5:45am — Wake up! I set my alarm for 6 each morning, but sleeping on the floor in a room without curtains means you wake up when the sun’s up!
6:00am — Zip up my sleeping bag and head downstairs with my Bible and journal to spend some time in the Word. One of my goals for the Race is to read through the entire Bible chronologically — I’m currently in Joshua!
6:05am — Karson comes down the stairs to make coffee and smiles and says “Good Morning!”
7:00am — Change into clothes that probably aren’t mine, brush my teeth, maybe braid my hair (on a good day), and put on some bracelets!
7:15am — Devotionals upstairs! I’m currently reading through the Art of Listening Prayer by Seth Barnes. I spend time reading through each day’s devotional and praying for the day ahead of me!
8:00am — Breakfast! Looks like a combination of a couple of the following — corn flakes, yogurt, oranges, porridge, bananas and peanut butter, or toast.
8:30am — Morning meeting with our ministry hosts. They give us an overview of our ministry plan for the day and let us know of any schedule changes or announcements.
8:40am — Get in our teams to pray for the day!
8:50am — Pack lunches! We usually cycle through the following — PB&J, ham sandwiches, something that resembles pizza, tuna pasta, hot dogs, chicken salad. And always a piece of fruit!
9:00am — The bus picks us up for school! It’s only about a 10 minute ride to the primary school where I am currently serving, but by the end of the ride, I’m usually feeling slightly carsick.
9:10am — Class starts! When I arrive, my kids have already been in school for an hour. They are learning to speak Afrikaans, how to add and subtract, and are practicing writing their names. During this time, I usually help them make some sort of craft that aligns with each week’s theme and hang up their creations around the room!
9:45am — Snack time! At this time, I take the kids down to the school’s kitchen to get bread and juice, which they love! Then everyone runs back upstairs, usually spilling a majority of their juice, so I follow close behind with a mop!
10:00am — Recess. Also known as the most eventful and taxing part of my day. During these 45 minutes, I can safely say that half of my head of hair is yanked out, braided, or put into dreads (see picture below). I’m tackled to the ground more times than I can count on two hands and my bracelets make their way from the wrists of one child to the next until they finally make it back to me, stretched and worn out. Everyone takes turns getting pushed on the swings, sliding down the slide, and crawling in between my feet. We dance and make up handshakes and I get to relive all of my favorite elementary school recess times!!
10:45am — The bell rings… finally!!! At this point, each class either heads back up to their room, or to the multi-purpose room for graduation practice! Our kindergarten graduation is in just a few short weeks, so they’re practicing singing and dancing to songs and nursery rhymes that they’ll get to perform in front of their families! Sometimes they practice with their handmade costumes, other times they just get up on stage and sing and dance around with crazy amounts of energy. Either way, their practices are just about the cutest things I’ve ever watched!
11:30am — Back to class! It’s almost the end of the day, so the teacher finishes up whatever activity they had been working on before recess.
11:45am — Story time! The kids all sit somewhat quietly on the floor while I read to them a few stories out of a big Disney storybook. The hard part? Majority of them don’t understand English. So, I just have to use as many motions and emotions as possible to help them understand the plot line of each story.
12:00pm — NAP TIME (for the kids, of course)! Every day from 12 to 1, our kids take a nap and my team meets in a little office to eat our packed lunches and share the day’s crazy stories.
1:00pm — Lunch! All 150 of the kids march into the kitchen, groggy and sleepy from their naps, and we get to serve them their lunch — little bowls filled with rice, chicken, and veggies.
1:15pm — After everyone is served, we start collecting and washing all the dirty bowls and spoons. Once these are finished, you can usually find me out on the playground, hanging out with all my kiddos while we wait for their parents to come pick them up!
1:30pm — Departure! We all board the same bus that dropped us off just 4.5 hours before, filled with equal levels of joy and exhaustion.
