Who We Are
Our story begins with a group of 11 young people who sold everything and travelled around the world for a year. They had one goal: to see what God would do if they surrendered their lives to Him.
Back in their home country of South Africa, they found themselves dreaming beyond their own qualifications and ability. Emboldened by a faith that was not their own, they started a missions organisation, a school and a faith community in Jeffreys Bay.
In the beginning the focus was very strong on missions in other nations. We quickly realised that, in order to represent Jesus well in the nations, we needed to represent him well locally. Missions and a faith community, or church, run together. Like the chain and the sprocket of a bicycle they need each other to create forward momentum.
What started as a few people coming together for prayer on a Sunday afternoon in a living room, developed into various people from our community coming together in house churches and a Celebration service on Sunday afternoons. More and more people moved to Jeffreys Bay to join the work God was doing and in town word got out that God was moving. Over the years our faith community grew to 150 people.
The original 11 are therefore now numbered amongst hundreds of people, in Jeffreys Bay and around the world, that have chosen to give their lives in service of Jesus. They find themselves caught up in an exciting adventure of sharing Him with the world in creative ways.
God Seekers
God Seekers
The Verb is Seek
Definition
Seeking God is about living lives that seek Him in everything we do. He is our purpose and our passion.
The God of the universe said through Jeremiah that if we seek Him with all our hearts, we will find Him.
Origin Story
In 2007, Anna-Marie challenged about 20 young people saying, “Let’s sell everything we have and put what’s left in a backpack, and travel the world seeking God and serving people.”
We started this journey without a name. In asking God what our focus should be, He highlighted Psalm 84: “Blessed are those whose hearts are set on a pilgrimage.” We realised that this was not just a journey, but a pilgrimage. We have to fit everything we take with us into a backpack and simplify life like a pilgrim does, so our senses are opened up to discover. We also need to stay flexible to adjust plans along the way. The Word of God, faith and the Holy Spirit are central to our pilgrimage.
This was the birth of Global Challenge and of our core value, God-seekers. After that year, we wanted to see if the experience could continue and be turned into a God-seeking lifestyle. Every day since then, God has been inviting us into His adventure. As we follow step by step, He leads us to discover more of Himself.
The Essence
The Supreme God is inviting us into His inner circle, saying, “I can be found – you will find me”. There’s great exhilaration and joy when you look for a treasure and you find it.
We can’t be a God-seeker if we think we’re going to stumble upon Him along the way. The promise is only ours if we give ourselves to Him completely.
We also find that God sustains a life of full surrender. It’s a wholehearted journey. You’re allowed to take detours and have questions but it does require discipline. Spiritual disciplines are not heavy, but rather pathways to God’s freedom.
Live to Love
Live to Love
The Verb is Love
Definition
We aim to unselfishly love God and the people He has placed in our lives. Jesus said that the world would know we’re His disciples by our love for one another.
Origin Story
In the early days of Global when we travelled as a team together, almost every second week, we’d read in Scripture that we have to love each other. That’s the birth place of our community: where we travelled together and had to learn to love each other. Many years later, hundreds of people have moved to Jeffreys Bay to be part of something that God is doing here. There’s a generation that’s desperately looking for community – where love is real and authentic. That’s our challenge: to love as Jesus loves us, so that the world will know that we are His disciples.
The Essence
It’s a challenge to love when someone hurts us, to forgive, and to ask for forgiveness. If we don’t get this right, the world won’t know Christ. We emphasise what it looks like to love one another. The essence of life is to love.
Creative Ventures
Creative Ventures
The Verb is Obey
Definition
Creative ventures refer to the spaces where God places us where we have to be creative. We intentionally use our creativity and imagination to serve Him in new and innovative ways. God inspires us with ideas. Our task is to obey them.
Origin Story
After returning from our first year-journey, we settled in J-bay as a missions organisation. One day, when walking through a shopping mall that had closed down, the Holy Spirit prompted me (Anna-Marie) saying, “This can be a school”. This came as a shock as we had no expectation of venturing into education. We had no idea what we were doing. We just obeyed God step by step. Things kept unfolding as we were walking it out. Five hectares of land was donated, which turned into 7.5 hectares and over the years, we bought more.
