On Thursday June 21, 2007, I whacked bamboo with a machete! Yes, this was my job for the day: A full 7 hours of cutting down bamboo (with Casey & Kim-January WR) and hauling it to two squadmates (Allison & Katey), who sawed off the ends for a consistent heigth. I then hauled the end product through the woods, ducking under the wire fence, over the bridge across the river, down the trail, to the goats’ pen. (I’ll try to post a picture of bamboo & machete soon… and there’s a video in the works by our media team spearheaded by Mark.) Here’s an “after” shot of me. That’s NOT a tanline on my legs… and I was even wearing long pants (they zip off).
So are you asking: “What in the world were you doing?” We were gathering the materials to build a fence for the goat pen. Sound a little different than the normal mission trip? Well, of course! After all we’re on the world race! 🙂
OK, so the real answer lies in Refilwe’s mission: To spread the Gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, by addressing critical needs– medical, education/ child care, and skill development. The medical helps in the fight against AIDS & TB. Education/ Child care reaches abandoned children–from day care to live-in foster care. Amongst many skill developments, there’s a small farm at Refilwe, teaching agriculture skill set. That’s where the goats come in. Also they provide fresh milk! I hear they also harvest honey, make fresh peanut butter, gather eggs, etc. For more details, check out Refilwe’s website.
The kids here are super cute! Here are a couple of them.
On Monday we start the first of 3 children’s camps (one here at Refilwe and two in other locations (See Ministry Update post).
Please pray that many children will come! In South Africa, the government employees are in the middle of a strike over wages (meaning teachers, postal workers, etc – pretty much everyone except for boarder control & I assume police?). That made it harder for Refilwe volunteers to spread the word about the children’s camps this year. So please pray that the camps will bring many kids, that many of them will then come to know Christ personally, and that the kids will then be leaders in their families and communities, reaching many for the Lord.
While I was chopping with a machete, some of my squad mates were cleaning up the building we’re using as women’s dorms. They did an excellent job! Here are before and after pictures, compliments of my teammate & friend Cricket! Also she took a picture of our sleeping accomidations (actually, we normally have 1 more sleeping bag/ person in that room…haha).
