3. First Time To Cape Town

When I graduated from high school in May 1999, I wanted to travel but also do something worthwhile. I looked into some mission organizations to see what kind of programs they offered.
After looking at several options, I decided to go with a Discipleship Training School, otherwise known as DTS, with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The DTS is a six-month school that is the entry course for the University of The Nations and also just a good school to allow people to “get their feet wet” in missions.
The first three months are lectures on foundational Christian teachings and principles and the second three months is a practical outreach phase. I was one step ahead, because I knew that I wanted to attend the school, but the question was where was I going to do it? YWAM has hundreds of bases all over the world.
I was given a book with a list of all the locations of the bases and I was told to prayerfully go through it. Well, I did and the base that really stuck out to me was Muizenberg, South Africa.
Muizenberg is a suburb of Cape Town. I had never heard of it in my life but I prayed about it, and got some confirmations that Muizenberg was the place for me to go.
One of the confirmations was from a friend who happened to be in South Africa during the time I was making the decision of where I should go.
I knew he was in Africa but I had no idea which country. When he came back to the States, the first time he saw me he came up to me and said that it was the weirdest thing but everywhere he went he saw my face when he was over there.
I asked him where exactly he had gone and he started naming the names of the different places. Most of them were suburbs of Cape Town and they were mentioned in the book I had been looking through. I could hardly believe it. I excitedly told him that I had just decided to go and attend a school in one of the very places he mentioned.
That was a pretty big confirmation for me. After a few more confirmations like that one, I officially decided on Muizenberg. I applied for the school and got accepted, and I was off.
The first three months of my school were in Muizenberg, South Africa and my outreach phase was in India. In the first three months I really enjoyed meeting all the new people from all over the world and I also enjoyed the classes.
As a part of the school, each student had to serve two days a week with a local ministry. I worked with an after-school program in an impoverished area and I went on a night soup outreach that went into downtown Cape Town. The soup outreach was lead by the people at Beautiful Gate, which is a YWAM-affiliated home for street kids that is also in Muizenberg.
At that time, they would take soup into town every other Thursday and serve it to the kids and adults living on the streets. I really enjoyed both of my ministries!
I remember the first night on soup outreach. We arrived in downtown and stopped the van when we saw a group of kids. I saw that the kids were hard and though they were kids they were rough and did not act like any other kids I had ever been around. They were not really that interested in talking to us and I realized we were going to have to put forth the effort. I also quickly saw that the kids were not quick to trust anyone, mostly because they have been picked up and thrown down so many times in their lives.
The first night I met a kid that the others call Hoppi, because he only has one leg. I was amazed at the authority this fourteen year old, one-legged kid had over the other boys. He was definitely a leader amongst the other kids.
Little by little the kids began to open up to us. It came to a point where I and a few other students enjoyed going so much that we started going on the other Thursdays that Beautiful Gate did not take soup into town.
I enjoyed learning more about this curious lifestyle of kids that were living on the streets. I also loved being around them and was always amazed at the life and excitement that they had to offer.
A friend, Ronel, and I started going into town on weekends and any other time we could to hang out with the kids. We would go every Saturday and there was a particular group that would wait for us and meet us at the train station.
In those beginning days of building relationships, I would buy meat pies and drinks for me, Ronel and any of the kids that were around and we would sit and eat and they would tell us about the life on the streets, sing and just never cease to amaze us.
They showed us all around Cape Town and taught us the “ways of the streets”. I looked forward to any opportunity I could get to hang out with them.