QUESTION AND ANSWER TIME
(Q’s asked on Instagram story)
1/10
Q: Where are you staying at?
A: My team is staying in Jeffery’s Bay, South Africa. We live at a non-profit school who’s parent organization also does missions. The property that the school is on has a house (The Mission House) where we live. It’s a huge log cabin that’s big enough to host all of us. So we live on the school grounds, but we have our own house if that makes since!
2/10
Q: what food is offered/ what do you eat?
A: South Africa has all the “American” food that you could ever want. Monday-Friday, our host cooks us meals which typically look like:
Breakfast- Toast, peanut butter, yogurt, cereal, oat meal. ( some people buy personal food like avocados and other fruit, and eggs). Breakfast is really a pick and choose situation since there is so much that is offered!
Lunch: It’s made by our host, so she chooses what to cook. It’s usually something like sandwiches, hot dogs, pizza, or salad.
Dinner: Again, it’s made by our host and it’s always so good. I don’t think we’ve ever repeated a dinner so I’ll try to name a few- spaghetti, chicken & rice, a lot of pasta dishes, nachos, baked chicken, etc.
On weekends we get food money, so we typically go out to eat for lunch and grab things at the store to make dinner in small groups! The restaurants all have amazing food. They offer stuff like pizza, burgers, fries, salads, sea food, chicken strips, sandwiches, etc, and all of the food here is pretty cheap ( you can get a burger and fries for $4, or a grilled cheese and fries for $3). They also have American snacks, like Oreos, Lays, Fritos, Pringle’s.
3/10
Q: what is the weather like?
A: we just got into spring here so it’s warming up so nicely! Mornings may be chillier but you could definitely break a sweat mid day. It’s usually 60’s at night and mid-high 70’s during the day. Sometimes it will get as hot as 90 but only for a day. It’s really windy here since we’re on the beach. When we went to Pretoria, which is up north, it was WAY hotter there. It doesn’t rain too often here and the air is pretty dry.
4/10
Q: have you had to sleep in a tent?
A: I have personally not had to use my tent yet. Our boys slept in theirs for a few nights since there wasn’t enough room for them, but they got moved to Johannesburg so that was over quickly. Depending on if another missionary team comes in to stay here, we might have to tent out for some time. Stay tuned to find out
5/10
Q: What does your team need prayer for?
(To clarify, my SQUAD is 40 people, and we are divided into TEAMS of 6-8).
A: My squad as a whole has just been split up across the country, which has been difficult for us because we loved living all together and change is hard! You can pray for contentment amongst teams as we all start different ministries, and that we really dive into the community that is around us instead of worrying about missing out on others teams’s adventures.
6/10
Q: where do you shower & use the bathroom?
A: We have 2 lovely bathrooms and showers that are shared between 25 girls currently. They have running hot water! Sometimes we run out of toilet paper so we will go to the school to use the bathroom.
7/10
Q: what do you do on weekends?
A: oh boy, Jbay is full of things to see and do and places to eat. We don’t usually sleep in because the sunrise is at 5:45 in the morning and we all wake up because it’s so bright in the house. We eat breakfast at the house. Every Saturday, there is a 5K in our backyard (which is the school field), so 200 people show up and go for a run & some of us do it too. Also on saturdays is a market outside the mall, which is a 8 minute walk. We love going to the market and dancing around to the live music. There is the beach of course. You can try to surf.. but it’s really hard. There are so many amazing little restaurants that we are still getting around to trying. You can shop at the places in town. There’s a lot of surf shops like Billabong. Weekends are a good time to rest and watch movies or write blogs. Sunday’s are sabbath so the only thing we do is church and then rest all day!
8/10
Q: Can you do laundry at all?
A: yes! We put our dirty clothes in our laundry bags and put them down by the door. Our hosts then takes them to the laundromat in town and we usually get them back the next day. We give our host money to pay the laundromat because they charge by the kilogram.
9/10
Q: do you have to be careful when drinking the water?
A: The tap water at our house is safe, so no. If we stay somewhere else for a few nights then we just ask if the tap is fine, and it usually is!
10/10
Q: Is South Africa really different from home?
A: South Africa is very westernized compared to other countries I have done mission trips to. Things are slower here, no body is ever in a rush. People are more open to having casual conversation with strangers, which is different than in America. But a lot of things are very similar. We have all the same food. There’s malls, taxis, restaurants, nail salons, coffee shops, high schools and English is spoken everywhere. Overall, I haven’t experienced many major differences other than accents, driving on the left side of the road and things like that.
Ok, I hope you learned a little bit about what it looks like to be a World Racer in South Africa. If you have any more questions, comment them!
