This month we were stationed in Yoostenbergvlakte, South Africa! Quite the mouthful! ;)The host family who we lived with are such incredible people whose faith and passion for serving the Lord was a daily inspiration and encouragement to me. Johan, Marie, and their 3 children, started a ministry called Zehandi that is dedicated to reaching the entire continent of Africa, and this family works relentlessly to fulfill that calling and the vision God has given them. Zehandi is also blessed to have Allison and Christina, 2 twenty year old American gals who live with the family and have dedicated the next 2-5 years of their life to serving with Zehandi in South Africa and Malawi! They previously went on a 9 month mission trip with AIM and felt the Lord calling them back to this ministry. I love these girls so much!
God uses Zehandi in many different ways in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and other bordering nations! This family has lived and served in Malawi for many years, starting and running a bible college and an orphanage there. But now, they felt the Lord calling them to start a ministry base in South Africa to not only minister to the women caught in the prostitution industry, those who live in the squatter camps, and start a baby house of their own, but also to disciple fellow South Africans to raise up more native missionaries. The vision the Lord has given them for this new ministry was enough to take them far from their home and rely solely on the Lord to open necessary doors to make it become a reality. Since their ministry was still brand new when we arrived, they ways that we helped out was preparing the new house that is going to be the ministry base by sanding, painting, and other labor around the house. But in between working on the facility that we lived at, we also had some other amazing opportunities to serve while we were in South Africa!
1.) Zehandi halfway home for babies. This particular ministry is still in progress, but God has given Johan and Marie such incredible vision for it! This home will be a place at which babies from newborn to 2 years old will be able to live and be cared for after their birth mother has decided not to keep them. The South African law says that mothers who give up their babies have 3 months change their mind and get them back, and if not, the baby has 3 more months to wait to await a South African family to adopt them, and if that doesn’t work out either, the baby will then have 3 months for an international family to adopt them. This is why there is a need for a loving home to live in during this very long process. Johan and Marie have a building for this ministry, but it is currently under construction. We had the privilege of helping them sand and paint the house to prepare the facility so that babies could move in asap! Our team had a great time serving them and being able to be apart of this awesome ministry in any way we could. Also, I’m so thankful for the bit of previous experience I’ve had helping my daddy out with home improvement in the past, because it really came in handy this month!
2.) Ubuntu Baby House. While we didn’t get to care for babies at Zehandi’s baby house, we DID get to volunteer at Ubuntu which is almost the same thing, except for the fact that these babies already have adoptive families that they will be going home to as soon as all of the paperwork part is finished in the adoption process. Ubuntu is such a loving environment that has 24/7 care for the babies and also a lot of volunteers coming regularly to help out. We had the incredible blessing of doing both day shifts, as well as 12 hour grave yard shifts to hold, feed, and change all of the 8 tiny precious babies. It was so much fun, and gave us a little glance of what life would be like to be a mother of multiples 😉
3.) Alta Du Toit is a home where mentally disabled adults live and work and we had the chance to volunteer there throughout this month! It was such a joy to hop in their assembly line and just have the opportunity to talk to them and get to know them. It’s always fun when the people who don’t speak a word of English have a solid 5 minute conversation with you in Afrikaans 🙂 You just smile and add a couple “oh really!?” ‘s and “wow, that’s so awesome!”‘s in there and it literally means the world to them that you are taking time to listen and invest in them. Also, on our last day there, they threw a dance party for us! Seeing them outside of their daily work routines just getting to be silly and have fun was so cute and a great way to spend our last day with them. My favorite part though, was when the employees gathered everyone around to say goodbye and asked for 3 volunteers to pray over us! They were literally the sweetest, most heartfelt and sincere prayers you could possibly imagine!
((please read part 2!!))
