation often comes after a demonstration of God’s power. We see healings on a regular basis here because God loves to show his power to people who need to know that He is great. I always encourage people to pray with individuals before their gospel presentations, because nothing will prick up your ears more than a touch from God.
Cross-cultural ministry comes with it’s own set of unique and exciting challenges.You are often taking traditional African fables, stories, and traditions, and using those to appropriate the gospel to the listener’s context. You will intentionally emphasize the power of God and the fact that Jesus came to restore honor to the human race more than you emphasize forgiveness and justice (though the latter two points are always part of the equation). Courtroom analogies are used with great effect in the West, but don’t necessarily resonate with Majority World peoples. It is a learning curve to be sure, but an incredibly rewarding experience to view the gospel through a different lense. As Kindle and I have done more and more ministry here, it is always a joy to learn more and more about the culture, and better understand how we can represent Jesus to these people.
The more you share Jesus, the easier it gets. And honestly, sharing the gospel is addictive when you put yourself out there and see fruit. Some days are hard, and some days feel easy, but the most important thing you can do is put yourself out there and see what God can do through you.We have appreciated all of the love and support we feel back from the States. We couldn’t ask for a better team. We are planning a trip back to the States this spring, and look forward to connecting with many of you!Prayer:For Kindle’s pregnancy to continue to be healthy and progress smoothlyFor grace to navigate ministry in a very new season of life for us as we prepare for the babyThat God would give us continued favor to minister in the communities and make genuine connections with peopleThat our interns would grow in unity with one another, and boldness in sharing their faith Website: https://thebridgfords.com/ Donations: https://www.kindridgiving.com/App/Form/b12bc6e5-d8cc-46f8-a9bf-cc464b3d061f Blessings,Ryan and Kindle Bridgford
Happy New Year from South Africa! We pray that God blesses you in every way during 2022, and that you walk in the fullness of His will for your lives!
2021 was an amazing year to start our career in missions, and though we have only been out here since August, we have seen God tangibly move in the miraculous, bring souls into the Kingdom, and saw thousands ministered to in school assemblies and while out doing street evangelism.
As a ministry, in 2021 Impact Africa saw:
50,515 total people ministered to in classrooms, on the streets, and through short-term missions trips
8,429 decisions for Christ
107 healings
10 babies rescued
530 at-risk children educated through our preschools
We are so blessed to be a part of the amazing things God is doing here, and look forward to an even more powerful 2022!
December is a slow month for ministry in South Africa. All of our interns are home for the holidays, and many people staying here in Johannesburg for work travel home to see their families in their hometowns and villages for the holidays. It was a great time for us to slow down, get vision for next year, and prepare all of the logistics necessary for the upcoming year of ministry for our incoming interns. We are planning missions trips, ministry outings, classes, and a host of other items to ensure that we have a busy and fruitful year of ministry.
As of right now we have 22 new interns joining us throughout 2022, and we are excited to see them make an impact here and have their hearts wrecked for missions and the Great Commision. We expect that number to grow as more people sign up to come during the summer and fall. As the internship directors at Impact Africa, it is our honor to disciple these young missionaries, and equip them to minister here alongside us and the other staff members in the discipleship and evangelism of Johannesburg.
As we gear up for another packed-full year of ministry, please keep these areas in prayer: 1. That all of the interns coming through the ministry this year would have a life-transforming experience, and would grow in their love for God, and vision for their lives. 2. For wisdom over us as we prep sermons and classes for our interns. 3. That God would use us to see many souls enter into a relationship with Him this upcoming year.
We appreciate all of the prayers and support from back in the States, and definitely feel their impact! We want to thank everyone who made 2021 a possibility financially for us. Your support and prayers are so deeply appreciated by us, and it is an honor representing you on the missions field.If you or someone you know are looking for missionaries to support during 2022, consider joining us in making an impact here in South Africa!
Thanksgiving in SA with our fellow Americans Us at a high school our team got to minister at Ryan purchasing a snack 🙂 Kindle with one of our awesome interns, Nina On our missions trip to Estcourt, Ryan opening at a large high school that the team got to share the Gospel at! So many salvations! On Ryan’s Birthday in November we were on a missions trip. What better way to spend a birthday? With our interns for our first safari! Prepping gifts for the Christmas Party we put together for a disabled school. We also got to share about the love of Jesus there. At the disabled school – Pictured here and below. Such a precious group of kids! This is only some of them (100 of the almost 200 kids). The ones in this photo are boarded at the school, and they are like a family to each other…Hearing the stories of the children touched our hearts.
