The Community Called Blood N Fire, RSA

God sent us to Cape Town, South Africa seven years ago from Atlanta, Georgia where ten prior years we served the poor , homeless and addicted. We’d journeyed from being lay leaders to assistant pastors at Atlanta Vineyard Christian Fellowship, leading small groups and leaders of small groups to discovering God’s compassion and love for his people in the books of Nehemiah and Acts. We sought and served the poor in the inner city of Atlanta as there were no poor in our church. Our goal had only been for part-time Saturday outreach. It was not our intention to build relationship but only to provide food, clothing, prayer and extending an invitation to get to know Jesus. God seemed to have something for everyone, including those he'd sent to the poor! Pretty quickly our part-time Saturday outreach grew into full-time ministry and a church! Simultaneously while we were helping birth Blood N Fire my husband, Ned, and I attended our first Tres Dias retreats. God began building community in our hearts through our retreat weekends and the weekends we spent serving the people on the streets. We never imagined we’d sell our home, leave corporate America to build community first in the inner city of Atlanta amongst the poor and then in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa and the nations of Africa.

God began to reveal His plan for rebuilding family in community through the displacement of 60,000 people in District Six . Having served the poor on the streets of Atlanta, helped countless formerly addicted, homeless men and women get their lives back with Christ coupled with our experiences in the Tres Dias Community we felt very capable to begin building family in community in Cape Town and the nations of Africa. So we were very surprised when he began putting his plan to work in our very own little family!

Jesus modeled relationship with His Father through the twelve he called to himself. He shared his very life with them, teaching, training, and imparting all to them. Through a similar model we’ve begun to experience true evangelizing in today’s world more intimately and eternally through one on one relationships- and smaller communities called family. We’ve arrived at this conclusion via Holy Spirit’s leading as we spend time investing life in about twelve people at a time. We invite them to pray and discern also with whom God might be calling them to share the Christian life of community. We value greatly our Tres Dias Community experience, from the introductory weekend retreat to the forming of reunion groups whereby God surely sets the lonely in family. We believe we are truly living out our Fourth Day through the ministry called Blood N Fire which we've come to realize is more a lifestyle. We continue to minister to the poor and homeless but in a more relational way, taking the model of Jesus' twelve even to the streets weekly visiting, counseling, feeding, teaching, praying and reaching out to others in need of family. There are numerous reasons why folks in and around Africa have fallen out of family- through Aids, poverty, alcoholism, drug use and even more simply not understanding God's intent for His people to function as a family.

We want very much for our 'twelve' family to experience the Tres Dias Weekend experience and to introduce this concept as the powerful tool it is in building relationship with the Lord and others in South Africa and literally all of Africa. Ned and I see relationship as more than a mass evangelization tool that directs people into churches. We see it as a serious and holy resource the Lord is using today to invite people into His Kingdom, where he can continue to develop that relationship, equipping and enabling them to go forth and make disciples in all the nations. Dr. Keith Phillips wrote in his book The Making of Disciples: "The great commission is not about making converts but investing life with those whom God has brought you into relationship." Community is the true Acts 2 experience explicated.

God is pouring out new wine in a new wine skin, but He's always been doing that. He has always gathered his people to meet with him at his appointed time not when they choose to squeeze in the time. We see a marked difference in the world today when it comes to defining relationship with God. A large majority of the world has been raised to believe God is met primarily on Sunday mornings and special holidays. Fewer people are making the time for the special holidays, Sundays, and/or other times that God might speak, let alone desire to dwell among them. When Jesus told them to not leave until the counselor came, the book of Acts says they were all together in one place, praying and seeking the Lord fervently for how Holy Spirit might come. Ned and I see this as an invitation not to watch for the day when Jesus might choose to come back but to walk out the relationship with our Father daily that Christ’s death has reckoned for us. Holy Spirit was sent to connect us with our Father. We believe this happens more than once a week in a large congregation. God is very interested in personal, one on one relationship with us. We believe He also moves in relationship through us to others in relational ways and this then becomes the basis with which he builds community among us. We believe this community is the family God sets the lonely in, that leads the prisoners forth as referenced in Psalm 68 but also Isaiah 61.

Through the book of Nehemiah we’ve discovered God’s passionate heart to reconnect and rebuild his people anew. We’ve spent seven years walking, praying and “inspecting the wall” as Nehemiah did. Prayerfully we’ve been building relationships with those whom God has called to rebuild Cape Town; South Africa and the nations of Africa.

We believe God’s heart to set the lonely in family, to reconnect and rebuild family in community expresses itself through Blood N Fire as spiritual family, fathers and sons. We are not biological parents to all our spiritual children, nor is every person we are in relationship with a son or daughter, some are our brothers in Christ.

We are not interested in taking the place of people's existing families; all the more, we pray to be an extension of grace to the families God brings alongside, as it is written in Nehemiah when the gates were rebuilt family by family thereby rebuilding the ancient ruins and the places long devastated.

While atop Table Mountain February, 2,000 God showed us a patch of brown, dead land at the foot of the mountain. That was the place he had called us to go! How? Why? For What? Entering the District Six Museum we wept. On the floor lay a hand drawn map of a previously vibrant community where black, white, rich, poor, Jew, Muslim, and Christian alike lived in community. The words of Isaiah 61 flooded our hearts. But where were the captives of District Six? The community had been physically demolished, yet there on the floor lay the hearts of families, sons, daughters, uncles, aunties, mothers, fathers, friends and neighbors. Apartheid had separated what God had put together in community. And then we knew, God had called South Africa and literally all of Africa, ‘the last greatest place on the earth’ and here is where he would begin the rebuilding. We said, ‘let us begin this good work.’

Psalm 133
How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.
It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.


Blood N Fire, RSA expresses that vision through:

"Twelve" gatherings at least weekly for a meal, worship and a time of sharing in the presence of God together as a family. Each individual is encouraged to meet with his/her own ‘12’ weekly as well.

Green Market Blood N Fire Fellowship meets Tuesdays, 1 p.m. at Green Market Square for prayer, fellowship and sharing in the presence of God on the side of the market at the benches nearest Sylvia's Hair Braiding Stall.

Family gatherings where all the ‘12s‘ meet for worship, prayer & share the presence of God together as a larger community.

Master’s Academy of Fine Arts meets Saturday mornings for school age children, with a vision toward glorifying God through excellence in the Arts.

Annual trips into the nations of Rwanda, Uganda, and around South Africa have been made and relationships established. We've begun building relationships in Congo, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Zambia; as well as to further build on relationships already established in Rwanda & Uganda.

We visit the poor, pray for the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and encourage others to follow Christ's example. As Christ did, we also invite others to go with us as we visit the poor, reach out to the homeless, etc. And we invite others to pray with us for those we encounter along the journey. Whether attending someone else's prayer meeting, conference or dinner at a restaurant; being instant in season, aware that the Kingdom of God is at hand always. God is glorified as we step out by faith even into the other nations, going to make disciples, laying hands on the sick, feeding the hungry, hugging the child who's left alone or the widow in need in Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Kenya, Zambia or any of the other nations of Africa and the world God leads us to visit.

Blood N Fire, RSA is also part of a larger international community. Ned and Susan are co-founders of Blood N Fire with David & Janice Van Cronkhite in Atlanta, GA. See the website: www.bloodnfire.com


Ned & Susan Hill
Blood N Fire, RSA
16 Cypress Road
Newlands 7700
Cape Town, South Africa
082-681-6601, 072-408-9460