Brandon on SMASH

This SMASH trip was the most influential mission trip I have ever been on. During the trip, I volunteered to teach some of the younger kids during multiple days of our ministry, which is something that has never been required of me. I now look forward to more opportunities to do so in the future. This trip noticeably changed me, along with my teammates, in ways only God could have made possible.

On Sunday morning, after church, we made our journey to Johannesburg. The trip was long but enjoyable as we got to know some of the people on the trip with us and mentally prepared for the coming week. Monday morning we set out early for our first day of ministry. We ran a program for a daycare in the area. On Tuesday, we did door to door evangelism in a low income township called Zandspruit, after which we played games and had a meeting for some kids in the same area. This is an area that WOL works in on a regular basis. My task was to run the games. Wednesday, we set out to a church where we helped to teach evangelism to a small group of members. This was especially interesting for me as, after the group was given a quick tutorial by my father, each person in our team paired off with someone from their group. I was able to show the pastor my method of evangelism so that he might learn to do it himself. After the training we did street evangelism in the area. Thursday, we ran a youth group which would have normally been run by members of WOL that were away on another SMASH trip to Cape Town. My task was to teach the youngest children, while Pastor Louis took care of the older kids. We finished off our official ministry the next morning when we had a fun day for kids from the neighborhood on the WOL property. Most of our group broke off and worked on the property, as this was a smaller group and we didn't need quite as many people present. As previously, I gave the lesson to the younger kids and Pastor Louis took the older kids. We worked almost entirely with children during the mornings throughout the trip, but during the afternoons we did work projects on the Word of Life property.

I have been on many SMASH trips, but this one has been by far the most memorable. I was pushed out of my comfort zone and into the unknown and I could not have asked for anything else.

Thank you!
Brandon Hawkins