Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile…we have been busy little bee’s. 🙂
Things are good here in South Africa. We arrived in Rustenburg about a week and a half ago from Swaziland. My team is working with a missionary here whose name is David. Here is an update on what I have been up to.
PAINTING…
For the last week we have been helping paint an administration building of the South African School of Theology. It’s been a long process but is almost complete. The people we have met here on campus are great! They, and there families, have been fun to get to know over the last week. They have been very accomadating and have allowed us to stay (in the newly remolded) dorms. We’ve had hot showers, electricty and access to the kitchen. The weather here has been literally freezing at night…we even heard rumors of snow about 2 days ago during the middle of the night. A cold front came in and it was definately fridged. It’s warmed up quite a bit since then but is still pretty chilly at night. Here are a few pictures of our painting process.
This is one side of the building….we actually had to power wash, scrape loose paint, sand, fill, and prime the whole thing (a few times) and then we are currently putting on a tanish-brown coat (3 or 4 coats) on as a top layer.
Here are a few of us…working hard…as you can tell.
And here is a pic of Josh…you can see he is using a tree branch as a paint stick.
THE LIGHTHOUSE SHELTER…
The missionary, Daved, that we are working with has established a shelter here for children in crisis. There are about 30 children total and range from the ages of 2 weeks to about 10 years old. They basically live out thier complege lives there….eating, sleeping, going to school, etc. He’s created a home for these kids. It’s a really neat shelter. The kids all have different stories. Some are HIV positive. We heard stories of abandonment; one child was fround in the trash minutes after he was born. Another girl was raped numerous times before she had turned 3 years old. These children have all come from different back grounds and are given a second chance here at the shelter. He has numerous workers that work 4 days on and 4 days off. There is pre-school class that meets at 9 every morning. My first day there we made crafts and practiced numbers and days. The class ended as the kids sang and danced to a song with the lyrics
…”I am not forgotten, God knows my name”. I began to tear up as a I watched these children sing and dance to a song with lyrics so true. These kids have been forgotten by parents and family, they have been thrown out as trash… But God has not forgotten them.
I have been helping out with the babies of the shelter…The youngest one is 2 weeks old. He is so tiny and cute. Some of them are learning to crawl and sit up. It’s different in the nursery everyday. I help with feeding them (you can imagine how much work it is to feed 11 babies at the same time 6 times a day). Most of the time I leave with spit and baby food all over my shirt. But none of that matters when you’re giving a little bit of love that way overdue.
WRAP UP…
I personally am really enjoying my time here in South Africa. I really love the shelter and am thankful for our host and accomidations. There is a big mall nearby that also has a movie theatre (we already took some time off to watch Ocean’s 13) so that is really nice. Our team is also supposed to help with a garden project here as well. We are needing to build some type of protection around the gardens because monkeys and chickens keep getting inside and ruining the crops. 🙂
Love you all and miss you tons…I’ll post some fun pics of the kids at the shelter soon so you can see the delights I get to spend my days with. 🙂
