My pictures still won't load but you can see where they're suppose to be!
Month one is over. I’ve been in Pretoria, South Africa for the month of September, working with a ministry called PopUp! – The time flew by way too fast! I DO NOT want every month to go by this fast. I want to soak in every single month. Everyone said the year would fly by and if every month goes by this quickly, they’ll all be right!
So, here’s a recap of what the month of September looked like for me…
September 3-6th – Launch was held in Chicago with all four squads. I wrote a blog earlier in September about the details of launch if you’re interested!
The men on our squad washed all of the women’s feet – From day one, they have approached us as sisters, rather then “potentials”.
September 7-9th – Traveled from Chicago to New York to Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa
Laine, Jillian, & me on the Brooklyn Bridge – We had a layover in NYC & spent a night (from 11pm – 9am) wandering the city.
September 9-13th – We spent some time at Soccer 4 Kids in Johannesburg as an entire squad. This was the first time World Race sent someone to Soccer 4 Kids and it ended up that they didn’t need us for the month, so we were sent to PopUp!
Johannesburg, South Africa – Soccer 4 Kids
September 14th – October 1st – We spent the remainder of the month at PopUp! in Pretoria, South Africa with three other teams (around 30 people total). I know I can’t tell you everything about this month so I’ll try to tell you the most important parts…
How we ended up at PopUp for the month of September is a pretty cool story – We were suppose to spend the month of September in either Zimbabwe or Botswana but we ended up in South Africa. When Soccer 4 Kids fell through, Adventures in Missions organized us to spend the month of September with PopUp. This would also be the first time World Racers had worked with PopUp and not everyone at PopUp was excited about it.
Pretoria, South Africa – Bruger Park – Park Outreach
When PopUp agreed to host us, they had no idea who within the ministry would host us, where we would sleep, shower, or what we would even end up doing the remainder of the month. When we first met Russell Fagan, his intention was to educate us about PopUp – that’s it but he quickly fell in love with us. It was so apparent that PopUp was where God wanted us and Russell was the right person.
Russell invited us into his life. We met his cell group (same as a bible study in the U.S.) and his family. He dedicated his entire month to us, organizing and spending 24/7 with us. We spent National Heritage Day with his cell group and had a HUGE braai (BBQ). They took us boating and tubing! His cell group also paid for all 30 of us to go to a lion and rhino park, where we all got to pet baby lions and tigers. By the end of the month, we called Russell, Dad! PopUp also gave Russell a full-time, paying position, where before, he was only a volunteer.
We slept in their main meeting room on our sleeping pads and some nights slept outside in our tents. Every single morning, we had to clean up our sleeping pads, sleeping bags, and stuff everything into our backpacks to be stored for the day. We had three showers to share between the 30 of us.
I worked in a division of PopUp called PopKids – PopKids is a free/subsidized daycare for families that live around PopUp. There’s a lot of poverty is South Africa and especially where we were for the month. PopUp is surrounded with shacks and slums – an area they call Baghdad. Most of the children were from that area. For people who know me, they know that kids, ages two and older are not my cup of tea. (I’m hoping it will be different when they’re my own children!) God taught me a lot of patience this month.
Pretoria, South Africa – PopUp! – PopKids!
It was such an amazing start to the World Race! By World Race standards, we had really good accommodations and were spoiled compared to what the other teams did and where the other teams were.
I wonder what God has planned for us next month!?!
