The Website of Miah and Michelle Collins

Hello again from South Africa!

We hope you all are doing well and that you haven’t completely forgotten us over here in South Africa. We have had a great couple of weeks with J-life and we are excited about what God is doing.

Right now our main job is overseeing three teams that are out doing ministry in different churches in South Africa. We have a team in Durban working on setting up a youth ministry in a Baptist church, a team in Richard’s Bay working with another Baptist church, and a team in Tzaneen working with the Methodist, Anglican, and Baptist churches there. So, we keep in contact with them and make sure they are keeping themselves healthy while also focusing on the right strategic goals. I (Michelle) am now working to set up resources for our new website and I am also dealing with an issue of discipline for one of our teams, in which God has moved in my life in huge ways, teaching me how to rebuke in love and wisdom.  But speaking of the website, if anyone has any youth ministry resources that we could put up on our website for all our African youth ministers, I would greatly appreciate it.

Miah has just finished the second of the Intern weeks, where he facilitates and plans all the activities, exams and lecturers. Miah and Jann have also created a policy now for the interns and for the future of this program. They are making many improvements on keeping each student accountable and helping these African guys and girls to get seminary degrees while doing ministry part time (and some are working as well) which is a very difficult process. It was a good week and they got many things accomplished with the interns and have also created more unity among the group which is an incredible thing because they are all working in very different places racially, economically, and spiritually.

We are about to take our week of vacation for the year and go with some friends camping in Mozambique. Please pray that God will use this time for us to renew our joy, hope and passion for the people of Africa.

Michelle and I have just finished STeM (Short term equipping missions) which has kept us out of touch with the wider world for the past two and a half weeks. About 100 young people came to the farm in two groups to be trained in short term missions. They were trained in areas such as cultural taboos, how to plan a mission, finding contacts, gaining trust and building relationships in a community, and how to share their own story and the hope they have in Jesus Christ. Michelle taught a seminar about Spiritual gifts which she really enjoyed.
After about 4 days with us they were sent in groups to 7 different communities where they could put these things into practice. I’ve always enjoyed short term missions, especially how it forms young people to think outside of themselves and their world and to consider others first. Michelle and I also led a team into Hillbrow, an area in central Johannesburg known for being a melting pot of the entire African continent. The church we worked with there had only about 40 members from 11 different countries! Michelle got many opportunities to speak French and we both got the chance to invest into peoples’ lives.
We were in an area known for alcohol and drug abuse amongst so many other social challenges facing the young people. Our team of 19 guys and girls grew tremendously as they shared the hope within them to youth in the parks and homes in the area. Our theme for the week was Romans 15:13 which says “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
There were so many great testimonies from the 2 weeks, but also great challenges. One group did the bulk of their ministry in a refugee camp where they encountered embittered people who had fled oppression in their own countries only to find more violence against them here. The team was challenged to follow God’s way by caring for the sojourner. They also spent time washing and clothing Aids sufferers who were too sick to do this themselves.
When the teams returned to the farm for their final dinner together and recap a guy named Nini had a powerful reminder: “This was not just an experience. These were real people we have been spending time with and real lives who will face the same challenges tomorrow as they did when we were with them. Don’t let your heart stop hurting with them even though you are gone. Let God grow that passion in you.” And that is my prayer for every person that was here.
A big encouragement for me was having my little brother, Jordan, here for STeM. If you know Jordan you won’t be surprised when I tell you that everybody here loved him. He generally leaves quite an impression wherever he goes. He was really challenged and enjoyed his time here (even though he had to sacrifice most of his winter holiday!) Maybe I can get him to write a short message on here about his experience sometime.
On a more personal note, Michelle is struggling quite a bit with culture shock. We knew this was something that would come up and that it was going to be a struggle for her more than for myself. Please pray for her, that God would continue to sustain her passion for people and for Africa as she adjusts to the new lifestyle and cultural values. Also pray that we would be humble, seeking to understand other than to be understood, and to be open to new things before we try to change others.
We are no longer the only Americans with J-Life! The Evans’ have just arrived from McKinney, Texas. I met Dave, the father, earlier this year, but we will be meeting the rest of the family for the first time tomorrow, showing them around Heidelberg, and helping them with their transition. God is really expanding our team here.
Its hard to try to describe what we do here from day to day. Sometimes you may struggle to figure out how everything fits together, and for that I apologize. But instead of being discouraged, let it rather inspire you to start saving up to come and visit us!
You are all a gift and encouragement to us. Thanks again for your prayers and support.

So this morning, like many mornings that we drive into the farm, we saw many people on the side of the road trying to get a ride into town, or out of town, or wherever they need to go. Miah and I have a sort of rule, for safety, that we will only pick up women and children on the farm roads or from the farm roads trying to get to Heidelburg. But even then, it is so hard to just drive past these men who can clearly see that we have space in our warm car while they have to stay in the cold and spend half an hour to an hour trying to find someone to take them into town.
But this morning, as usual, we saw a woman with a baby and two small kids walking along the 9km dirt road, so we stopped to pick them up.  Most of them don’t speak English too well, so I usually settle on speaking through smiles, laughter, hand motions, or the minuscule amount of Zulu that I know. This morning, I looked back as they settled into the seats and smiled at the little girl behind me. But her face made an impression on my mind that I think will stay with me a long time. She looked at me with what seemed like a look of shame, and confusion.
I tried to put myself in her shoes and this questioned burned in my head, I felt like she was questioning in a way that only young innocent minds can question, “What makes you so different that you get this warm car while I have to walk for miles every morning holding my little sister’s hand?” And my only answer to this question was that I had had the privilege of being born in the United States, while she, she had the privilege, yes privilege, of being born here in Africa.  I know that when we look on the physical, immediately we can see that I am the blessed one. But I have had the opportunity to experience more than what we can see and feel. I have experienced the profound, resilient, beautiful spirit of the African people. And when I think about the spiritual, I believe that they are the blessed ones. And I see a freedom in that spirit that Americans rarely experience, if they experience it at all. Now, we could all go into arguments of what is the actual definition of blessing, etc, but at this particular moment in history when I was in the car with this little girl, even though our cultures are worlds apart, I knew that there was a common bond of humanity and womanhood that united us, and that this bond is a powerful connection. Near the end of the car ride, this little girl’s sister just burst out laughing, and then she started laughing as well. I don’t know what she was really laughing about, but by the end of the ride, we were all laughing. Beautiful.