We recently hit two milestones. Sunday marked the halfway point and as of yesterday we have been here in South Africa for one month. Time is tricky here. Time is flying by way to quickly, but at the same time I feel like I have lived here forever. Thinking about going back home is definitely bittersweet. Of course I miss everyone, but I am not ready to leave this place. I have loved my time here and all of the people I have met. Sadly I know that this trip will all be over before I know it.
We have been meaning to update the blog, but we have been really busy the last week or so. Last week was similar to the previous week. Half of the group worked on the remodel at LImakatso while the other half stayed on base and worked on lesson plans. Friday was supposed to be the last day working at Limakatso, but pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We got there and there was a huge puddle of water outside of the classroom. One of the pipes had burst during the night and water was leaking out. Also, the floor we had put down the previous day was bubbling like crazy and looked awful. There was no way we could leave it like that, so we decided to pull up the floor and put down something else. In the process of pulling up the floor, we also began to pull up the very thin layer of cement. While all of this was going on, the field next to the school caught on fire and we had to help put it out. Nothing seemed to be going right on Friday.
Out of a difficult situation came a great opportunity. We had planned to spend the first two days this week doing relationship evangelism back in Qwa Qwa. We changed these plans so that all 24 interns could work all day at Limakatso on Monday and Tuesday. This opportunity allowed us to accomplish more than we had originally planned. We fixed the floor by chipping out the rest of the cement floor and replacing it with a new layer of cement. We then painted the floor and added some area rugs. We also decided that the fresh coat of white paint on the walls of the classroom were too boring and would get dirty very quickly, so we repainted the entire classroom a nice shade of green. Some of the talented artists of the group also painted a mural on one of the walls. We rearranged the playground and repainted all of the tires. On top of all of that, we also repainted all of the desk frames and sanded and varnished all of the tops of the desks. I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough room or work for all 24 interns, but we all worked very hard and came together to really make the school look great. I am excited to see the students’ reactions to their school and I hope they see it as a symbol of God’s love for them.
The last two days we have worked in a children’s home in Qwa Qwa. Most of the people in this home were either sent here because of behavior problems or because their parents could not take care of them anymore. Alison and I were both in the group that worked with the teens. We talked about issues that generally are kept quiet, like drugs, sex, AIDS, etc. We went in with plans to mainly focus on these issues, but when we split up into our small groups we discovered that most of these students had very little access to church or even a Bible, and they struggled with the idea of who God really is. It has been a neat experience to be able to share with these teens about God and to also give them a safe place to talk about these issues. One major issues that affects South Africa is AIDS. South Africa is affected more than any other country in the world and one out of every four people has AIDS. Despite these staggering statistics, I had not met anyone here who was affected by AIDS in some way, at least not that I had been made aware of. After hearing the stories from some of the teens, I now have a face to put with the stats. One of the girls had lost both of her parents and was struggling with whether or not she should explain to her seven year old brother, who is HIV positive, why he has to take certain medication everyday. Hearing these types of stories make the stats so much more real. We are going back to the children’s home in the morning to finish up the work we have been doing. In the afternoon we are going to the hospital to pray with patients.
This Saturday we are going to the lion park. I’m not really sure what we will be doing, but I do know that there are lions and I’m pretty sure we get to hold some of the lion cubs, so I am pretty excited.
On a side note, I have strangely become a morning person recently. In the past two weeks I have woken up to watch the sunrise almost every morning. The sunrise is amazing here. This weekend I am going to go on a sunrise hike with a couple of friends. We are going to wake up really early and climb Mount Everest in time to be at the top to see the sunrise. Those headlamps we bought will definitely be put to good use. :)
We will try to update the blog faster next time.
Christine
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