It had been a long afternoon of doing student outreach in a local highschool Impact Africa ministers to here in Johannesburg. The interns and I(Kindle) had just gotten approval from the principal to connect with students in the courtyard of the school, and find classrooms to minister in whose teachers had not shown up to work that day. This happens a lot, teachers will just choose to not show up for work and the classrooms are full of kids without teachers. We are usually going around and teaching the Life Orientation class in a structured manner within specific classrooms, but when there is downtime we like to get creative and love on students who are on their breaks between periods or teach students whose teachers didn’t show up that day.
As we walked towards the courtyard I saw a girl collapse into the arms of her friends as they were eating their lunches standing up. We were very alarmed, and rushed to see what was wrong with her. While assisting in lowering to the ground, her friends explained that this happens to her on a regular basis. Her entire body goes limp, and she loses all capacity to move for several minutes. They informed us that recently, a sangoma (African traditional healer/witch doctor) had prophesied over her that she had been chosen by the ancestors to also become a sangoma, and must begin her training. Soon, the girl was able to communicate with us, and said that she had no desire to become a sangoma, but felt stuck. She was experiencing these episodes of paralysis, and knew it was because of her disobedience to the calling the sangoma had spoken over her. I asked her who she thought was more powerful, the sangoma, or God? Her reply was, “both are equally powerful.”We picked her up with her arms wrapped around our shoulders and began to carry her over to a bench so that she could recover. As I carried her, I told her that I was going to share a message with her, then pray that her problem with paralysis would be lifted and that God would do it. The girl sat on the bench, curled into a ball, and pulled her hood over her head. She was clearly very embarrassed about her episodes, and would not even look us in the eye. One of our interns, Savannah, began to share the gospel with her, emphasizing the power of God in her narrative and that He had authority over the spiritual realm.It is very important to touch on God’s power when sharing the Gospel in the African context. Love is often emphasized when sharing the Gospel with Westerners, but when in different contexts, it is important to bring attention to different aspects of the Gospel narrative. Africans lead very spiritual lives, and live in constant fear of the spiritual realm. The love of God means nothing to an African if following Him means incurring the wrath of the ancestors against them. They must understand that all authority belongs to Jesus, and giving your life to Him means giving your life to an all-powerful God.It was one of those conversations where you know someone’s heart is drinking in your words. She heard and understood our message, and eagerly committed her life to God. The transformation in her demeanor was striking. She lifted her head, her eyes lit up, and when asked she responded that she did not feel like she needed to become a sangoma anymore. I prayed for her, commanded all oppression to lift, and full strength returned to her body and she stood up. I have attached some pictures of her, you can just see the joy of the Lord all over her face(she’s on the far left in the photo below)!
Still rejoicing over this amazing encounter, we continued to the next class and we had a long time to minister to them because no teacher showed up. We taught them about the love and power of God. It was a very special encounter, and all 30 of the kids responded to the call to follow Jesus! We didn’t realize until we walked in that classroom that the girl we had just ministered to outside was a part of the class, and not only did God save her, but touched her entire class! God is moving in a special way here in South Africa, and we are honored to be a part of it. It can be difficult choosing what to write about sometimes because we see so much. It is humbling ministering in a place that is full of receptive hearts, with the only barrier standing between them and God is a simple and clear gospel presentation. I often think of the Romans 10:14, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” It gives me an awareness everywhere I go that I may be the preacher called to give someone the Gospel that they have not yet heard or understood. This applies to any context we may find ourselves, Africa or anywhere else in the world. People need to hear, and all they need is someone to tell them. I am encouraged to be bold. After all, what do I have to lose? Thank you so much for all the prayer and support, we really feel like we’re hitting our stride here, and Africa is really feeling like home. We are blessed to have an amazing team of prayer partners and financial supporters from the States who make all of this possible.
Kindle and I have been experiencing powerful things in the communities when we are out doing ministry, so I thought it would be fun to share what an entire day of community outreach looked like for us last Wednesday!
