Well, another month flew by! There hasn’t been a place so far that has felt so much like home! Partially because it was hot and partially because of the family of a ministry that we got to be a part of in Port Elizabeth. Our ministry this month was an organization called Love Story. https://lovestory.org.za/ They are based in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and they exist to meet the needs of the people/community of Port Elizabeth. The people of Love Story, lovingly and tirelessly, work to make sure that the “least of these” are taken care of, fed, clothed, and loved immensely. The tagline for Love Story is “go and do the same” from Luke 10:37. This is from the Bible passage of the good samaritan. And the gist of the story is that a lawyer asks Jesus what it means to love your neighbor. He tells the lawyer a story about a man who got beaten by robbers and was left on the side of the road where three individuals walked by him and only one out of the three chose to stop and help the man in the road. Jesus asked the lawyer to go and do the same as the man that showed mercy to the beaten man. Love Story does this everyday in the form of feeding the homeless every weeknight rain or shine, providing food and clothing to the daycares in the poor neighborhoods of Port Elizabeth, providing medical assistance when needed, hosting Bible studies for the men and women in the community, and so many other outreach opportunities.
We started out this month as a new team. We got switched up from our previous teams and got the chance to get to know more of the people on our squad on a deeper level. My team now consists of three new, amazing girls Hannah H., Janie, and Katlyn B. I have gotten the pleasure of carrying over two girls from my old team Em and Courtney(our new team leader!) We have all loved growing within the ministry of Love Story and getting to serve alongside the volunteers at Love Story has made us a stronger team! It’s honestly hard to put into words how much I appreciated the moments that I’ve gotten to experience this month. There were so many beautiful moments of fellowship. Whether it was our team meetings with Love Story in the mornings, where we would sit down with the staff and volunteers and drink coffee and talk about how much God was doing in our lives. Or the times that we would get to talk to the homeless community on the nights we were handing out food. There was so much care and love put into every moment. For the homeless meals (also known as city feed) our team would cut vegetables everyday to put into the meals. We would sit in the kitchen at Love Story and cut carrots, butternut, cabbage, whatever had been donated that week. Our team got to bond and connect over how much the butternut was sticking to our hands and find new ways of doing things to communicate more openly with each other.
In South Africa there are several different tribes of people that make up the population. One of the tribes is called the Cosa(sp?) people. We went to a cultural experience in a nearby township (a township is a poorer neighborhood on the outskirts of the city where a large majority of black families live) to learn more about the customs of the Cosa people. They showed us how the children grow into adults, what marriage looks like, cultural dances and songs, and they even served us a lunch of chicken feet and pap! (Chicken feet were good but I don’t need to try them again! Also, the slang term for them is walkie talkies!) One of the biggest things that I took from this experience was the Cosa saying, “I am because you are.” Our Cosa friends went on to explain that in there neighborhoods your children are everyone in the neighborhoods children. Your neighbor can discipline your kids, feed them, love them, and so on, as if they were there own. It basically boiled down to the idea that it takes a village to raise children and their community exists because they are part of a whole. It was a beautiful sentiment and it seemed to overflow into every interaction that we had with the people of Port Elizabeth. Whether it was at our Love Story family, our new team, our friends in the Cosa neighborhood, or the people that we met at the store, this was a beautiful community of individuals that made the whole of our experience greater! We met amazing people everywhere that we went, with every Uber driver, people at city feed, children’s homes, and even at the laundromat! God’s love was showered on us this month in so many ways and I am so thankful for the beyond wonderful time that I got to spend in Port Elizabeth with the always loving Love Story!
Random song – https://youtu.be/AzdoOGUsEKg
