(Jesus loves you in Afrikaans). Here I am in South Africa, hard to believe…month SEVEN! We have had a wonderful experience so far in every way. Earlier this month our whole squad met up for a debrief in Johannesburg and it was a very fun & relaxing time. It was definitely strange coming back into western culture…I walked around the mall the whole time with my jaw dropped thinking, “What would people even DO with this much stuff??” The best part of the week was when I went to the zoo and saw every kind of animal imaginable…it was so fun!! It was only 5 minutes from our hostel and only cost $8 including taxi fare (which is a pretty good outing for a world race budget) Its not quite a safari, but the next best thing!
Our ministry site is near a fishing village just outside of Cape Town–we are working with an organization called Living Hope, which is a nonprofit that focuses on the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV & AIDS. This week we did a sports camp VBS at a place called ‘Ocean View’ which is a community housing project where ironically enough there is no actual view of the ocean. The area we are working has the highest crime rate in all of Cape Town and these kids are exposed on a daily basis to violence, gangs, drugs, and all kinds of abuse. Many of them have every reason in the world to have a negative outlook on life but they are some of the most joyful and friendly kids I have ever met! The format of the ministry is very reminiscent of my years serving at the local housing projects back home. We walk around with a megaphone each morning inviting the kids to come to the program and they are broken up by age group into rotations such as memory verse, bible story, and sports centers. This week 34 kids prayed the prayer of salvation as well as 1 teenager in the afternoon sessions we have. They are each so precious!
This month we are working with another team on our squad, called ‘Team Raw Fish’ (ironically my team was almost called ‘Raw Meat’)…thankfully we went another direction or that would have just been too many raw food products all together. We went out our first night here in Cape Town to celebrate Charlotte’s 25th Birthday [pictured in the purple]. It also happened to be the 4th of July but it was hard to celebrate overseas on a travel day. I did manage to belt out a rendition of ‘You’re a Grand Old Flag’ on the bus and the National Anthem on the train which got some interesting looks from fellow passengers, as you can imagine.
Month seven has brought some new faces to our teams! My team has been blessed with Lacy Fairchild from Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the other team has welcomed Courtney Patterson from East Tennessee. They are college girls that our joining us for the month through a program called World Race Exposure, which gives students a taste of what this crazy journey is like. They are awesome!
We were able to enjoy an incredible afternoon by the coast on our day off this past weekend. I had just watched a video of my vacation last summer to Maine with friends and was really missing summertime in New England, so this was an answer to prayer. It looked just like Cape Cod! I had seen a post on facebook from a missionary I know who said, “I hope you do something so fun this weekend it makes you want to dance!” I hit ‘like’ and had forgotten about the comment until I found myself walking along the pier. A band started playing some live music at sunset and I yelled out, “I’m just so excited…I want to dance !” It was then that those words came back to me and I knew that God delights when we enjoy this world He created to the fullest!
I am looking forward to see what the rest of this month will hold and all that God will do through our teams in South Africa. Please pray for my squad mates who have to raise the rest of their money by the end of this week or they will have to go home! My team mate is Andrea Abslag and you can donate at andreaabslag.theworldrace.org Thank you for your continued prayers…God Bless You!
