"Cast your burdens unto to me. I am doing something beautiful and new." Today, good news will be brought to a tough community. The prayers that you brought to me today, I am able.

It was wet and cold and his heart was going out for the people there. And at that moment, I realised that I would have driven past that place without even noticing it.

When Audrey walked into Chigodole, she was as unexpected as the cold front that hit us. And then she spent ridiculous, generous time with the most unexpected home.

I don't think we can understand grace. I don't think we can understand healing until we look brokenness in the eye, and we see the depths of the pain around us.

This young girl, 15-years-old, went to the city of Goma to try to find money to get her grandmother to the clinic. And she herself came back from Goma city sick, tired and disillusioned.

The word spread out that we are doing assessments. Walking through the community. Watching grandmothers and widows.

These grandmothers, these Care Workers, they just sensed the vulnerability, the openness, the real personal contact that they had with these young leaders. I tell you some of our senior leaders stood there with their mouths hanging open, when they saw how deep these young people went with our grannies.

I looked at the young boy as the tears ran down his face. There was a pain and an anger and a hurt. You know, it's times like that, when words dry up.

The soon coming kingdom that promises no more tears, no violence, no sexual abuse, no hunger, no diseases. We have the opportunity to show glimpses of this kingdom and to bring hope in a place that seemed to be hopeless.

“There was a moment last year where she had no food in her hut for her grandchildren. Nothing! And they were all thrown out of school because she couldn't pay. She couldn't pay for them.”

"It's just wave after wave of malaria and typhoid". He just wept as he spoke to us. "I just can't work for longer than two, three weeks and then I'm down with malaria. I just don't recover."

Because the moment they walk out of those gates, they walk into a whole new world. They've got to fight for food and care for each other and their families.

Can you see the pain in the beauty? Can you see the beauty in the pain? It's only when you bring the two together that we authentically, genuinely see Christ in all.

Late that night, the guys sat around the fire and they exchanged their life stories as they share with each other. It was amazing. It was like a Holy moment just watching this and seeing what God was doing.

How could this happen to one family? Where is Miracle's mom, Tawonga today? Maybe having an attack somewhere, in a strange place alone and vulnerable. Kennedy sat quietly watching Fanny. I could see he in deep thought. A quiet man, understanding pain and loss too well.

“Meanwhile in Africa…” is a short format podcast from Hands at Work in Africa. Each week George Snyman shares stories form the ground – people he spends time with in the poorest and most vulnerable places: from the coastal slums of a massive city in Nigeria to sitting around a small cooking fire in the forest of the Congo or under the thatched roof of a mud hut in the mountains of Eswatini.
These are ultimately stories of hope. We welcome you to the 6th season of this show that is a glimpse into the real lives of people that you otherwise may not have even imagined.

This is Meanwhile in Africa…