On the plane, we could see our progress. While watching this I grew more and more excited as we got closer. This is what I've been preparing for! Once we got there I was in such a sense of shock that I was actually there.
A few days later our ministry began. We went to Diepsloot, one of the largest squatter camps. About 210,000 people live there with most of them being in thier 30's or younger. Alcohol and drug abuse is huge in this community. Any where you go, you could find broken bottles and trash was everywhere.
There were kids walking around by themselves, many of them barefoot. I remember the first day there, it was pretty intense. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was shack after shack after shack. This place during the day is fairly safe but when the sun goes down, the crime goes up. Once it's dark or even about 5pm, the community changes. The drunks come out and drink more, thats when people are getting high. Break ins and beatings and rapes happen almost every night. Of all the woman in Diepsloot, most have been either raped or sexually abused, or physically abused. These people need Jesus! I talked to a woman who was 20, only a year older than me. She had a son who was probally about 1 maybe 2 years old. She looked so sad, she lived by herself, had no husband or boyfriend and was most likely raped. She was saved and became my sister that day! There's so many more women like her and so many who are in worse situations that may never be reached. Diepsloot is a dark place filled with ancestor worship, a cult claiming to be a Christian church, witch doctors, and alcohol, drug and other types of abuse. People were shocked that Americans would come to them, and take time to talk to them.
This is why I went:
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