Her name is Sarah. She is soft-spoken with a mischievous sense of humor. She has an unwavering passion for the Lord. She taught me important things this week.
Patience, faith and perseverance.
I took her kayaking for the first time in her life across a beautiful African lagoon. The next morning we shot bow and arrows together (another first) in an open field with a gorgeous mountain as its back drop. When asked, ‘What she wanted to be when she grew up’, she shared that she wanted to wear mini skirts, high stiletto heels and smoke cigarettes…I told her, ‘Funny. My name is Sara and I’ve been serving at the camp all week in mini skirts, stiletto heels and smoking when no one was looking.’ Not. Sarah is a 76 year old African woman who has been blind her whole life.
Sarah getting expert advice from camp counselor, Roxy, before her
first shot!
Her name is Tina. She is small in size but large in heart. She was raised on farms along the Western Cape of South Africa as a child and says though she has never seen it, nature is her favorite thing. Tina also went kayaking and shot a bow and arrow for the first time in her life this week. She is 74 years old and Sarah’s younger sister, also blind from birth.
My name is Sara. I walked in to this week of ministry blind. Having no idea what to expect. Every pun in the world regarding sight could be entered here: ‘I have a new perspective’, ‘My eyes have been opened’…etc. But truly, serving for a week with Higher Ground, an organization in South Africa that specializes in adventure camps for the disabled, truly has been one of the most life impacting, eye opening weeks of my Race thus far.
Our team arrived at Wortelgat, where camp was being held, late last Thursday night. We met Emma and Kerneels, the couple who basically are Higher Ground, and began to get situated for the week ahead. Emma assigned a few campers to each team member so we would know who and how to care after each camper and make sure all of their needs were being met. This Higher Ground camp was specifically for the blind and partially sighted. Our campers ranged in age from 25 – 76 years of age.
When Emma announced that I would be ‘in charge of’ Sarah and Tina, sisters who were 74 and 76 years old and had never attended a camp before, my first reaction was a fist pump and a lingering, “Yessssssssss!!!!!!!”, immediately followed by second thoughts of, ‘How am I going to handle this? I’ve never worked with the blind or disabled, and have minimal experience, at best, with the elderly.’ God absolutely used this week to slow me down, and teach me more about grace and patience.
The dynamic duo, Sarah & Tina.
We Racers were divvied up among cabins with the campers. Carrie and I were living with the elderly ladies. Sarah and Tina shared a bedroom a few feet from Carrie and I, and another camper, Rose, was down the hall from us. Heidi and Alexandra had a house full of ladies down the way, and Will and Blake lived in a cabin with two other Higher Ground volunteers, Morris and Bronwill, and all of the male campers. Our days began at 7:30 a.m. with staff prayer, then walks back to the cabins to escort the campers to breakfast. We went full throttle every day until our heads hit our pillows at nighttime.
Every meal we served the 16 campers. Heidi and I liked to joke that this was polishing our waitressing skills so we would be able to find some work when get back to the States. Most of the campers were capable of serving themselves, but this was probably one of my favorite parts of the day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner we worked hard as a team to bring hot drinks and full plates of food to the campers, then direct them to the food items on their plates; ‘Okay Sarah, chicken is at 4 o’clock, veggies are at 7, bread is at 12 o’clock, knife is on your right, fork on your left.’ I overheard one of the campers saying that this made it (the week at camp) even more like Heaven, that even though some of them may be able to serve themselves, being served showed them there are people out there who love them and care about them.
Besides taking care of such simple things as making sure all of the campers had what they needed to enjoy their meals, living with them was another eye opening task. Sarah and Tina can’t hear all that well, and Afrikaans is their first language. Patience was my number virtue throughout the week when I had to re-instruct their steps every morning, evening and afternoon when we found our way back to our cabin. They both use a walking stick or cain and walk at a pace slower than a 5’11 speed walking type-A personality can handle. What made our navigation more amusing was when they would speak Afrikaans to me for directions and neither one of us knew what was happening until someone ran into some blunt object. Soon enough I learned to narrate everything we were approaching, and remind Sarah and Tina where paths led, even if it was our fifth time in the day taking the same path.
Kayaking, archery, long walks in the wilderness, an hour hike each way to the beach, horseback riding, hours of book readings, and games filled the time in our days between meals, devotions and prayer, and just some good ole guys’ and girls’ time. It was through these activities that our team saw what living in blind community looks like. They’re not held back from anything you or I can do. They can do everything we can do and in some situations even more, it simply takes some altering of any activity you can think of, and they are able to participate.
The whole crew!
