Impacting the Youth: Philiswa's Story
The Abounding Hope family is made special by our volunteers who not only dedicate their time to bettering the lives of others, but also making an everlasting difference. No one carries this sentiment more than Philiswa Lwana, who has dedicated 9 years of her life to Abounding Hope Community Development.
“What led me into ministry is that I felt that there was a lot of young people, like myself at the time, who just needed to experience Jesus in a different light and understand that you don’t have to fix your life before coming to Christ. You can just be with him while you’re a mess in your situations then,” Philiswa said.
After falling pregnant and giving birth at the age of 14 in 2007, she gave her life to the lord. Upon completing high school, Philiswa would go on to pursue her studies in University and in 2016 she would reach out to Shirley Oosthuizen about getting involved with Abounding Hope.
“I was still in varsity and I asked Shirley a lot of questions about the ministry, if I could shadow her around the community and see what she does. From then on, I fell in love with what Abounding Hope stands for, and what they have done,” she said.
Since then, Philiswa assumed the role of Youth facilitator and also co-ordinates and organizes the women’s events. “I often go with Shirley to the homes of the some of the families living in Masinenge. Part of the youth fulltime ministry in Masinenge and has been a big thing for me,” she added.
When asked about where all the passion stems from, she had this to say: “The most fulfilling thing for me is that I have been able to see generational curses being broken, I’m able to see young people view life through a different lens, regardless of their circumstances. Their language changes, the moment they come into youth. They continue to grow and become more positive. Getting feedback from families of how they received breakthrough in areas of their lives where they had been facing struggle,”
“We’ve even assisted sex workers in changing their lives. In the next 5 years we would like to have a fully functioning Youth Centre, more people buying into our skills programme all while acquiring more funding and more people being involved. To see the kids in our youth go to college and university,” she said.