Sorry for just now posting another update, I am going to try and be better about posting blogs!!
After working at Beats and Books for a week, my team’s ministry was changed. We were told we would be doing a soup kitchen for the children who live in the township (also sometimes called squatter camps). I was excited to be doing that but I was also super sad to not be going back to Beats and Books (the other team with us began their ministry there). To be honest, I loved Beats and Books a lot and it was hard to imagine doing another ministry in Jeffrey’s Bay that wasn’t the after school program. Turns out God, like always, knew exactly what he was doing and the soup kitchen immediately became my favorite part of my time in JBay.
The soup kitchen was nothing like a soup kitchen you would think of in the States. Here, my team of five and our sweet friend from Jbay would cook the food before and then bring the food along with bowls and spoons for the children. The soup kitchen was held in a big shipping container that was sitting on a small concrete slab that our hosts had made. It wasn’t much but God was so present there. As soon as we would pull into the township, the children would start running next to us in the car. It was the sweetest. Every morning, we would go to the township and bring the food and just spend the next three hours dancing and playing with the children. It was exhausting, yet so dang rewarding.
One kid we met was named Coen (probably spelled different). He was eight years old and just the most precious kid. Every day he would come up to me, give me a huge hug, and then take my watch off my wrist and ask me to put it on his wrist. Every time the time would change he would read it off to me, for example if the time was 11:35 he would say, “one, one, three, five.” After he would read off the time, I would cheer for him and give him a high-five and he would have the biggest smile.
All the kids were precious. When it was time to leave the kids would all hug us a million times and give us a million kisses. Every day they would ask for cake so on our last day of ministry there we brought them all mini cupcakes and bubbles to play with. They freaked out. Leaving those children was hard but I know our ministry host in Jbay are working hard to find a sustainable way to keep the soup kitchen running and including the community of that township.
After the soup kitchen we would spend the rest of the day doing construction at GLA, the school we were living on the same campus as. We did construction with one of our ministry hosts, Mulder. He is so fun and is such an amazing example of living for Jesus.
One-night Mulder wanted to host a worship and movie night for us. Our other ministry host, Wendy, cooked dinner for us and then we all got to worship together. Mulder prepared an hour of worship music for us to listen to and worship however we felt called to. The first two weeks in Jbay I had been feeling a bit distance from the Lord so I wasn’t looking forward to worship. I honestly had forgotten the reason I came on the race in the first place.
Y’all God is so cool!!
Within two minutes of worship, I felt God surrounding me and was filled with so much comfort. I started to apologize to Him about my negativity and forgetting the reason I had come on the race. Before I could even get my whole apology out I just could see Him holding his arms out to me and saying forget about it, and I would try to apologize again and he would again say, “don’t even worry about it, you are forgiven.” I have never felt such love and comfort like I did in that moment. It really snapped me out of the funk I had been living in and reminded me that I am on the race for a reason and that I should be grateful God has led me here. It was such a good night spent worshiping our Father who is so beyond worth of praise.
Leaving Jbay was SO hard. Goodbyes are never easy but it makes my heart happy that I made relationships this past month that made it much harder to leave.
I’ll be posting another blog soon all about the things God has been showing me this past month in Jbay and at debrief!
Love you all!
