Outtatown has officially seen its last days in its South Africa base but the organization has a lot of new exciting things coming as they look to the future.

Renee Willms and Tim Cruickshank, the soon to be co-directors of Outtatown reflect on the highlights of the ministry's time in South Africa and look forward to the exciting future of the program.

Outtatown is a discipleship program that runs for six months and is based out of Canadian Mennonite University. Their mission is to "inspire and nurture students and their life of discipleship with Jesus Christ as a new journey towards knowing God in truth and relationship, knowing yourself in personality, character, abilities, and gifts, and knowing the world in its beauty, diversity, and pain," says Cruickshank.

There have recently been some big and unexpected changes in the program both in leadership and in outreach.

The program is in its 21st year and has had strong connections to communities in both South Africa and Guatemala as almost 15,000 students have traveled to these places through Outtatown.

However, due to issues with enrollment, the program was forced to discontinue their South Africa outreach which they had been running for 17 years.

"This year, unfortunately, a difficult decision needed to be made in order for programs to continue to be sustainable and viable for the long term. So we had to make a decision about what program would be continuing, it was a difficult and heartbreaking decision," says Willms.

Cruickshank worked as the South Afric program manager for two years and gave us some of the highlights of Outtatown's time in that country. "There is so many to choose from," says Cruickshank as he considers all the amazing memories of South Africa. 

"Going back five or six years . . . Archbishop Desmund Tutu was instrumental in walking South Africa through the truth and reconciliation prosses and our group actually had the opportunity to meet with him," which, Cruickshank says, was pretty remarkable. Cruickshank also explains how important learning about truth and reconciliation in South Africa was, as these Canadian students were then able to bring that knowledge back to Canada, a country who has gone through and continues to go through its own truth and reconciliation.

Some other highlights include time spent in homestays in South Africa, in church communities and experiencing vastly different worship of the same God.

Lastly, Cruickshank mentions bungee jumping as one of the big highlights of the trip. This experience acts as an opportunity for students to face their fears and learn trust in a really tangible way.

"It is so much more than just an adventure experience," says Cruickshank, referring to the bungee jumping, " It is also a chance for community to be formed, for people to grow, to stretch, to push themselves, to overcome fears and to learn a little bit more about themselves." This sentiment shows the character not only of the activities and adventures experienced on Outtatown South Africa but seems to embody the life-changing experience of the program as a whole.

"I think in a lot of ways some of these changes were unexpected . . . but Outtatown remains the same," said Willms as she starts to explain the co-directors vision for the future of Outtatown. 

Willms highlights some of the relationships Outtatown continues to have, "I think of the partners we have even here in Canada that we work with This year we are celebrating a 10-year relationship that we have with Roseau River, a First Nations community.

"The longevity of this program is just a real testament of what God has been doing through it." says Willms as she explains that the program will continue to be run similarly with a few new additions.

Willms and Cruickshank both understand why the program has been so impactful as they have both been site leaders and program directors for years.

The new co-directors do have some dreams in mind for the future of the program including a short term trip offered to upper-level CMU students looking to get in on some of the Outtatown fun!