Youth set to share God in South Africa

Sixteen young people from the Wahroonga Seventh-day Adventist church youth group The Way, will be flying to South Africa to help a Zulu village and an AIDS orphanage in July.

The trip will include running a kids club program and an evangelistic series at a Zulu village in the KwaZulu-Natal Province, as well as helping with sustainable projects at the Richards Bay AIDS orphanage.
“There is a great need in Africa for a bit of help and aid support,” says Renee Wawrzyniak, a final-year natural medicine student. “It is an opportunity to spread God’s word in the middle of a country filled with tension.”
While in South Africa, the group will be involved in 10-day mission program with kids club activities in the mornings and evangelistic meetings in the evenings. They will be giving Bible studies, organising craft workshops and helping with improving the quality of life of the Zulu village in the town of Dundee.
The group will also spend time working at the Richards Bay AIDS orphanage on various projects. According to Ms Wawrzyniak, the group hope to “set up a playground, plant a vegetable garden, paint and do some repair work on their buildings.”
Mr Chris Jenkins, a software engineer, sees the trip as an opportunity to get out of his secure boundaries and try something different. “I have never been on a mission trip before,” he says. “I hope to be able to spread the message of God to these people and give them something better in their village that they can use.”
More than $A10,000 has been raised by the group over the past six months. All money raised will go into funding sustainable projects and the purchase of water-purification units.
They hope to raise another $A10,000 more and have been on fundraising projects like a 40-kilometre walk from Circular Quay to Wahroonga in March, taking up offerings in churches as well as performing “backyard blitzes” on people in the community.
Group members are funding their own expenses, drawing from their own savings and embarking on their own fundraising projects such as the selling of chocolates to friends and colleagues.