It's official. I live in the 'burbs. And, it's crazy to believe that I've only been here for 1 week (officially as of today)! This month, we are in Muizenberg, South Africa. Technically, it's a suburb of Cape Town, but it's about a 45 minute train ride outside of the city with a spectacular ocean & mountain view. It's everything I was missing in Denver 🙂
It's absolutely gorgeous here! The sun is out, the wind keeps it cool (and sometimes cold), and I'm working on my tan. The ocean is beautiful, it's a bit chilly since it's just becoming summer here, and the beach is like that in South Haven: white sand. The water is blue and absolutely beautiful; a traditioal beach scene. Plus, I'm getting TAN! It's going to be a great lead in to Mozambique and Swaziland coming up!
We are blessed to be working with an organization called Volunteer South Africa. Our two main ministries this month are surfing and soccer. There are also a few offshoot ministries that include a feeding project that partners with Hillsong Cape Town, an afterschool program, working with street kids and helping kids learn to read.
I am focusing particularly on the soccer ministry and the afterschool project. On M, T & H afternoons around 1:45, I go with a group of 6-8 and we walk 30 minutes to the sand soccer field. After getting to the field, a few of us walk into the township to pick up some of the kids who aren't at the field yet. Getting into the township from the field is about a 5 minute walk. At this point there are between 40-50 kids there between the ages of 5 & 15, though most are within the age range of 9-13. Then we walk back to the field with the kids, do some stretches, soccer drills, then it's game time. After the game, we walk the kids back into the township and then we start our 30 minute walk back home.
On W & F, I go with a group of 3 people (4+ on Fridays) to two afterschool programs. We leave around 12:45 and ride in our contact, Malcolm's partner's car to the site. We play games with the kiddies, read, talk, and just do life with them. I taught them oboeskiwatantat and they love that game, even the boys want to play it all the time. It's great fun! I also taught them Ship to Shore which they find fun also. Nothing like playing a running game that will wear them out. Francis has been teaching them guitar a bit as well. We stay there about 2 hours then head off to the next site that's in a township about 10 walking minutes away.
At the second site we do a similar program with the addition of a girls bible study. It's something that I'm learning I'm passionate about. These girls have never heard that they are worthy or that God created them just the way they are. They might have heard from men or in passing conversations with their families that they are beautiful or helpful and whatnot, but I'm pretty positive that no one has ever told them just how much God loves them. They don't know that God created them just the way they are, or that he had a specific purpose in mind when he created them, that he loves them so much and has such great plans for them. That's something that I feel they all need to know.
They've heard a few things in their day about God and Jesus but they've not heard the important life lessons. Kristen, Ann and I have been using our freetime in the mornings to come up with lessons, to figure out what we're going to talk about, the lessons we think are important and useful for them to know. Today we talked about love: That God loves us, that there is no condemnation in Christ and what love looks like. In other sessions we are going to be focusing on the fruits of the spirit, what it means/looks like to be a Christian, and another topic that is fleeing my mind at this moment.
It's beautiful the impact the words of Christ have. Today at our first ministry site, there were two boys who were hitting each other, the one because he was mad. Unfortunately, just like in America, there is a lot of violence in their homes and neighborhoods and they see it so much that they start to imitate it and it becomes second natrure to them which is really sad. I took him aside and started talking to him then all the boys came around and I was able to share about Christ's words in Matthew 7 where he talks about anger and retaliation and says when someone slaps you, instead of slapping them back, you turn the other cheek and pray for them. I read them that and we talked about it. It was really awesome to get to speak gospel truth into the lives of 8 boys between the ages of 9 & 15 + one 18 year old.
