Hey friends! Been doing a ton of traveling these past two or so weeks.
From Haiti it took two days of hopping on and off planes, but we finally landed in Africa…South Africa to be exact.
In that sweet weekend in Johannesburg,
I cut my hair!
It’s been so long for ages…it makes me laugh because it was completely spur of the moment. It was very much out of irritation with my
three day old dirty hair from no showers because of the past couple of days worth of traveling and layovers, but mainly because the second we arrived to our backpacker’s hostel there was a hair salon conveniently placed right across from the street just screaming “LILLABEA!! COME TO ME AND LET ME CUT AND WASH YOUR GROSS HAIR!” Ha. So I did it. I walked in the door and I said, “Hey! How much would it cost to chop off all of my hair?”
Funny, but I see something profound within it. I don’t want to be dramatic, I just see freedom in this. I feel free- free enough to do things like walk
across the street and chop off my hair. Free enough to know that things like hair will grow back- that everything is momentary and yet everything is begging us to let them matter, to squeeze the marrow out of life like Thoreau wrote about. I feel something poetic in it and it feels nice.
In addition to hair cutting, I met some wild people-
this man I actually never met- Dasia, Daven, and Taylor met him while thrift shopping a couple blocks over from where I was, but I couldn’t go without writing about him: a man named Terrance Langa is changing the future of jails through rehabilitation programs. He was sick of seeing the way that people
were treated during jail and after they returned back to society; there’s no real healing or lessons learned through this punishment of being imprisoned-
men and women are locked up and contained away from the rest of the civilization that they somehow threatened or harmed and what do they do? They sit. They’re scrutinized, but what real life change occurs? Who looks beyond the initial crime into the heart behind the crime to examine the mental and spiritual issue that birthed the crime? Who teaches them and coaches them to be better? To grow from who they were into who they have the potential to be?? HE IS ACTUALLY, REALLY DOING SOMETHING! This man is revolutionizing humanity– a local jail in his town shut down because they didn’t have enough inmates anymore because people weren’t re-committing crimes anymore!!!! GOD BLESS TERRANCE!
The Starbucks barista who sat with Taylor, Daven, and I during his break: he said something along the lines of “Sometimes I just read the word of God in my room and I just can’t help but start running around and then I’ll start dancing because I can’t hold in all of the excitement it gives me…God’s word is exciting! God’s word gives me zeal!” Goodness. This man. He completely refreshed the passion within me! If only we all thought like this- he was smiling with his whole body, not just his face, he gave me goosebumps. How Christians should interact always honestly.
Went to Hillsong church Johannesburg and worshipped in English for the first time in two months—- INVIGORATING! That church is a glimpse of Heaven. Eternally grateful for their loving arms and encouragement. They prayed over our squad so sweetly, I needed that. Such cool people. Such a cool place.
already thrilled to return to SA for two months after Botswana! A place full of equally as empowering as powerful, wonderful people.
From SA all forty something of us as a whole squad loaded into about an eight hour bus ride and crossed the border over to Botswana. From there two teams
were picked up by their different ministry hosts because they’ll be spending their time in the city less than an hour’s drive from the border. What they’re
involved with for these next two months is radical- one team is doing sports ministry which means they get to coach local sports teams and directly lead and
disciple kids here in Botswana and the other is working at a coffee and book shop where they get to live as locals and have the freedom to share what they
believe over some highly caffeinated conversations with strangers day in and day out! SO COOL!!
Anyways.
The four teams left continued on and took two more bus rides through the night to get us to a bus stop in who knows where at about six am. From there two
of the teams got picked up by their ministry host (again- the ministry they’re partnering with together is insanely incredible- they do jail and hospital ministry, preach in church, offer creative forms of therapy through different arts, offer post rape care and restoration, and tons of other wild and beautiful things all in the name of God) while the twelve girls left sat at the bus stop and waited for our next bus. We ate cereal out of plastic cups and passed around one of the empty cups as a makeshift sink to brush our teeth and we passed around a stick of deodorant to freshen ourselves up- I know, I know, such glamorous, fancy young women out here in Botswana!!! The things we do around here crack me up.
One thing I loved: a couple of men came up asking if we needed transportation because they were bus and taxi drivers and wanted business, we politely explained that we already had a bus that was on its way, so conversation changed to them asking us why we were here and what we were doing. Some of the girls began explaining that we’re traveling the world for about a year to tell people about God and to serve people who have organizations that are helping communities all over the globe. Then one of the three men said “tell me about your God, I want to know.” So, with no hesitation Katie and Cat began explaining what the Bible even is because they had never heard of it and why we believe in it and what has happened in their lives to lead them to feel and know God and His love and His mercy. There’s no magical off-switch to ministry; we are living lives of ministry- not just talking about God when it’s “the right time and the right place,” it’s always the right time and the right place for God.
Anyways.
After a couple of hours of sitting on the cement curb with all of our packs, our next bus arrived! We slept and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the bumpy and windy eight hour ride through Africa. Our bus driver was all kinds of kind to us, he even drove us to a “nice, big bush” he knew of so that we could pee in private! Take a moment to imagine that- half a dozen American girls running into the African red dusty landscape with toilet paper shoved in
our pocket to squat behind a massive collection of pale green bushes littered with the dried out carcasses of only God knows what animals and pee…the
reality of it was funnier, I promise.
And after an estimated 35 hours of traveling, we safely made it to Shawkawe where our ministry hosts picked us up!!
Ma Willie (“Ma” is like “Mrs.” and Willie was her husband’s name, but her name is Estelle) and two of her daughters, Arista and Simone, were smiling and
waving as we lugged off our fifty pound packs from the bus. From there we loaded three of their trucks and drove about and hour to a ferry where we crossed
the delta and drove another two or so hours til we finally made it to the village of SERONGA!!!
Part two is next——>
