So I am finally getting around to writing about my Journey here is South Africa. It took 64 Hours of travel to get here from Atlanta Georgia but we have all arrived in one piece.
I have been working at the Human Dignity Center during the day for the last week. The HDC is a school from which many other thing take place. My team and I have been working with the behaviour student/ special needs one on one. This is a huge help to the teachers especially the grade one teacher because the grade one class that has 29 students and 9 of them are special need most with fetal alcohol syndrome which slows down their learning and therefore become board in class become a distraction.
The school is set up for Children in crisis. This means that the children come from the poorest of the poor families. Many of these families the father is no where to be found and the mother cannot afford to feed the kids let alone pay for school. The HDC sets up a contract with these mother that they will come and help clean the school in payment for the child to attend. Some of the mothers also work in the center making jewelry,sewing and art work to pay for school and to gain a little more money.
The HDC also runs as an Orphanage without walls. This means that the kids do not stay at the school but live in the township with relatives. There is a team of people that will then go around and make home visits to all of the homes of the children in the school and make sure that every thing is going ok and will support the families in the areas that they are struggling in. Through this program, when one of the ladies was out checking out one of the homes, she they got word of a lady who was living on her own and was missing one arm do to a gun shot wound. The HDC decided that they were going to go in and assess her living environment and help where they could. Our team was given the chance to go with them to help clean this ladies house. We were not sure of what we were getting into and it broke our teams heart to see how this lady was living and was unable to help herself. And when I say house I mean more of a shack. Imagine a garden shed with no floor that has been abandon for 10 years and you might be starting to get close. As much as it was heart breaking to see how she was living it was even more heart breaking to she how embarrassed she was to have us come into her home and even more heart breaking to see her cry out of gratitude as we prayed over her after we had finished cleaning her home.
After I was filled with such mixed emotions. Glad that we could help her in such a small way. Worry for her and how things will be in the future and sad to think that this is the type of home that the children, who are so filled with such JOY that we have been playing with all week, come from.
Last Saturday we were given the opportunity to help out at a Matthew Lunch. This was an event where they bussed in 250 Homeless and destitute people and they gave them toiletries, showers, hair cuts, did their hair and makeup, gave them new clothing, feed them a 3 course meal. There was a kids area where they painted faces. They took pictures of each of them to put with a resume page that they had them fill out. There was Singing and dancing. People gave testimonies shared the gospel and gave out bibles in 3 different languages. Through it they had about 60 people raise their hand that they wanted to accept Jesus in their lives. The group that organized it is now trying to set up a bible study in their neighborhood so that they have a place to keep learning about the bible so it is not just one day thing.
Through this event was was once again reminded how much God has given me a heart for the homeless and for feeding people who are hungry. To be able to smile at them and have it brighten their day in turn brightens my day.
Please Pray for our Team Xuberant Joy. Some specific things to pray for are: Comfort, Confidence in Pray and Fundraising.
We have set some Goals for ourselves in fundraising and are claiming God promise in Eph 3:20 to make this happen. I am looking to have $11,000 dollars in my account by the time I leave South Africa in a week and a half I know this is possible because God provided almost $6000 dollars in 4 days right before I left for the race. Please pray for this and consider sponsoring me or one of my team mates using the support me links.
Stay tuned for videos that are in the process of being made to be out by the middle of next week.
God Bless
#11n11 #XsquadXposed #Xuberantjoy #CantStopCandace
