Hands On impacts South Africa

Shawn Hendricks
International Mission Board

It’s one of those moments where you can almost hear crickets chirping. Two young adults are trying to get a room full of high school students to open up about issues they face at home.

Silence.

A sea of blue and white uniforms begins to move as the teens fidget and squirm. Jay Dannelley and Chris Reasner wait for someone – anyone – to bail them out. Just as they’re about to toss this exchange into the hall of fame of awkward moments, some of the students at this school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, start talking.

“Drugs,” says one. “Abuse,” says another. “Anger.”

Slightly stunned by the response, Dannelley and Reasner, short-term missionaries with the International Mission Board, seize the opportunity to encourage the class to share their struggles with others. They also discuss how faith in God can change lives.

“They come to school having a lot of baggage with them,” says Dannelley, wearing a Texas Tech baseball cap, from the school he attends, and a T-shirt with the words “Jesus Christ: King of Kings” on the front.

“We try to tell them, ‘You can change your school. You can make it better … if you are on fire for the Lord.’”

Hands-on experience
During a four-month stint with the IMB’s short-term missions effort called Hands On, Dannelley, a member of First Baptist Church in Pecos, Texas, and Reasner, a member of Easthaven Baptist Church in Kalispell, Mont., worked in several high schools in Port Elizabeth. They taught classes on self-esteem and shared their Christian faith during sports clinics. At the end of each day, they hoped to have impacted young lives and learned something more about missions.

They were two of 44 college and seminary student participants in Hands On throughout Africa in summer 2008. After they completed their assignment, a new team arrived a few weeks later.

Others are working in Tanzania, Niger, Senegal and the Ivory Coast. In 2009, opportunities to serve will be available around the world.

A taste of missions
Hands On is designed to give young people a taste of life on the mission field.

“I think with coming for a longer period of time you really get to experience the culture,” says Reasner, a student at the University of Montana.

“You really get to see what life is like because it becomes your lifestyle.

Crime, suicide and gangs
With its scenic beaches and warm temperatures, Port Elizabeth attracts tourists, but Reasner and Dannelley saw the darker side.

They worked with the Cape Malay, a people of mixed races who trace their ancestry to Malaysian slaves of Dutch settlers. The slaves intermarried among a group of South Africans, now known as the “bushmen.” The Cape Malay live in some of the roughest areas, where 70 percent of the city’s crime is reported.

“The schools are the most dangerous [areas] of all,” says Wayne Barros, a local Baptist pastor and Cape Malay man who worked in high schools for the past 12 years.

“There have been a lot of cases of stabbing, getting guns into school.”

One evening while riding on a street near his church, Barros spots a couple of young people behind a bush lighting what looks like a cigarette. Barros says they’re not smoking tobacco.

“Dagga,” he says, pronouncing it da-ha. It’s what Americans know as marijuana.

Gangs are also a problem, says missionary Boyd Hall, who works with Barros and helped supervise Dannelley and Reasner. Hall scans some recent photos of students, looking closely for gang signs and their signature colors.

“I didn’t see any of them flashing gang signs with their fingers,” he says.

“If you [had] known what you are looking for, you would have seen their tag markings in the schools,” he adds. “Those schools are rough. There are a lot of [gangs] there.”

Suicide is another major issue. There is a bridge at the edge of the city where many people have jumped to their death; so many that the city installed a video camera and an emergency phone.

Small beginnings
In a city of 1 million people, Hall knows he and his team are up against a mighty challenge.

“I had a professor who told me to celebrate the day of small beginnings,” he says.

His two Hands On missionaries are part of that small beginning, Hall believes.

“You see two guys that just really love the Lord and really love young people,” he says. “They’re doing the jobs that I was doing in my second year as a journeyman [missionary].”

One afternoon, students crowd into a classroom. Some stand on desks. Some sing and dance. Others nibble on their lunch. To an outsider, the situation borders on chaos.

For those in the room it’s a typical monthly Christian club meeting of praise and worship.

A Muslim boy walks in wearing a traditional hat. He asks Dannelley if he needs to take it off. He’s allowed to wear it, and he is welcomed into the meeting. Before long, he’s singing praise songs with the others.

Go
Students, the IMB’s Hands On program provides you a chance to spend a semester or two overseas working alongside missionaries.
• Check out www.thetask.org/handson.
• Call the IMB’s student mobilization team at (800) 999-3113, ext. 1434.
• If you attend a Baptist seminary or college, ask whether your school works with the International Mission Board to offer bachelor-level missions studies that include participation in Hands On. These partnerships may enable you to obtain college credit while spending at least a semester on the mission field sharing the love of Christ.