We made it to Pretoria, South Africa!
We feel so blessed so far to be in Pretoria. Our home that we are staying in is just incredible. It took about 42 hours of travel from when we left Atlanta to get here- an 8 hour plane ride, a stop in Amsterdam, a 10.5 hour plane ride to Johannasburg, an hour drive from the airport to the hostel, another hour drive to Pretoria. It definitely was not bad at all.
We will be working with BeamAfrica this month. It is a non-profit ministry that works with orphans and at risk youth in Pretoria. It has been really exciting to serve with them and help better this community. Our ministry contacts, Erica and Louis, are just incredible people. I feel like we have so much that we can just learn from watching their actions and listening to their words. They follow the Lord in every decision that they make. They have a habit of asking the Lord first, which has been so inspiring.
BeamAfrica is in a bit of a transition right now, so we have just been blessed to be a blessing to them- helping with whatever they need. We’ve done everything from help to build fences to wash off moldy oranges and used every opportunity to get to know each other and the people that we’re working with a little bit better.
We have been working in the townships of Mamelodi and Nellmapius for the past week. Both townships are extremely poor and are home to thousands of people. Some of the people live in very small houses with running water, but the majority of the people are living in shacks. Some of the building have electricity, but most of them do not. The people that live in these townships do not have easy lives and many are ruled by drugs, alcohol, and witchcraft.
For the past 8 years, BeamAfrica has been feeding orphans and underprivileged children in Nellmapius and this was their last week of providing that service. It was sad to see the last serving of a hot meal to those children, but God will provide for them and though BeamAfrica will no longer be providing that service, another organization will step in and pick up where they left off. BeamAfrica also teaches life skills classes in Nellmapius and does computer and job training to help the people of Nellmapius get jobs and move on from life in the township. They have done great things in that community for the last 8 years and I know that God has blessed their work there.
In Mamelodi, we are working with Pastor Ezekiel to build a ministry site for his church and for BeamAfrica to provide services. We have built a fence, played with kids, harvested some African spinach, nibbled on beans and sardines… and walked through the community there so far. The men of our group have done some really hard physical work with the men of the church there as well. Niko, Michael, and Douglas (members of the church there) have taught us a lot about the culture of Mamelodi while working with them and Pastor Ezekiel is a fountain of knowledge about the poverty and race issues in South Africa. It has been so enlightening to talk to them and learn about the place in which we are working.
Week 1 in Pretoria has been a great first week on the Race.
