BRIEF HISTORY OF YWAM MUIZENBERG
In December 1989, a small group of YWAMers moved from YWAM Delmas (which was closing), to pioneer a new Base in Cape Town. they hardly had any money and by faith, stood against the mountain in Muizenberg, overlooking the town, and God spoke that YWAM was going to own buildings. The first school started in February 1990, and they bought three buildings (a hotel, a block of flats and an office building) all by faith. God provided! Many students arrived at that first school, which was an SBS. what was significant was that South Africa was still racially divided along different colors, so this upset the “status quo” to living together racially in our context. Under the Apartheid government’s Group Areas Act, Muizenberg was designated as “white only”- so no people of color could live, swim, or go to the beach in Muizenberg…
The Base leader at the time was visited by the Security Police to enforce these laws, and told him that what he was doing was illegal (people of different races living together on the same premises). His response was “we honor the law of the land, but more than that we have to honor the law of God- everyone has been created in the image of God! We will not move.” and they never returned… ever since we have lived as a multicultural community with a strong Calling of reconciliation. Our commitment has always been to raising up South African and Africans for missions, knowing that this can only happen within the context of being an international, and multicultural ministry.
There are a few other ministries in the area we refer to as Impact Ministries, as well as a few other YWAM Bases in the area— from Media Village which is right down the road from our Base, to YWAM Worcester about an hour away and in South Africa YWAM has about 19 locations where Ywam is active. Not every location run school but most of them do: JBay, Durban, Bethlehem, East London, Mossel Bay, George, Potchefstroom, Pretoria, Great Kosh, Joseph Project, Lesotho and Drakensberg