Team L.O. (minus Joy, who is going on to SE Asia to do set-up) has been in rustenburg for like a week now, I think. I’m really not sure how long it’s been actually.
We arrived at Lighthouse Children’s shelter, on whatever night it was, and immediately felt blessed and as much at home as possible.
Lighthouse Children’s Shelter is a ministry run by American missionaries, David and Janis Betzer. If you remember, we heard about David from an american we randomly met in mozambique. But, the shelter takes in kids from various crisis situations. They house them for however long it takes for them to get adopted by a family. David said a majority of the kids get adopted by families in Scandinavia. And I’ll tell you from experience that Scandinavia is not a bad place to live.
The oldest child there right now is 8 years old. They’ve had over 200 kids pass through there in the…4 or 5 years they’ve had Lighthouse going. (I’m not certain on how long it’s been going though. i don’t remember.) They got one child once, when he was found on a pile of trash with his umbilical cord still attached. The mother just simply didn’t want the child, so she put him in the dump. One girl was raped two times when she was 3 years old, before she came to Lighthouse.
It’s a great place to be, for the kids, and for us also. And I love playing with the kids, and holding and feeding the real little guys. (I don’t have any pictures of the kids or the actual complex yet, but best believe that I will)
We are currently living out at a Bible School that David used to teach at. We’ve been working on painting their administration building. We thought we would be out there for 3 days max, but we’re on day 4 now, and probably a little over halfway done. It’s a cement building with a lot of cracks, that you seriously could scrape and powerwash for a week alone. We’ve had a lot of run-around about what to do first, and we didn’t get the powerwasher till yesterday, and we don’t have enough paint thinner to clean the brushes and such…it’s just crazy! (my hands are all speckly white because of paint i can’t get off yet) We’ve been working with a native Zimbabwean guy named Gibson, who has been insanely helpful. We’ve also gotten to know a guy out there named Shadrach, and a some of the bible college students.
the building we’re painting
Tim freezing his butt off after getting soaked from power-washing
Josh and his roller pole made out of tree
the crew taking a break from the really cold day of painting
As a team, we’re doing alright, though some people on the team are getting a little frustrated and discouraged with the painting stuff.
One night, I got to go with David to a revival service in Boitekong that he was preaching at.
worship at the revival in Boitekong
David Betzer
David giving his message to the church in Boitekong