2:00pm — Chinking!! Upon arriving back home each afternoon, my team’s ministry is to help build the log classroom located just next door! We’ve been chinking for a couple of weeks now — hammering hundreds of nails 2 inches apart into the logs, creating a foundation for the cabin’s insulation system. When we finish one log, we move up the scaffolding and chink the one above it, and so on. Once a whole wall is chinked, we place wool behind the nails and push the nails back, securing the wool. Finally, once the wool has been placed, we bleach each log. Then, we move the scaffolding and complete the same process with the next wall — on the inside and outside of the house!
4:00pm — We’re off for the afternoon! After the day’s ministry, we have 2 hours of free time before dinner. During this time, you might find me napping, journaling, working out on the balcony with Julia, walking to the mall for snacks, or just hanging out with whoever’s over at the house!
6:00pm — Dinner! We are so blessed to have the most wonderful house mom who comes to cook dinner for us each night, with the help of some of the other girls on my squad! Majority of our dinners are similar to ones I’d eat back in the States, with the occasional appearance of traditional South African meals like “bunny chow” (lamb curry) or “braiis” (kinda like sausage??). Every night, Emily puts on some sort of “dinner playlist” that she thinks matches the mood and we all sing and dance around and comment hundreds of times about how pretty the sunset is (I swear they get better and better as the days go by — if you don’t believe me, look at the pictures below!).
6:45pm — Every week our teams rotate through dish duty, so if it’s my team’s week, you can find me by the sink for the next 30 minutes!
7:15pm — Team time! Here’s what each night’s team time looks like:
?Monday: Worship. Whether it’s in the kitchen, in the field, or on the couches, on Monday nights you can find each team singing songs of praise all throughout the house!!
?Tuesday: The Bible Project. On Tuesday’s, we watch a 5 minute Bible Project video (we’re currently studying the book of Luke) and have discussion questions to answer out loud together.
?Wednesday: Storytelling. This might look like writing a blog, walking to the mall to get wifi to post a blog, or just journaling!
?Thursday: Feedback! Everyone’s favorite! Haha just kidding 🙂 This is the team time that is notorious for taking 2.5 hours. It consists of each person giving everyone else pieces of both positive and constructive feedback, designed to call them higher in a way that is both honoring and uplifting.
?Friday: Free for all! Each week, someone gets to plan our Fun Friday! This could be anything — movie night, baking cookies, playing games, or going out somewhere fun! It’s basically just a chunk of time set aside during the week for us to have fun and hang out together as a team outside of ministry.
?Saturday: Debrief. We talk about the week we had and just check up on and pray for each other!
8:30 — Usually team time is wrapping up by this point, so all 24 of us are just hanging out around the house, making late night snacks (porridge or cereal or sometimes cake!), watching movies, taking turns showering, singing and dancing, playing games… all the fun stuff!!
9:15 — Squats! Each night Julia and I (and whoever else wants to join!) do 100 squats in the living room in an attempt to work off the ungodly amounts of bread we consume during the day.
9:30 — Lights out. But not really. On a good night, I’m in my sleeping bag at this point but the lights probably won’t be out for another 30 minutes or so. My current sleeping situation is on a mattress under the stairs! Just last week, a World Race 11n11 team joined us, which as been SO much fun! They moved into my team’s old room, so we’re currently sleeping on the living room floor which is a party in itself! It’s actually a lot of fun though. Julia and I have our mattresses pushed together to make one big bed. Each night, we set aside time to pray together for our friends at home which is a really special time because afterwards we often end up telling stories from home and about our friends that we miss so so much 🙂
10:00pm — *insert rainbow warriors handshake* and GOODNIGHT!
So, there’s a little peek into my life! I would call this a “normal day,” but in reality no day is “normal” here. And I love it! If you have any questions or comments about anything I talked about, let me know in the comments below and I’ll get right back to ya!
xo, Carol
On the playground!
The aftermath of recess!
Some sunsets!!
Sleepover under the stairs!!
