so this month has not been a typical month on the world race. we are living at the “Budget Backpackers” hostel in St. Lucia, South Africa. St. Lucia is a small, homey resort town on the indian ocean. i never thought, when i signed up for a year of volunteering in a world full of poverty, that i would be doing ministry in a resort town in South Africa. this month has looked anything but ordinary, so i’m going to give you a look into one day in St. Lucia.
the day started when Xander picked up my team at the hostel. usually the person that comes to pick us up is about 30 minutes to an hour late, but he was only 15 minutes late. that was surprising. we left the hostel, jumped in the back of Xander’s safari type truck and drove to the crocodile center. our job was to help Xander excavate 2 croc nests. so we walked to the small cage that housed about 6 crocs, male and female. Xander, Caleb, Nathan (the hostel manager), and a worker at the croc center went into the cage to do the digging. this nest was particularly hard to find. after around 20 minutes they finally hit an egg. the egg was unfortunately destroyed, but it led to the other 38 eggs in that nest. my job was to record, from outside of the cage the mass, length, width, and fertility of each egg. when we finished they started searching for the next nest, but never found it. so we decided the only thing to do after that was hold baby crocodiles! i was scared at first, but when I saw Xander’s 2 year old son pick one up i knew i could be brave enough. crocs don’t feel the way you think they would that are actually pretty soft and squishy.
me holding a 1 year old crocodile.
one of xander’s sons. he jumped in the croc cage to get the baby crocs out for us.
you might be thinking: what does finding crocodile eggs have to do with ministry? this is really hard for me to explain. over the course of the last seven months i have realized that my entire life is ministry. as i walk down the street, go to the grocery store, watch a movie with friends, play volleyball, or go to work: every single thing i do is ministry. that is why this month our team prayed and decided to pick a ministry that is more like what our ministry will look like at home. life. we are working with people that need Christ at the croc center. we are doing ministry in the hostel everyday as we make friendships with the people that are moving in and out. we are sharing the love of God with every person we come in contact with.
cape vidal
we started driving back, when Trevor asked me if i wanted to drive. i told him that i had never driven a manual before, especially not on the wrong side of the road!!! but trevor insisted that he was going to teach me. so i hopped in the driver’s seat of a safari truck in the middle of the savannah to learn how to drive a stick for the first time. trevor didn’t give me any direction. he only told me to put my foot on the clutch and he would shift gears for now. so i started the truck and of course stalled out. no big deal though, he was not going to let me stop trying. i finally got going and drove 8 people to a look out spot over the bay. when we got out they all cheered me on for doing such a good job my first time (i know they were only being nice)!
at the top of the hill you could see both the ocean and the bay. it was an absolutely magnificent sight! caleb asked if there were any trails to the water and there was one a few minutes drive away. so i hopped back in the driver’s seat and drove to the beach. it was lined with rocks and the sun was starting to set. so we climbed on top of the rocks to enjoy the view for a few minutes and continued our journey. after we got back in the car trevor told me we were going to do something illegal. i responded with NO WAY! i have seen “locked up abroad” on the national geographic channel. but he told me that it wasn’t really illegal, he meant that it was closed after sunset. but he works in the park, so it was fine as long as he was in the car. i then let out a sigh of relief and continued on. he directed me to a “road” in the middle of no where that looked more like an animal path! but i followed direction and kept driving. we found out that it was actually a safari path. so it was really cool. i felt like a safari guide. once we had been on the road for a while Trevor let Rachel and Robby try their hand at driving a manual too. we had so much fun. i felt like i had conquered a major life lesson. trevor got back in the driver seat and we drove back to the hostel. had feedback and went to bed.
our time in st. lucia has been so blessed. i have many cool experiences that i never thought i would have. we have had the opportunity to minister to people from all over the world. please pray that we continue to have more opportunities to share God’s word.
