Finished up South Africa and it was indescribably amazing. Amazing contacts, children, community, food, Internet, the list could go on. After a tough month in China, God new I needed a little rejuvenating and blessed me with South Africa.
However, South Africa provided all the materialistic comforts (see list above) that I can find in the US, so ironically enough God put on my heart what sacrificing really means. Everyone has a different definition of sacrifice. Some could struggle with sacrificing money, while others struggle with sacrificing time, sacrificing food, sacrificing sleep…Even as I’m typing this I can’t help but think that I didn’t have to sacrifice much last month 15 minutes outside of Cape Town, yet I became aware that in China we had nothing and survived. It was painful but I came out alive somehow. So I know I can live without things. Sacrifice isn’t about appreciating what you have, thanking God for blessing them so they could have so much, it’s about giving up something you value. I don’t really know what thought I’m trying to communicate here, I’m just saying God heightened my awareness of the definition of sacrificing…
I think Ma & Pa are the perfect examples. Countless times we would have one loaf of bread left for lunch and some child would come in and without a thought Ma would finish the loaf and give all the children sandwiches. Or one time we went to the hospital with Pa and we met a woman there who needed some clothes. Pa told her we’d bring her back some clothes and as we were getting in the truck he asked us if we thought she’d fit in Ma or Mirna’s clothes, one of them would have to give some of their clothes to Pa for this woman. I don’t know about you but if mom came home one day and was like ‘Kip, I met this chick in the hospital and I’m taking some of your clothes to give her’ I probably would’ve been like are you kidding me?!
Another thing they did, was their church at the end of their service they would have this sign up sheet thing and at the end they’d read off all the names of the people who needed rides home. And someone else from the congregation would volunteer to drop that person off. I just thought that was so cool. Community was so different in South Africa. People would come in by the boatloads and cram in our living room, I never heard one complaint, it’s just what they do.
So I really loved learning about the Afrikaan culture and foods and lingo and community. I definitely understand why people go back to South Africa.