We had no money, but we sensed God was saying, “Start with the foundations”. For three years, we built a school without any money from week to week. God provided in awesome, creative ways, never doing the same thing twice – always providing in new ways.
God brought more people into the story. Jacobus Scott had studied architecture and returned from our world journey after two years. Anna-Marie told him he had to design a school. He said he was unable to. He’d only studied and never designed anything. The school, Global Leadership Academy was Jakes’ first design.
The Essence
God’s Creativity
When we embarked on our first world journey, the phrase, “Climb the mountains, swim the oceans, run the trails” came to mind. There’s tremendous beauty in creation that reflects God’s glory.
We are passionate about God’s creation, but there’s more…
He invites us to join Him in creating.
An Invitation to Create
God invites us to co-create with Him. Ministry is a springboard where He allows us to do this together with Him. We’re often boxed in with preconceived ideas of what it should look like. There’s faith and risk involved. The essence is obedience. God, the Creator, invites us to create beauty, laughter, and spaces of joy and impact. We would miss out if we were thinking inside the box. God can and will and wants to create beauty on this earth. He wants us be a part of this.
Travel the Nations
Travel the Nations
The Verb is Share
Definition
We deliberately use simplistic means and circumstances to travel to foreign countries and nations where we’re dependent on God’s leading. We use opportunities He presents to share His love with people who might not otherwise have an encounter with Him.
Practical Application
Many years ago, just after the war in Bosnia, we had the privilege to help with camps. It was a mission to get into Bosnia! We were only able to get visas in Libya or London. We couldn’t get to Libya, so London it was! We had to travel through Europe for at least a week to get to our destination.
Taking young people with me (Anna-Marie) on these travels, I realised that many things happen organically as we do life together while travelling. The uncertainty, unpredictability and uncomfortable situations we go through are excellent opportunities for discipleship. They draw us to God in a new way.
After one of these trips to Bosnia, we went to an island, Korčula (said to be Marco Polo’s birthplace). I had read about Marco Polo’s travels from a very young age. I was prompted to take a group of young people around the world and see what God would do. This was the beginning of what would become our Global Challenge One Year journeys.
The Essence
At Global Challenge, we’re unashamedly in love with travel. There’s a stigma that only rich people can travel, but the Bible is full of travel-stories. God uses travel as a wineskin to produce fruit and new wine in our lives. Jesus travelled, Paul travelled and trained the disciples in this way. This is counter-cultural in a society where classrooms were created to keep people inside.
The journey is not about travelling in itself – it’s about people who matter to God.
Servant Leadership
Servant Leadership
The Verb is Serve
Definition
To lead well is to serve well. Jesus (God Himself) is our model. We need to be willing to get our hands dirty so we can build God’s kingdom.
Origin Story
For our very first world journey, we took a fresh approach to travelling to foreign nations. We asked how we could be effective in reaching people with a frame of reference that was vastly different from ours.
We bought round-the-world tickets and went into spaces and countries we had never visited before. We connected with people in whichever way we experienced the Holy Spirit’s lead. We learned to use gaps of time where we had to wait for a boat, train or plane to seek God.
He led us to serve wherever we went, from orphanages in India to helping people rebuild after a mudslide in Guatemala. Wherever His Spirit led, we were available to be used by God to very practically be His hands and feet to people He would identify.
On our return to South Africa, our Global leadership team was doing Church Planting training in Cape Town when a devastating fire destroyed 80 homes in the Red Hill settlement in Cape Town. The Holy Spirit prompted us to stop our classroom activities so we could help people rebuild their homes.
The Essence
We view Jesus washing the feet of His disciples as our blueprint for servant leadership. The essence of service is sacrifice. Jesus is our model. He didn’t simply do acts of service out of duty, He lay down His life and challenged His followers, saying, “You cannot be my disciple unless you give up everything”. To follow where He leads, we need to understand that this means that we are His servants.