For the first few days that T squad was in South Africa, I was in Durban on the southeastern coast. I stayed with my three co-squad leaders in a hostel room. We relaxed on the beach, and hung out with squad mates that also had a few days off before their ministry started in Lesotho.
Dan was rescheduled to fly home on the 6th of January, so we spent those few days hanging out with him and joining him in his “one last wish”es. I think my favorite thing that week was renting kayaks on the beach for the equivalent of $3 and paddling around for an hour.
We met some interesting people in the hostel and Jill and I had some great conversations with two guys, that were often stoned out of their minds, about religion and our faith. Some of the conversations were repeated a couple of days in a row because they could not remember the conversations we had shared previously. Sadly, I do believe it was one of these men that took money from my wallet on one of our last nights there.
That time in Durban was a great time to rest after a hectic last week in Swaziland. We had to change a couple of teams, raise up a new team leader, shuffle team placements for South Africa and organize a leadership development day all within the last week and a half of being at the orphanage. Much of this was a struggle to do with limited communication back to our coaches and mentor stateside and also with the Christmas festivities. The Christmas activities were awesome and so so lovely – I didn’t write about them, but check out these squadmates’ blogs.
We did it up big for our little buddies at El Shaddai.
Rene’s Blog – How God Used Instagram to Give His Kids Some Good Gifts
Autumn’s Blog – Her Reflections on the Day
Brette’s Blog – Her Summary of How El Shaddai Touched Our Hearts with a bit of Christmas too.
This is a picture from our leadership development day. We got stuck in the mud and walked for a couple of hours.
Because of the chaos the week prior, we rested in Durban, had some fun times as a squad leading team and also some difficult but good conversations.
Jill, Jeff and I then traveled to Johannesburg . We picked up Kara, who had traveled home for back surgery, and Audrey, who was stateside for a few days for her sister’s wedding. We stayed in an awesome little backpackers – Curiocity. The owner, Bheki, was a 22 year old carrying out his heart and vision to bring about a better understanding and name for Johannesburg, which has a reputation for being a dangerous and crime ridden city.
For the next two days, Jeff, Audrey and I traveled via rental car in a 22 hour trip to the Capetown area on the Southwestern coast.
I entered into ministry with two of our squad’s teams in South Africa a week into the month. I had some catching up to do.
At the same time, I am so grateful that God allowed me to enter into the situation with fresh eyes.
