Revival

Hello family & friends! We have two questions we have been asking ourselves that we invite you to ponder on as well: 1. Are you resting well? 2. Are you lingering in the Lord's sovereignty?

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” -Psalm 46:10

In this day and age it feels hard to keep up, and easy to feel swallowed up by the fast paced society we're living in. Combined with the challenges of experiencing grief, being still is something both Marco and I are learning to grow a lot in. We seem to always be on the move and on to the next ministry objective, task, event, meeting, bible study, session, lesson plan, etc. But there is valuableness in being still and taking time for moments of reflection in order to experience revival. We can see how God has significantly moved in a hard and rocky season of our lives, and how He is still working everything together for His glory and good.

One of the most practical habits we've created is every morning, before getting up, before making a cup of coffee/tea, before looking at our phone, we take a breath, and say out loud, "Good Morning Holy Spirit!" Simple as that. Best way to start our morning and day.

Since the start of the year, up until August 31st, we want to share with you and highlight some significant statistics in our prison ministry! We've led 32 services at both Pollsmoor Prison and Drakenstein Maximum correctional centers. 12 of those services were at female centers, and 20 were at male centers. In total, we've served 1,874 incarcerated people across those services, and 110 correctional officials (some of those numbers are the same person over the course of different Sundays). So far this year, we've witnessed 773 people give their life to the Lord and receive Salvation! At the moment, our team has 44 incredible people and counting as we always have at least one new volunteer on a Sunday joining us. It's truly an honor to lead amongst so many gifted, strong, and truly unique individuals!

These numbers shared above excite us as we know that revival is happening for each one of those people on a personal level within our prison ministry and in the correctional facilities. Another exciting announcement: Click here for the brand new: Hillsong Prison Ministry online page!

As we're nearing the end of the winter season here (June-August), we wanted to update what's happened in our lives and ministry like we said we would in our grief & grace post.

January

• On New Year's Day, Marco completely surprised me with a belated-birthday party! It was really special to start the new year gathered with so many friends (and eat birthday cake that a lovely friend of ours so sweetly made)!

• We took full advantage of the summer weather and the few weeks of break time for prison ministry, and went on a lot of trail hikes. We joined a running club, and Marco started doing sunrise swims in the ocean to start his day #fitnessgoals

• Before Sunday worship services started back up again, we met with our operations team to reflect on 2021, and shared each others' expectations, and took time to pray into our goals as a prison ministry for 2022.

• On January 22nd the Western Cape was the "hottest place in the world," and at 10pm we decided to go to the beach to get some fresh and hopefully cooler air. The beach was packed with people! Clearly not an original idea for that night of 90°F / 32°C.

• We had the privilege of being a host family for a prison ministry intern, Elizabeth from the US!

February

• We joined the weekly Project Exodus group, which was really beneficial to go through ourselves and learn as participants since we did the facilitators training back in November of 2021.

• We were invited to be on the "hot seat" as panelists and speak about dating and relationships at the Hillsong Youth in Mitchell's Plain.

• With the help of our core team, we created a Prison Ministry Guide booklet for our volunteers and new volunteers from church joining us. The 15 page guide outlines our heartbeat, expectations, and helpful information before serving behind bars.

• Click here to read Raeez's baptism story

March

• To start off the lent season in the lead up to Easter, we had our team gather with pancakes & a Bible Study.

• We had our second annual Colour Conference with the women who are a part of prison ministry. To be honest, I experienced quite a lot of spiritual warfare leading up to the Saturday where we gathered. But the Saturday went smoothly, and every detail came together at last! We honored a woman named Alison from Hope Prison Ministry's "Hands of Hope" organization. She was formerly incarcerated a few years ago, and is now rebuilding her life and family relationships. She has the most powerful singing voice, kindest smile, and her story is so encouraging for so many women.

• The next morning we stood out in the pouring rain for over 2 hours cheering on the local Cycle Tour 109km (~68 mile) bike race around the Cape Peninsula. We had quite a few friends riding from the Hillsong Africa Foundation team fundraising for the iHUB (a local innovation program for students of underprivileged areas to learn professional grade digital skills, leadership, job readiness, and access mentorship). We nearly lost our voices from cheering on all the cyclists passing by as it was inspiring to see them pushing through in such crummy weather conditions.

• We celebrated with our close friend Karabo as he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Science specializing in Finance with Accounting at University of Cape Town!! One smart, high achieving, young man!

• As if we didn't already have enough on our plate, we decided to crack open a 1000 piece puzzle that our friends blessed us with to, I don't know, punish ourselves? We completed it. But, did it raise our IQ? We have no idea...HAHA!

April

• We gathered for a Light Art Show with the boys and with our Mitchell's Plain church family (who we don't get to see nearly enough in person now, as we're mostly in the prisons on a Sunday).

• Marco made traditional South African "curry bunnies" all by himself (a combination of "vetkoek" (fried bread rolls) and curried mince (ground beef) and vegetables for our prison ministry volunteer bible study night / birthday celebration of our dear friend's son.

