Christ came to seek and save the lost, and has called us to that same mission, but I also have a huge heart to work with people who are already Christians. I have been very open about my heart’s desire to pour into people who are already Christians, especially young adults. Throughout the FYM program, and espcially through my time at the hospital, I feel like that call keeps getting confirmed. In February I have crossed paths with 3 different pastors and these interactions really strike me deeper. The first time was on the 9^th. In the morning I had journaled a short entry, just a few questions: God, who do you have for me to meet today? What do you have for me to say today? What do you have for me to do today? Where do you want me to be today? Well, those questions were answered pretty quickly. I was sitting in the waiting room (which is what Carly and I usually do until the first visitng hour begins at 11). As I was sitting there a man approached me and asked if I was from America (I had a Kansas City shirt on). He sat on a bench across from me and we engaged in the typical small talk, who are you (Thulani), where are you from, etc. When I asked his occupation he shared with me that he was a teacher in northern Pretoria, and also a pastor in Limpopo province at a church that’s about a 160 kilometer drive away. I asked if his church taught ancestor worship and he kinda laughed the question off in an “I can’t believe you just asked that” sense (His answer was no). We were able to talk for about ½ hour, and it turned out he is a very new pastor. He had done it for a short time a few years ago, and then just began again a few months ago. He’s drives back to his hometown at least every weekend to preach, and also sometimes for meetings during the week. Thulani is working on switching teaching positions with a woman who teaches up there so that he can be closer to his congregation. He is very hungry for information and was beginning to dig into things such as prophecy and was reading a book on curses. It was a very encouraging conversation for myself and I hope and pray it was the same for him as well.

The second pastoral encounter I had at Kalafong was on the 27^th,
  the one I wrote in the previous entry, with Joseph.

The third was on the 28^th, with a man named Chris. I was in the children’s ward and some people were in visiting one of the children. The man was walking around looking at the other children and he had a hat on that said “Jesus is Lord” so I told him that I liked his hat. He said that the phrase wasn’t only written on his hat but also his heart. Throughout the next hour, and I went back and forth between visiting the children and talking with him, I found out that he is a pastor at a church in Mamelodi, a township a little ways away. He had come to the hospital with a member of his church to visit her son, a 4 year old boy who broke his arm while playing with his brother. Chris became a Christian in the mid-90s and he shared a lot with me about cell groups. It was very cool to be able to talk church “logistics” and about community. Many churches around the world focus on misguided truth and also don’t put much into action about being the “body” of Christ and incommunity with one-another. I was able to share some things with him about a church in America, whose sermons I’ve been listening to, that requires all members to be part of a small group. I was able to pray over him for himself and his congregation.

There has been so much more to these conversations, a lot of life just in the small talk, but I wanted to share a glimpse of these interactions that God has brought into the ministry time I have at the hospital. Despite having only been a Christian for a few years, and also being somewhat young in age, I have been blessed by, and hopefully have also been able to bless, these three men, who have all been following Christ for more than 10 years, and are in formal positions to speak truth into many lives.