Leaving Swazi
How do you make friends in a month and then tell them goodbye? How do you invest knowing you’re making an impact, but also keenly aware that in a matter of weeks, you may never see them again? It’s a hard choice, choosing in, saying yes over and over even when the pain becomes something that is more of a when than an if.
Swaziland made such an impact on my life. More than that, Sam made such an impact on my life. It’s hard to find the right words to convey what someone means to you, but there are so many memories of Swazi, of my Month Five that will be forever wrapped up in her reluctant smile and bold personality. Everything from learning card games and trash talking each other to sitting together when she needed someone to be with her, we did together. I got to pray blessings over her life and those of her sisters and I saw someone who didn’t like people to get close begin to open up to me in the smallest of ways.
It was difficult to say goodbye, I didn’t want to let go of that final hug, tried to remember all of the last minute things that she needed to know from me and honestly, I can’t tell you whether or not I thought of them all. It was a blessing and an honor to have the privilege of being her older sister if only for a little bit. And even if it was hard to say goodbye, I’m glad I went. I wouldn’t want to trade those memories or that experience for anything. I don’t know everything her friendship taught me yet, but I’m guessing I’ll be learning for a while. Our ministry in Swazi blessed us so much and I will forever be grateful for it.
Travel Day
Travel day consisted of a five hour bus ride to Johannesburg, a four hour wait in the bus station that I got sick in on my previous visit to that particular terminal, and then a sixteen hour bus ride from Jozi to Port Elizabeth. Personally I woke up with a particularly sore hip from trying to sleep for a night cramped into two seats. From there we were picked up by our ministry hosts for the last forty minutes of travel from Port Elizabeth to Jeffery’s Bay.
Welcome to J Bay!
The reason there’s been radio silence from me is because this month we are busy. We’ve been blessed hugely by our ministry hosts; we have a great place to stay with an amazing view and they have thoroughly welcomed us into their community. We’re working with a group called Global Challenge, an organization that was born out of AIM actually. They send teens on a Journey that lasts a number of months as they go around the world and serve communities in basically the same way we do. So it’s been incredibly cool to meet so many people who know what we’re going through and can relate to our journey.
Ministry this month is broken up into the morning and the afternoon. Anytime from 8:30 to 9am we are picked up and either head to a community where we’re trying to build a small shed for a soup kitchen for neighborhood outreach or to a local school where we’ve done everything from priming logs to be a part of a log cabin for another school building to sorting out extra bricks from the garbage in the yard. I realize that may be rather difficult to picture, but this is an affluent campus that is still growing and, like the rest of the Race, we just do whatever is asked of us.
Afterwards, we get approximately an hour for lunch, then we’re off to Beats and Books, our afternoon ministry. This is a place where kids in the community can come to get assistance on homework, learn an instrument like the violin, praise God, and generally have a safe place to go and learn after school. A lot of this time is spent making sure they learn letter, their alphabet, getting them to read and play other learning games. And even more than that, we’re building relationships.
In our morning ministry, I’ve met a girl named Latifa, an eighteen year old who just wants to learn about God and hear our stories. In turn, she shared her own and we got to sing praise songs with her and her family and she’s been teaching us some practical skills like how to de-scale a fish. For those of you who are curious, it involves a fork.
In our afternoon ministry, a boy named Olona has attached himself to me. Not sure why, but he’s a great little kid who just needs some love, so that’s what I try to show him. We sit together, we’ve played with a tennis ball, bouncing it back and forth and a handful of other small games. I’ve also gotten the chance to talk with an older girl named Sima who was going through a hard time with her family. She’s a very dedicated student and wants to go to the States to be a lawyer some day. So we talk about that and about school and a few days ago, I was able to teach her how to do a listening prayer. Basically the kind of prayer where you ask Jesus a question and wait for him to answer you back. It was such a cool thing to witness her walk through that experience. I hope she continues to walk in that and explore that path, figuring out for herself what a personal relationship with Christ can look like.
Adventure Day One: Surfing!
This past Saturday, I got to make a huge check off of my bucket list. I know, I’m only twenty three and I have so much life ahead of me, but what is there to look forward to if you don’t have goals?
Anyway, we got a great deal (from Son and Surf in case anyone wanted to know) for board and wetsuit rentals plus a surf lesson for only 20 USD.
And let me tell you; speaking as someone who was born with salt water in her veins, finally getting a chance to fall in love with a new water sport was so. Much. Fun. I only stood up for a few shaky seconds, but, as I was later informed by a surf-expert, “if you only stand up for a millisecond and you get bit by the surf bug, having salt water in your veins, you’re a surfer.” So there you have it folks; one life goal complete!
And while we’re on the topic, God works in crazy ways and let me tell you about one of them. One of our surf instructors is part of a Christian surfer’s organization called C SALT which stands for Christian Surfers Something Something Something. But once he found out we were missionaries, he invited us to his church and later to a dinner with his organization. It was so cool to hang out with people around our age who love Christ with such passion in their hearts. They also tried to cook us American food, so that was very thoughtful.
We hope to continue that relationship and our surfing adventures in the future.
That’s all for now, folks. More updates to come.
~TL
