A One Life Visit to South Africa | Global Impact

We just returned from a Global Impact trip to South Africa where we shared a week with incredible people who are investing their lives in something bigger than themselves. Finally coming back to this country, post-pandemic, has been a gift. To see our One Life Team and kids was pure joy. Through One Life, our stories on both sides of the ocean are connected and being a part of another human being’s story is a beautiful thing—even when the stories are hard and broken, because we know that the common thread holding the fabric of our lives together is our hope in Jesus.

As we wrapped up our visit with our One Life partners in South Africa, we reflected on the influence and impact they have had on the lives of so many vulnerable children. Our One Life kids in this country live in some of the most desperate situations imaginable. Some have seen loved ones brutally murdered, and many have been raped, abandoned, and grossly neglected and all of them live knowing that their tomorrows promise them very little—in many cases, not even a meal.

This past week we saw our Care Centers providing our kids with a safe space—a place to hang out, to connect with friends, to get homework help and a meal, and to study the Bible and worship together. Our staff delivered food parcels to One Life families who had nothing to eat, living without electricity, water, or adequate shelter. We prayed with single moms, desperate for work and even more desperate to protect their children from high crime and violence, who have covered their shacks with cardboard boxes to keep out the cold, lined their shelves with newspaper to make their space feel more like home or built milk-carton and mattress-spring fences around their dirt yards to keep out the violence in their streets.

For all our sponsors out there, know your monthly sponsorship IS making a difference. Your faithfulness is markedly impacting lives, as your partnership with One Life changes communities one child at a time.

If you’re interested in taking a trip with us to visit your sponsored child, or would like to meet our South African partners and see first hand the incredible work they are doing in our One Life communities, contact Reneé Terrill at rterrill@westsidefamily.church.