South African Saga

This first month on the Race has been quite a whirlwind. From 14hr flights and sleeping in airports to 18hr bus rides and moving ministry locations mid-month. It seems we never stop going. Adventure is out there and we jump in every chance we get.
The first half of the month we lived in Pinelands. It’s a nice little quiet community that’s pretty well off and full of homes surrounded by tall concrete walls. We partnered with a church in a neighboring community called Christ Church Sybrand Park (CCSP) where we partnered with some of their existing outreach ministries and helped them begin engaging in new ministries around the area. We absolutely LOVE the people of CCSP. They were so loving and welcoming even from the first moment we arrived. They all joined in to support us and fed us both spiritually and literally (Like seriously, they fed us SO much great food. We were definitely spoiled).
My favorite parts about Pinelands include:
– working at New Dawn, a food ministry set up to feed children breakfast before school each morning. But more than that, these kids get the love and affection they never receive at home due to rampant drug use and gang violence throughout their community (Kewtown, SA).
– doing maintenance work around the home we lived in and at the church.
– helping with an event for youth from a boys home nearby (this was quite a fun experience!).
– and aiding in the start of a sports ministry for kids after school in a community called Athlone.

About mid-month my team was relocated due to some unforeseen circumstances and while we greatly missed our new church family at CCSP, we were excited to see what Ocean View had to offer.
The first several days we partnered with other teams from our squad to do prayer walks, help kids with reading in one of the schools, and offer assistance in a PT (physical training) class at the school in Simon’s Town which is a lovely little town only a short taxi ride away.
The Lord did a lot of amazing work in and through our team while in Ocean View. So much work I’ll have to save it for the next blog 🙂
But before I go I’ll give you a quick list of some of the crazy tourist things I was able to accomplish around our ministry schedule.
– hiked Lion’s Head and Table Mountain (all the way up and all the way down. No cable cars for me!)
– shark cage diving (we saw 5 different Great Whites!)
– went to Cape Point/the Cape of Good Hope (the southwestern most point in Africa)
– saw penguins, an ostrich, and baboons.
– went to the SA vs Nigeria soccer match at CTS
– and of course saw some amazing beaches!