The Website of Miah and Michelle Collins

Last week was a great week for ministry here as we are starting to see fruit coming from many different areas of our training. We heard from our staff in South Africa testimonies of the short term missions training in Zimbabwe. Let me give you a little background:

Zimbabwe is in one of the worst economic crises in history right now and many people are suffering and starving because of the exorbitant inflation rates daily. We have a country leader named Tarisayi who is a passionate incredible man of God, on fire for Jesus and his country. He has been trying to start a J-Life training center, but it is very difficult to set up any sort of organization in his political climate. So, Tarisayi got the vision from the Lord instead to run a short term mission training and he has been preparing leaders and has brought them to the South African version of this mission training and finally, he set up and directed this training two weeks ago. The training consisted of 4 days at a training center and then 4 days in communities and then one last day for an evaluation of the trip.

They had around 15 Zimbabweans attend this training and it was led by a group of 5 Zimbabweans ( we also had 5 South African staff there just to help out when needed). They went to many different areas around Zim., and shared the Gospel and served the people there. One of the most dangerous was a Zanu PF repossessed farm. This is the political party of Robert Mugabe, and what used to be a vast functioning farm, was now a complete waste where people are trying to live off less than $1 a day (if you have not been following this country’s story, e-mail Miah if you want more details).

But the most exciting part of this story is one of African disciples making other African disciples. I cannot tell you how stoked we get when we hear about leaders starting their own initiatives and changing their own countries for Christ! That is what we are all about!

We had two of our Malawian country leaders, who spent the four months with us, come down from Malawi to help Tarisayi with this short term mission training. And after seeing what Tarisayi is doing in his country, they are now wanting to do a short-term missions training in Malawi! The best part of that is that they have asked Tarisayi to come help them run their own training!

And to drive home the fact that these leaders now own the vision of making disciples, I have one last story. Our boss, Tara, the South African director of J-Life was giving the Malawians the ministry money that they needed to get transport back to Malawi. As she gave it to them, she said to them, “ I hope this is enough for you to pay for the bus”, and their response was, “ Tara, if it is not enough, it is not J-Life South Africa’s problem, it is our problem and we will make it work.” She says that this stunned her as she realized that even the financial help that these guys might need to get started is becoming their own problem and not our issue. It is this idea of independence that might seem a little strange at first, but if anyone has ever spent time in Africa, this mentality is something extremely hard to come by and it is something that I believe is the key to many of the problems the people here face. Our leaders are owning the vision! They are taking it and making it their own, contextualizing it, and taking their own initiatives from it. We are always there for them and are constantly encouraging them, but this independence and self confidence is something that words cannot describe. Praise the Lord for He is taking His children and empowering them and showing them the purposes He has for them in His Kingdom!

We just finished another training seminar in the Eastern Cape region of the country. We are now splitting the regions of South Africa to strategically promote and recruit in each region. Miah and I are in charge of the Eastern Cape which is also known as “the wild coast”. It has many beautiful cities and beaches but most are much smaller and les populated than the rest of the country. We love being in charge of this region and have met many amazing people as we make new connections there. Here is a testimony from the training we did last weekend in East London written by Ryan who is a youth pastor for First City Baptist:

on another note I want to thank you again, the course opened my eyes to the truth and I feel I know why and what i’m here to do. Make disciples. i’m very involved in missions and we plan on going into all Africa in the future but for now we just been to Zimbabwe 3 times. My aim was always to see miracles and healing, which we have seen, but that is not what its all about. its about making those people we meet disciples who make disciples. its such a simple instruction yet it has not been my sole focus. now it is, and it has rekindled something in me.