If you know me at all, you know I’m a big procrastinator. Oops. I’m working on that. With that said, I asked my Instagram followers to ask me some questions regarding the race about a month ago and I’m just now getting around to posting them. If You have any further questions about anything I talked about/ my life in general, don’t hesitate to reach out!
What are you looking forward to?
So many things!!
I’m looking forward to:
-being able to look back and see how much I’ve grown and going home a completely new person.
-creating so many new and deeper relationships with the people around me
-learning what it looks like to choose into the people around me to create those deeper relationships
-learning more about God and in turn learning more about myself
-having my whole squad together in a little under a month!! (But also being present where my feet are and taking advantage of a smaller crowd)
-healing! I have been struggling with migraines that I know the Lord will heal me from!
What’s the biggest thing/s you’ve learned so far?
-Ministry doesn’t have to be hard. Ministry is life, your whole life is a “mission trip”.
-Rest comes from the Lord and being in His presence. He fills us up like nothing else can.
-I’m logistically learning how to just be a healthier human haha. I’m learning how to not be passive but give feedback and work through things. Also how to choose in to my community and not just live with these people without actually knowing them. It’s harder than I thought it would be but it’s worth it.
Who have you gotten close to?
I grow closer to my squad mates everyday and I’m so so thankful for this community!!! Lifelong friendships are for sure being made!! Slowly but surely!! I’ve gotten closest to my teammate, Ashlyn (She’s in like every one of my insta posts haha). She’s such a deep thinker and is continually growing. She inspires me and challenges me in so many ways. She seeks the Lord with her whole heart and reflects Jesus in such a beautiful way. She’s intentional about seeking people out and truly getting to know them. She makes me feel like I’m at home because her spirit is so welcoming (ily Ashlyn ;))
I’ve also gotten to know some of the locals from church or just going into town on the weekends. We have a cab company that we call and there are around 6 different drivers. Since there’s 40 of us needing the same 6 drivers all of the time, we get to know them pretty well and get to evangelize to them on the way!
I’ve gotten closest to one of the drivers named Etienne! I somehow always get him as my driver. He loves country music and picking up on new languages! Every time he picks us up, he greets us in a different language haha!! He loooves to joke around and laugh with us and ask us funny questions to confuse us lol! He takes us the shortcuts even though he’s not supposed to and it would cost him money. He just loves to laugh and serve us well!
Dwayne, a homeless man, is another local I’ve gotten close to. We met him while doing a local challenge a few weeks ago where we had to complete some tasks and one of the things was to buy someone in town a meal and eat lunch with them. Dwayne was car watching which is a job where people tip them to make sure their car doesn’t get broken into. We walked by him and asked if he was hungry and he said yes. We bought him some lunch and sat and talked for a while. The next few times I went into town, I saw him and was able to catch up! Me and my teammate, Ariel, ran into him one day while he was working so we bought him another meal and sat with him while he ate. He was telling us about how he was robbed on his birthday and they took all of his money and food. He had no family or friends around him on his birthday so I ended up giving him my Bible as a late birthday present, since he didn’t have one.
My favorite thing is getting to know the people in this town and the workers in the stores we go to and the staff at our ministry site. I’m excited to get to know everyone better and do life with these people!
What’s been the most interesting African thing you’ve seen?
I feel like we don’t really see interesting or out of the ordinary things. It’s shockingly a lot like the states except one time we ate chicken feet hahaha. We didn’t really experience in a cultural setting so I was debating on putting this in but Ashlyn said I should so here we are. We were doing the local challenge that I talked about in the last question and the last stop was this restaurant in the mall. We couldn’t say a word the whole time we were in there and we had to order our food off of a menu that was in Chinese. Little did we know, the menu was just to confuse us and they brought out chicken feet for us to eat, no matter what number we ordered. It’s a traditional African meal, it was just part of a fun challenge so I feel like I didn’t experience it in an “African” way if that makes sense haha.
There are also cows just roaming around some of the streets here if that counts hahah.
What’s your favorite part?
Right now it’s ministry! We’re working at a school for 3-6 year olds and they’re the CUTEST lil nuggets ever. I share a classroom with Ashlyn and we have 4 year olds! We get to help them learn numbers and colors and get them ready for graduation (although, they’re only 4 so I’m not too sure what that actually looks like haha). They color A LOT and their school is in another language so I never really know what’s going on. I just love on them and tell them they’re doing a good job. It’s pretty tough sometimes when the kids are doing something wrong and they don’t understand us so they don’t listen. Thankfully love isn’t bound by languages. I give seemingly endless hugs and kisses everyday. It’s not always easy, though. Most of the time I have a migraine so I feel like I can’t give the kids my all. Some days I’m just tired and irritated and don’t feel like working. Today, I had to clean up a kid’s throw up because he was trying to drink all of his juice faster than his friend. But hearing them yell “teacher, teacher” with the biggest smile and their arms raised for a hug makes it worth it.
We come home at 1:30 and usually start manual labor. We’re helping build a classroom for primary school kids! It’s basically built out of life size Lincoln Logs!! I’m actually loving manual labor!! It’s not super hard work, just a lottt of nailing nails. We do this thing called chinking where we hammer nails about 3 finger widths apart. They go in rows in between each log then we put wool behind the nails and then cement will go over the nails. It’s meant to be a little bit of insulation and it keeps the rain from seeping in through the walls. I enjoy doing monotonous little things and my team makes it fun. We find joy in the little things like pretending the saw dust is snow and joking around with our ministry hosts.
How do you see God working in and through you on the field?
I see Him working through me by just shining the light that He has given me. Since I’m obviously different here, people want to know where I’m from and why I’m here. That makes it pretty easy to evangelize because I can say that I’m on a mission trip to tell people about Jesus! He’s using me to bring home the lost. He’s using me as his hands and feet. I am His arms when I hug people and hold little kids. I’m His ears when people just need someone to listen and be heard. He’s using me to share the hope and life that I have in Him because it would be selfish of me to keep that for myself. I’m learning that these things should be true for when I go home too. I shouldn’t be telling people about Jesus because I’m on a mission trip but because that’s what my life mission is. Knowing Him and making Him known is all I want my life to be. God is working on me SO much internally. I’m always learning and processing and sometimes avoiding processing because I’m overloaded with information and don’t even know what I’m feeling. But I’m growing and I want all the growth I can get out of this year.
How’s your trip going so far?
I get this question a lot and it’s probably the hardest one to answer. A quick answer would be “great!” but there’s so much more to it. It’s hard to even see this as a trip. A more accurate statement would be “season of life”. And it’s hard to sum up a season of life. It’s full of growth, even when I don’t know that it’s happening. Right now life is filled with an abundance of joy, love and thankfulness!! This season is going to flyyy by so I’m just trying to live intentionally and soak in as much as I can so that I can pour it all out. I’m living in freaking South Africa and that’s so cool to think about!!!
