This is a journal I wrote while I was on a week long mission trip in South Africa.
You'll read stories about my adventure to South Africa, interactions with the locals, the amazing food, and most importantly how God used that week to transform me, t...
Psalms 117:1-2: (Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!)
This morning started off well, but I feel like the team's overall energy is waning. When we arrived at Moletsane a solid wall of exhaustion came over me. I tried to drink a lot of water to help wake up, when that didn't work I turned to old-fashioned strategy of eating as much candy as I could and ride a sugar high until the club was over.
During holiday bible club the kids are singing louder and getting into actions more. They are participating more in group time and paying more attention to Uncle Ryan during council time. Craft time went well for the blue team today. My time was mostly spent helping Reitumetse with her Popsicle stick frame craft by drawing hearts, stars, verses, and her name in rainbow colors!
Game time was received with a little less cooperation, the kids struggled a bit on how to work as a team and pull the parachute in the same direction, not pull against each other. A few practices tries and they started to get the hang of it and really enjoyed it. We tried a few different variations where we had to keep a ball in the middle of the parachute and where the kids got to run under the parachute if they were wearing a certain color that was calledout.
К сожалению, это изображение не соответствует нашим правилам. Чтобы продолжить публикацию, пожалуйста, удалите изображение или загрузите другое.
After HBC was over, we drove deeper into Soweto and arrived at the Hector Pieterson memorial. We discovered that this memorial was made to remember a young man that was murdered during the protests in Soweto on June 16th 1976. While we were there however we were probably the only white people there so when we were taking pictures, it felt disrespectful. I then began to notice two men whom began eyeing our group mostly likely to see if we were being careless tourists, but when they caught me staring right back at them and I believe they felt less inclined to do anything.
We then made our way to the Mandela house andwas bombarded by pushy parking attendants and other vendors who were trying to make a quick rand off tourists who were trying to view and enjoy the history of the Mandela house. I got to see his house but couldn't get any pictures because as soon as we were in we were within a few feet, we had to leave. I really would like to study the history of South Africa and apartheid. It seems at a glance that South Africa's segregation was much like America's with segregation and civil rights. Unlike in America it seems that the segregation here never ended. History tells of how it only got worse and more people died because of it.
К сожалению, это изображение не соответствует нашим правилам. Чтобы продолжить публикацию, пожалуйста, удалите изображение или загрузите другое.
On the way back to camp, a few of us started nodding off. So, when we got home Ruth, Taylor, and Callie went to Ruth's flat to start cooking for the bible study that night. While the rest of us stayed home and spread all the junk food out on the kitchen counter and we noshed upon all the junk food we could and we all took naps. It was awesome. Regrettable, but still awesome.
К сожалению, это изображение не соответствует нашим правилам. Чтобы продолжить публикацию, пожалуйста, удалите изображение или загрузите другое.
Later in the evening we departed for Ruth's flat where we would study and fellowship with the Monashe young adult group. As they arrived, wewere introduced to Kearney, Mike, Luke, Marco, Ishmael, and Nomfundo. Most of the group are originally from Zimbabwe and are here in South Africa for college at Monashe. I was able to speak with a few of them about what their home. I had a great conversation with Marco on grace vs justice and how I've been thinking through it in helping in holiday bible club. Then Pastor Mike got into the conversations and Marco turned the concept to parenthood and how parents should parent their children, as God parents us. He is not quick to divvy out justice, so His grace may abound, but He doesn't hold back His justice when we need it most; and how all as parents should try to emulate Him in that. We will fail as parents, but God is still graceful to us even in those circumstances.
К сожалению, это изображение не соответствует нашим правилам. Чтобы продолжить публикацию, пожалуйста, удалите изображение или загрузите другое.
In the study we went through Hebrews 10:24-25 which is very familiar to me because my care group went through it, but it was still great to go through it and hear new perspective on the verse. At the end I had a great conversation with Nomfundo, she is Ruth's housemate and she wanted to hear my testimony and I asked hers as well. Her testimony was how her parents had both come from a charismatic and ancestral worship background. She had told me that she had accepted Jesus as her savior in year 9 of her metric. It's great to hear other's conversion stories because it helps you remember how gracious our God is to us.
