I’m back with another blog, as promised! Buckle up, it’s a long one… This blog is going to be continuing with the theme of “God’s plans are always better” because, as you’ll notice, these past 3 months have gone nowhere near according to our plans. When we originally made the decision to go back onto the field, our plan was to go back to Eswatini (aka Swaziland) for 3 months. However, just a week before we were set to leave, Eswatini closed their borders. So instead, we headed to Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa to work with Global Challenge and an after-school program called Beats and Books (which I’ll share more about at another time). Our plan was to work here for about a month until the Eswatini borders opened up, and then continue on with our original plans there. But, God yet again had other plans. When the time came to prepare to make our way up to Eswatini, the border closure extended another month. I was disappointed at first, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, J-Bay will always have a very special place in my heart, but I felt like I was getting too comfortable here. I had warm showers, a bed, a kitchen to cook in, and WiFi was within walking distance. I wasn’t being stretched the way I wanted to be. And that’s when God said, “Ask and you shall receive!”. Little did I know I was on my way to one of the most stretching experiences of my life… I’m laughing as I’m writing this because I just know God thinks He’s funny when He does stuff like this.
Just a few days after finding out that we wouldn’t be able to go to Eswatini anymore, we were presented with an opportunity to go to a small, rural town in the Transkei called Zithulele. World Race had never sent any of their missionaries to the Transkei, but they decided that we should be their guinea pigs. So we teamed up with the Global Challenge group of 4 South African girls, crammed into a van, and drove 9 hours up the coast to the rural Transkei. And so our adventure began.
Upon arrival into Zithulele, just when we thought we were finally there, we had to hike nearly an hour to the homestay where we’d be living for the month. Our humble abode turned out to be a mud hut. Wonderfully constructed with walls of mud, hay for a roof, and a lovely cow dung floor. Yep, you heard that right, a floor made of cow poop! (Believe it or not, you do get used to the smell.) No electricity, no running water, nothin’. As I said before, I like to be stretched, so I’m all for rural living and the challenges that it brings. One of those challenges being bugs. Now, I can usually deal with bugs pretty well. Spiders don’t bother me too much, the crickets and grasshoppers don’t phase me, and even the occasional cockroach is fine. But when we came home on our third day to our hut infested with giant cockroaches, that’s where I turned weak. When I say infested, I mean infested. They were crawling all over the walls and ceilings, in our clothes, and even in our beds. There were cockroaches on my pillow, people!!! The 5 of us girls immediately went on a killing frenzy at 10 o’clock at night and were soon joined by our 2 lovely guy teammates when they heard our screams from across the homestay. After stomping every cockroach we could find, the guys help us set up our tents inside of the hut so we could sleep in peace.
Another glamorous side to rural living is the bathroom situation. Since there’s no running water, we used what they call “compost toilets”. You sit on a wooden seat and there’s a bin a few feet below you with some wood shavings to catch everything when you go. And when you’re finished, you pour some more wood shavings in to cover it up. We were basically giant hamsters. However, the process is very earth-friendly and for that I commend them. To wash our hands and shower, we used water from a tank that collected rain. The tank was quite small for 13 people to be using, though, so we often ran out of rainwater and had to pump it from a line that ran down to the nearby river. I didn’t mind pumping the water, until I ran out during one of my showers and had to get out and pump more while in my towel and my hair full of shampoo. That was a sight to see… We also found out the hard way that we couldn’t drink that water because it had worms in it. I’ll spare you the details of that discovery.
As far as ministry goes, our days in Zithulele were, as the South Africans love to say, hectic. On most days we left the hut around 7 am, and didn’t return until nearly 10 pm. It took me 3-4 cups of coffee to get through each day, and I’m usually a 1-cup-a-day kinda girl. So we were very busy, to say the least. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Zithulele has many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that all function together, and I was lucky enough to be able to bounce around and help multiple organizations throughout the month. I spent the most time working at Zithulele Independent School, which is a private Christian school consisting of Kindergarten-grade 6. I had the privilege of being a substitute teacher for grades 1 and 2 one day, where I got to experience and put into action all of the ways kids learn in rural environments. It was such a special experience that I’ll never forget. Working at the school also consisted of taking kids on field trips to the beach, being an assistant teacher for various subjects in every grade, and doing some behind-the-scenes admin work. On one of our last days, we hosted a field day for the kids- they LOVED it. And I think we had nearly as much fun hosting it as they did participating in it. It was so special to give them a day full of fun.
One ministry that completely blew my mind was the Mission Hospital. With very little space, resources, and doctors, they manage to take care of the entire surrounding area. I was treated with the opportunity to spend a day working with the physical and occupational therapists at the hospital making chest drains for covid patients. As I mentioned, the hospital has very few resources, and with March being the end of their financial year, they were struggling to make do. In rural health, when you run out of supplies, you make your own. So that’s what we did. We fetched some 2-liter coke bottles from the recycling bin down the street, some urine bags from the supply closet, and some tools from the PT office and got to work. We used a heat gun to melt the cap of the coke bottle, and then drill bits to make holes where we placed the tubing of the urine bag. We labeled measurements on the bottles and then sterilized them with bleach before sending them to the doctors. I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit skeptical that they’d actually work, but we heard from the doctor a few days later that they successfully drained the lungs of 4 covid patients! I was in awe. That project was definitely one of the coolest ministries I’ve ever been a part of.
The last ministry I had the opportunity to be a part of was the building of the children’s library. David, Isaac, Hannah K, and Isabel teamed up with an incredible artist named Jeremy for the month to make some real magic happen, and the children of Zithulele are now blessed with a fun, new hangout spot. Although I only worked there for a few days and didn’t get to contribute much, I had so much fun helping paint and see the space be completely transformed. There really aren’t words to describe the transformation, so I’ll just let you see for yourselves… (Photo creds to my talented friend Isabel)
All in all, my time in Zithulele was arguably the biggest blessing of these entire 3 months. Our friends there loved us so incredibly well and I think I can speak for my entire team when I say that we now have a family in Zithulele. True rural living surely shows you that all you really need in life is a loving community and the Lord. If you stuck around until the end, thank you for reading! I appreciate you and I hope you enjoyed 🙂
Love always,
Hannah