Kindle and I got out of our vehicle to do ministry together, walked about a hundred yards, and saw a woman sitting in front of her shack washing dishes. Our translator greeted her, and she ushered us into her front yard and we offered to help her finish up the dishes. She accepted our offer to help her wash dishes, and had a great time getting to know each other as we worked. Her name was Enough.
It is much easier to share the love of Jesus with someone if you are willing to roll up your sleeves, and assist them in what they’re doing. Everywhere you look people are doing things: washing dishes, cleaning laundry, sweeping their house, cooking, etc. The act of serving others really helps to bring down walls, and shows people that they are genuinely cared for as a human being, even before the gospel is presented to them.
Once we were done with dishes, I (Ryan) asked Enough if she knew the story of Jesus. She said that she knew a little, and would like for us to talk to her about it. What unfolded from there was a beautiful conversation about the Gospel. There is something so special about watching someone’s eyes as they hear about, and comprehend what Jesus did for them for the very first time. The only way I can describe it is a joyous spark of hope. By the end of the conversation, she looked like a completely different person. She ended up accepting Jesus that day, and we referred her to the great church that we partner with in her area so that she could receive discipleship as she learns to walk out her faith. She had been named Enough because her mother didn’t want to have anymore kids, but we felt that God wanted her to think of her name as “God is enough for me!”
Before we left, we and another woman who had been sitting in on the conversation, laid hands on Enough and were praying for some of her needs. The other woman (who was already a believer) coughed two times during the prayer. After we left Enough’s house, the other woman stopped us and said that she had coughed because during the prayer she felt a demonic oppression leave her that she had felt for two years. It was so intense she was constantly aware of it and it would distract her terribly whenever she would try to pray. She received complete deliverance from that oppression when she laid her hand on Kindle’s back to help intercede for Enough! Kindle has since followed up with her and the woman is still so grateful that she is free from the oppression.
As we stood outside praising God for the deliverance, Enough came with her nextdoor neighbor and told us that she needed to hear about Jesus too! We got to share the Gospel with her as well and pray with her. (Pictured in below, left photo)
After that interaction, we walked down the next street and encountered an old woman (gogo in South Africa), who was blind in her right eye due to some children accidently throwing sand in it while they were playing two years prior. She was easily pushing 80 years old. We caught her as she was walking to a doctor’s appointment, but she was able to sit and let us pray with her. After just a few minutes of praying, we saw her very damaged looking eye clear up, and she proclaimed that she was able to see about 50 meters down the road with the eye now. While we were praying for healing and as she began to see, she proclaimed in her own language, “God is working, God is working!” At that point we were about to share the Gospel with her. During the conversation we found out that she belonged to a strange sect of folk Islam which Zulu people (the tribe she belongs to) were only able to attend. Usually people belonging to this cult are very closed off to Christ, but because God had just touched her eye, she was very torn and said that she needed to go home and ponder and pray about the things we had spoken to her about. It was a beautiful interaction and we are believing that God is going to use the miracle He did in her, coupled with the knowledge of what Jesus did for her, to bring her into His fold.
After that, we went to lunch and drove to another community down the road. We had several great conversations when we got there, but the last conversation of the day was really special. It was with two women who had been best friends for 25 years, and both loved God. They had questions about how to minister to their families in regard to ancestral worship, because they desired to be a witness to them, but didn’t know which scriptures to use. We were able to give them some tools to use as they ministered to their families back home. At the end of the conversation, one of the women told us that she has been dealing with terrible back pain for the last several years, and as soon as we walked through her front gate all the pain went away! We had been praying that God would work unusual miracles through us, like when healing would come to people just by Peter’s shadow falling on them, and we’ve actually been seeing it!
God is doing amazing here, and we’re blessed to be a part of it. The need is so great, that just by showing up God is able to do mighty things. We want to say thanks so much to all of our supporters who are partnering with us in finances and prayer to keep us out here. We have the best team, and we feel your prayers.
Speaking of prayer, here are a few things you can be believing for with us this month:
That our internship class would continue to fill up for next year with all the people God wants to wreck for Himself and missions in South Africa.
Wisdom as we lead the missionary interns we are in charge of, and that they would continue to grow in health and maturity.
That God would give us rest and strength as we do ministry and spin all the other plates that being a full-time missionary comes with.
That we would connect well into our new church and community here.
The Bridgfords in South Africa 