• Amelia was invited to go kayaking and we were super blessed to see the largest spotted pod of African Dusky dolphins!! It was the most remarkable marine experience ever! They swam all around us!

May

• Marco had the privilege of preaching at the Hillsong Cape Town City church location one evening! He spoke on "Hearing Jesus" teaching from the scriptures about blind Bartimaeus which he also shared at Pollsmoor Prison and Drakenstein Maximum this year.

• We held our semi-annual strategic meeting with our prison operations team! It was so encouraging to see that we are meeting goals that we set at the beginning of the year!

June

• We took Darren and his friends ice skating for his birthday with a yummy homemade South African peppermint crisp fridge tart (in lieu of a birthday cake).

• At the end of June, we celebrated Marco's mom's birthday. Even with loadshedding (national power outage grrrrr), we sang worship songs together as a family, shared a meal and a yummy caramel cake!

• Unfortunately, Amelia's renewal of her visa for South Africa took much longer than expected to be processed, and foiled her plans for visiting the states, and so alas had to miss her best friend Kate's wedding to her fiance Philemon. And also Eric (Amelia's brother) and Ren's wedding in July.

July

• We took the boys and Marco's mom on a mini road trip while we were on leave and the boys were on school break. We stayed on a farm with a nature reserve for a couple of nights. No neighbors, no sound of traffic. Just being still, breathing in the fresh, earthy air, going kayaking, gazing at the bright countryside stars, and watching all sorts of wild animals and birds!

• Amelia's brother got married in the states to his beautiful bride, Ren! We so wished we were there. Missing weddings and opportunities to see family is an extreme bummer. It's one of the realities of being a missionary and dealing with long waiting periods for visas apparently.

• Marco's sister and her family came to visit for a few days which was really nice to see everyone and spend time together. We had homemade cinnamon rolls for the second year in a row when they visited making it now a tradition! Tears were shed when they left, partially because it was 5am and they had a long drive ahead of them, but also because we realized how much it means to see and spend time with family. Raeez got out of bed to say goodbye, but was sleep walking with his eyes closed and chin down! Haha! So we said it was ok to go back to bed.

• Only at the end of the month did Amelia's visa come! Although a couple of months later than hoped for. Frustrating!! We're trying to see the bigger picture!

• Amelia got sick twice! A terrible cold and then a GI bug! Ugh!!

August

• Amelia led the first of hopefully more prison ministry trainings with women in ministries in Namibia and across South Africa who are hoping to teach Shine programs within the Female correctional facilities.

• Marco took the boys to their first ever Cape Town Football Club (Soccer) match! Pretty big deal! It reminded Amelia of going to Mariner Baseball games as a kid growing up! Ahh...some garlic fries and cracker jacks wouldn't be bad right now! ;)

• For South Africa's recognition of Women's Month here, we celebrated on the first Sunday in August with the Women at the female section of Pollsmoor Prison.

• We also celebrated Marco's Birthday and gathered with a few friends!

What we're currently busy with:

• Sunday worship services!

• Midweek bible studies at the female correctional center (with women of all ages who are sentenced and those awaiting trial).

• Presenting the STRENGTH program from Hillsong Africa Foundation with men who are about to be released from prison. Marco is currently journeying with one of the graduates from the program who is now released, and has been coming to one of our local church locations every Sunday, and also meeting with Marco midweek for check in's and accountability, and is now prayerfully awaiting an opening to a local rehabilitation facility.

• Amelia is helping coordinate and edit the revision of the contents of a "Restart Pack" for newly released clients which will include a written resource booklet of local hospitals, shelters, rehabilitation facilities, and our church locations, equip courses, including a hygiene pack, and more! We hope to release this in the new year.

• We are also in the process of designing a devotional catered for those behind bars! Some exciting stuff ahead in the next couple of months!

• Another one of our success stories is from our midweek bible study and Sunday services at the female correctional center: A woman who we'll name Chloe for the sake of privacy, was able to connect to one of our local church locations after being released, and is now being pastorally cared for and is connected back to our local church location. We've heard really great feedback as she's rebuilding her life on the outside alongside her husband and utilizing resources such as attending a recovery group during the week! How incredible! This is why we do prison ministry, for the one!

We hope this update was encouraging for you, as it has been for us. We'd also like to invite you to consider coming alongside us financially. It's been a challenging season for us behind the scenes, and we truly appreciate any help and support you're able to offer. There's so much need in our ministry, and we feel like we're barely getting to the tip of the iceberg. We know the global impacts this ministry has behind bars as well as in the local communities is far greater than ourselves, and we could not do any of it without you, so thank you!

Would you please consider being a monthly sponsor by donating $100 per month (or any amount you're able to give)? Your sponsorship would help cover the costs of our ministry donations we distribute, transportation, and project and administration costs. Thank you for coming alongside us as a missionary family, every amount is highly valued, appreciated. Your donations allows us to remain full time in ministry and expand our reach and impact.

We'll hopefully write again before Christmas time! We've got quite a few projects to solidify until then! Big hugs to all!

With Love,

The Lodewyk Family

P.S. Check out ways you can support us and pray alongside us on the Support Us tab above