South Africa man, just wow. Every time I try to form words about it I just can’t. Something about it just makes me incredibly happy. Spending a month and a half somewhere also may do that to someone who is constantly packing up and moving every month for a year. I still can’t believe my time here is ending for now. For month four I was meant to be in Lesotho, but our passports got stamped for only 11 days instead of the whole month. So we sadly left Lesotho early and went to Heidelberg. Where, I happened to become who Erika is meant to be, walking in freedom with the Lord. There we listened to different sermons from the bible college and just got to know our hosts. When we left their was a part of me that wanted to go back, but the other part of me just knew that I wasn’t going back. Thats about when I learned that I would be going to Jeffereys Bay, one of the top places in the world to surf. But I wasn’t there for the surf, nor do I know how to surf, no one really surfs in New Jersey. Week one, we spent time with Global Expedition, they were on their work week, we helped them build a bridge and a pathway for the school. The first day was during the end of a heat wave so it was sweltering hot outside, with very little shade. The next day was better there was a nice breeze other than the dirt flying everywhere. The following day it was breezy and rainy, the breeze made it cold, the net few days were nice and the ground was easier to break for digging below, even though we didn’t help them work on the day they finished it, it was still amazing to see the path and bridge done knowing that my hands helped them get to the final product. Weeks two and three we spent with Beats and Books, helping under privilege kids learn how to spell and learn different instruments. These kids are in public school here which means about 50-60 kids per classroom with one teacher. That was when I picked up a ukulele and taught myself more than the basics and then taught it to one of the girls there. One of the girls I want to tell you about is Emelia, I started to speak life into her, tell her how beautiful she is, it got to the point where she started to avoid me because every time I would talk to her I would make her cry, everything I told her were different things I received from the Lord to tell her. Another one of the girls that I really just fell in love with is Simoney, she was always running around smiling, poking us just because she wanted to and found it funny. Simoney really struggled with spelling and I struggled with watching her struggle, thats when I suggested for her to take a practice test everyday and it helped, she went from getting one right to getting half of them right in five days. Our last day there she got her new words for the week and I was helping her with saying them out loud and she just kept refusing to say them to me, so I made her look me in the eyes and just repeatedly told her how smart she was, and refused to let her accept the fact that she wasn’t. I am going to miss South Africa more than anything and I pray for the day that I am able to come back and hopefully volunteer for Beats and Books for longer than a month and just get to know the kids on a much deeper level.
