Christian Family Fellowship–Johannesburg
Sunday, July 27th, 2014 – pm.
By the time Bryce Whiting and I had arrived and processed through immigration at the Johannesburg airport, it was about 5pm. We were picked up by pastor Julius Goredema of CFF: Christian Family Fellowship, and his assistant, Michael. It was cooler than I was prepared for, so the first thing Michael did was loan me a coat from the trunk of his car. This was only the first of several acts of kind consideration that we experienced from these wonderful people. Although we were only there for a short while, and on our way the next day, still they went out of their way to welcome us, and celebrate our relationship.
The men took us to their church sanctuary and showed us around the building. It is in a well developed area of the city. Part of the property had been a school previously, a Julius plans to open a bible school there. For now, Julius serves as a principal of another school in the area.
The sanctuary itself is L-shaped with seating coming from two directions facing the pulpit. There are musical instruments to the side of the pulpit – this feature reminded me of the set-up in many of the churches in the Philippine cities.
The meeting we had this night was with some of CFF’s ministry leaders. It was an opportunity for Bryce and myself to get acquainted with these people, and share a little about our work. After we spoke, several of the leaders shared about the ministries that they had been involved in recently.
- We learned about a recent women’s conference the church sponsored, empowering women who had suffered abuse to repair themselves in Christ. The theme was based on the book of Nehemiah.
- The head of the men’s fellowship spoke about how they are working on funding projects for new worship instruments.
- The finance director of the church talked about their project for helping local orphans.
I was really blessed by this brief meeting. I saw the passion to make a difference in Christ’s name here. Seeing that is itself worth the trip.
jeffersonvann 