SO A LOT OF WORK AND PLANNING HAS GONE INTO THE YOUTH OUTREACH WEEK KNOWN AS "AWOL" -A WORK OF LOVE-
AWOL
Inspiration: God’s heart
Church in Empangeni: The body of Christ
Servants: Teenagers
Target: The City of Empangeni
It was in February 2009 when 4 guys from 4 different churches met and there was an agreement in Spirit that God was about to do something that only him can do and that he was only looking for obedient vessels to be able to catch the Father’s heart and run with his vision for the city of Empangeni for time such as this.
The team never looked back but continued to seek the will of God for such enormous task. This idea was then submitted to the fraternal and received their blessing and the buying in for support from the churches leaders, and also the inputs of wisdom and past experiences of the men and women of God from these churches were instrumental in stirring the whole project www.aworkoflove.co.za.
As we were about to start the camp God laid this word in my heart, the same prophetic word that Zachariah spoke after the birth of John the Baptist because God was bringing something to life in our city and his light will shine on us.
Luke 1:77-79
To give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."
The Lord really honoured us in every area that made this event a success and opened our eyes to the bigger picture of what God is doing in the spiritual realm:
· Parents who entrusted us with 140 willing teenagers
· Men and women in different teams with different talents and gifts who worked around the clock behind the scenes and sacrificed their family time and personal commitments to respond to the call of God
· Generosity of Faithfull stewards of God’s resources
· The volunteers who made themselves available to serve, from cleaning of toilets, serving food, washing up, transport and security checks etc.
· A perfect venue for this particular event.
· Prayer warriors who stood in a gap interceding for every detail of AWOL
A typical day at AWOL from Monday morning to Friday afternoon
Rise and shine at 6:30am, this was the shower time and then breakfast, followed by a briefing in a hall which entail the sharing of the word of God to remind the teenagers that in all the fun and excitement that they were having they needed to come and be quite before the Lord for them to be able to hear his will. The teens will then move to the rugby field where they were allocated to various outreaches for the day and collected their lunch packs. The outreach leaders will then make sure that they are transported to different locations for outreaches.
The outreaches started from 9:00am and the teens were back at the campsite at 15:30pm, then there were different activities taking place for teens to have more fun together, things like volley ball, soccer and touch rugby. After that the teens will have shower and get ready for supper. The climax of the day was at 7:00pm whereby the teens will gather in a hall and view slide show of pictures taken from different outreaches of the day and sms massages were also flashed of the screen from parents and friends to the campers. The night was ended with a celebration by the sharing of the word of God and praise and worship to give thanks to the Lord for what he was doing.
During the celebration meetings we really experienced a tangible presence of God and we witnessed an awesome response of teenagers recommitting themselves and others giving their lives to God for the first time.
On Friday afternoon the teenagers had completed 78 outreaches ranging from hand over of 200 blankets in support of DICE (Do I care enough), baked 580 muffins for Hope feeding scheme and to thank Empangeni Police station and fire station, made sleeping bags for disaster management, a day of fun games and soccer matches in parks, puppet shows and face paintings at the local mall, parks maintenance, planted trees and teens spent time helping out at SANCA, CANSA, Empangeni police station, Court house, Child Welfare, Home Affairs and SPCA.
The camp was ended on a high note with a no admission fee live concert on Friday night and the community joined to celebrate with the teenagers the unforgettable week. The local band from Thandaza Church open the night with a praise and worship, the teens offered a moving Jesus play and a sizzling dance performance. The Christian bad Singletrack from Cape Town completed the night with their wonderful tunes and the teens didn’t show any signs of fatigue from the hard labour of the whole week as they dance and sung along to the songs declaring the SOVERIEGNITY OF GOD!
