Johannesburg, South Africa - Southern African Youth Camps

Our Southern Africa family of churches, which is comprised of 12 countries, have a passion to see the next generation of kids being trained and raised in the fear of God. One way in which we do this is by having camp annually for children between the ages of 9 and 17 years.

Having been trained by Camp Swamp CC from Atlanta GA, USA for three years, the 22 churches across Southern Africa have held Youth Camps since 2011. God has been gracious in helping us see our camp grow from one week of camp to two weeks of camp with each camp hosting 160 campers.

We have also seen our children understand and appreciate how big the Kingdom of God is, as well as see friendships being forged across cultures, races and countries as they have enjoyed each-other’s company during camp.

Because of distance, high travel costs to and from Camp, as well as the number of the children within our region, we saw the need to take the spirit of camp to other countries. Through the undying support of Camp Swamp CC and the generosity of the Columbia Church in 2015 we managed to start a three year Camp planting in Harare, Zimbabwe and this December 2018 by God’s grace we will be starting another camp planting in Maputo Mozambique.

Not only is the camp work spreading across Southern Africa we are also very grateful to God on how we are seeing souls being added to his kingdom across the region. An amazing story and example of this comes from our 22 member church in Madagascar whereby a few disciples in our fellowship of churches in the US and France sponsored two boys, Nico and Tien, from Madagascar in 2016.

Living in one of the poorest countries in the world, off the east coast of Africa, where about 70% of the population live below the poverty line; with the average ticket from Madagascar to South Africa costing $1200 and an additional $220 for camp it’s impossible for an average family to even think of sending a child to camp.

However for Nico (pictured second from right in the back row below) and Tien (pictured second from right in the front row below) their attendance was made possible through the generous donations of disciples overseas.

Their mere presence at Youth Camp 2016 was an inspiration for the whole church in Tana, who had felt forgotten for a long time. The Madagascar church receives visits from disciples from other churches about twice a year. Nico and Tien
returned home from camp and started studying the bible. In October, Nico and Tien’s brother Ambinina (second from left below, who is a university student) made Jesus the Lord of their lives, and Tien was baptised in November.

A year later two teen girls, Diana and Safi, were also privileged to attend Youth Camp 2017 in Johannesburg South Africa. We are again grateful to God for making it possible for them to attend camp.

God however helped reignite Diana’s father Bendere’s faith (pictured below). In January 2018, he was restored to the fellowship. Bendere was the first disciple to be baptised when the church was planted in 1999.

In addition in August 2018, Nico’s sister Tinah (in purple) was baptised; she’s a campus student. The Madagascar fellowship was recognised as a church in 1999 and a few years later, under the leadership of the late Wilner and his wife Chantal Cornerly, grew to around 80. Since the early 2000s the church has had no full-time staff and saw their number dwindle.

The camp visits however of these young people show that there is an eagerness from the young people in the church to
establish a relationship with God. It also shows us how one baptism can lead to a domino effect, and that a mustered seed faith goes a long way to resuscitate, inspire and encourage even a shrinking church.

The Madagascar story is just one of the many stories in which Camp is helping to inspire faith in our family of churches. At a cost of $220 per camper we understand that camp is not cheap and many of our children need help to make it to camp. In fact 40% of the children who attend camp are part sponsored or fully sponsored; and yet God has been faithful and continues to be faithful in helping us achieve milestones.

From having no camp 10 years ago to seeing a first camp of 204 campers in 2011, we have seen God making it possible for close to 500 campers attend camp in a year starting 2018. As recipients of these miracles we can only say thank you God. Thank you God for putting it on the hearts of our brothers and sisters in the US to raise money, come to our continent and teach us start Camp in Southern Africa. Thank you God for the generous givers who help in both small ways and big ways to contribute for our children to attend camp. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You God.