Month 11.
The final month.
As emotions are running high, anticipating the joys/fears of going home, we are still expected to do ministry. Every morning, I spent time with Jesus, asking Him to take away the distractions of the future. I still had no idea what going home looked like; I didn't know where I was going home to, I didn't know what I would be doing when I get home… But I still had a few short weeks before I would see my family again…
After getting back from camp in Jeffrey's Bay, our schedule in Port Elizabeth became a bit more routine. During the week, we spent our mornings and part of the afternoon at the Human Dignity Center [HDC]. The first week back, the kids were still on holiday, so we helped around the facility by cleaning, organizing, and painting. I also had the privilege of designing and painting a mural on one of the storage bins on the property.
Once the kids came back for school, We served as tutors for some of the special needs kids in the Grade 1 class. I got paired with an amazing, cute, intelligent little boy named Emihle.
I worked with him once or twice a day for forty minutes to an hour at a time. Every ten minutes or so we would take a break from our work and run some laps around the soccer field. Then we'd head back in to continue working.
During our time at the Human Dignity Center, Mandela Day came around. Mandela Day is on Nelson Mandela's birthday and is meant to honor his legacy. Everyone in the country is supposed to serve in some capacity for 67 minutes, one minute for each year that Mandela fought for social justice. Many different groups came to the HDC to donate food, goodies, and time to the ministry. Our last day at the HDC was Mandela Day. A couple groups came in on that day and did face painting, cupcake decorating, and food handouts with the kids at school. The kids had a blast!
During the week in the evenings, we went over to church members' houses to have dinner with them and get to know them better. It was so humbling having people invite six complete strangers into their house, feed us, and on some occasions, entertain us for the evening. We've met so many people this past month. We even went over to a young adult group from a church in the area. We had a blast playing Fish Bowl, 2 Truths and a Lie, and we even introduced them to sock wrestling. 😉
On the weekends, we helped out at Firehouse [youth group] on Saturday nights.
I even got to preach our last night there.
On Sundays, we attended various churches in the morning and then finished the weekend by attending Sunday Night Live, the evening coffeehouse style service at Lighthouse Family Church.
No words can truly express my gratitude for everyone who played any part in my time in South Africa. Some invited us into their houses and cooked for us, some gave us rides to and from church and anywhere else we needed to go, and some simply became our friends. I'm really going to miss everyone I met this past month in South Africa. You all are amazing people…
The youth praying over us before we left for debrief.
