JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – “The World Cup is over, but South Africa is still here,” said a missionary with the International Mission Board (IMB) serving in Johannesburg.

The prayer of IMB urban missionaries in South Africa is that God would use the soccer World Cup to draw attention to the lost people of the nation’s cities.

IMB missionaries minister in five cities that were hosts of the 2010 World Cup: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.

Wade Coker, the lead IMB strategist for southern Africa, said the Gospel was shared with thousands of people across South Africa, and hundreds made decisions to follow Christ. In Cape Town alone, Coker cited 287 people receiving Christ.

“To me the most critical work and sometimes the most difficult work in these types of events is going to take place now in the coming month or two,” Coker said, “and that is following up the decisions and … gathering the people together in Bible studies and in new outreach groups.”

Read Part I

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Bruce and Sheri Erickson were missionary kids who met in boarding school in Kenya. After college, they married, had two children and were public school teachers in California.

Almost five years ago, the Ericksons felt God leading them to work with foster children. One family in their church had just taken in a foster baby girl, Madison, whom Bruce and Sheri began spending time with.

Unsure of God’s purpose for them in the three-month-old baby’s life, Bruce and Sheri prayed how they could be obedient to what God might be leading them to do.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — He was a missionary kid from Ethiopia and Kenya. She was also a missionary kid from Kenya. Now, Bruce and Sheri Erickson are missionaries ministering to young people with their three kids in Cape Town, South Africa.

Bruce was born in Ethiopia and lived there until he was 10, when he and his family returned to the United States for a time due to unstable political situations in the country. After two years, they returned to the mission field to serve in Kenya, where Bruce met his future wife in boarding school.

Sheri was just a teenager when her family left the U.S. for Kenya to serve in medical missions.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — It is known to be one of the most dangerous townships in South Africa. More children are murdered here than anywhere else in the country.

The Nyanga township near Cape Town International Airport may have a reputation of violence, but volunteers from Forest Hills Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, are not letting that stop them from shining the light of Christ in an otherwise dark place.