Thoughts of a Servant

What a day.  We went on an Game Drive and saw Lions, Zebras, Rhinos, Wilderbeasts, etc.  It was quite a day.  They also served buffet breakfast and a buffet lunch.  Then we came back and had ZA’s got talent.  These kids are so skilled.  They can sing, dance, act, etc.  It just blows me away.  To top it all off, we had a bon fire and sang worship songs!

Today was a little hard for me.  I had so many emotions running through my mind–  Deb and Emily’s song Amazing Grace had just wrecked me.  There is something profound in a voice that has a distinguished relationship to Gods love.  Singing is cross-culture, and spiritual.

We woke up to another great day of worship at 7:30 AM.  We had our devo groups with the kids this morning.  We decided to take the majority of the time to pray for the kids.  We exchanged prayers for eachother and it was actually pretty cool.

Then I ended up going to the church to try and troubleshoot some more IT stuff, but nothing was really working.  Also encountered a special type of soup– called smiley soup.  Smiley soup is a delicately cooked pile of intestine followed by half of a goat head.  Tastey   So I went over to Sweet Home where I was able to play with the kids and listen to Deb and Kenny give their instruction on child care to the CHEs.  It was the hardest time leaving them– I will forever remember a 2 year old girl who just loved us, and she was left all alone looking at us driving away into the dust, paused as though time had stopped and she wanted the previous moments of fun to last.

Although it was hard to leave, a really cool event was going on at the Academy.  Michael, Mitch and I went to make a cross out of some wood, and everything was pretty much provided for…  Two pieces of long-wood were not nailed down so that we could use them, there was rope nearby.  We came in and finished up the choose to wait seminar.  Bulailani was one of the first to come forth– I really admire that man.  He is amazing.  He is going to go so far–

But we were able to pray for each other again.  There was so much prayer today, it is amazing.  The more you love God, the more you want to spend your time in prayer.  Its absolutely amazing.  We even had our team meeting which was pretty much affirmations and prayer.  We prayed over a staff member because he wasn’t going to see us leave, and we just wanted to lift him up as we went out of ZA and he remained here doing the work of the Lord.

Woke up at 7:30AM for devotions.  Had a breakaway discussion with the kids about like and love.  They say that if you tell a girl you Love her, that immediately means that you want to have sex with her.  They said that you would tell a girl this on the first date or upon first meeting.  Sandi was feeling something at the end of our discussion.  Tears were in his eyes, but we couldn’t draw it out.

Taught some salsa lessons to the kids today, it was super fun.  They were jammin!  Some of the girls were phoenominal in their picking up of the women’s styling.  Also planted some trees around the landscape.

My favorite part of the day was listening to Deb sing.  She was absolutely amazing in her voice, and she sings like angels.  She reminded me of childhood memories and nearly brought me to tears listening to her.  But I was around 6/7th graders, I couldn’t let them see it.  This was the homework session, the 6/7th graders didn’t have any homework, so we relaxed with them.  We also played hangman which some of the girls would put some 30 words in the hangman sentence.

The sweet home team had an amazing day– It was gloomy, it was dangerous, windy, cold.  Two tires blew out in a very dangerous part of town, but everything worked out fantastically.  Once they made it to sweet home, they began playing and praying with kids, and by the end of the day several kids accepted Jesus as their savior.

We started the day with another awesome worship. Today for the mini-devotionals we decided to have the kids lead it instead of us.  That went well as we were able to answer their questions.

We went to sweet home and tipped the CHE’s on how to run a business. It was interesting to see how they ran their business currently and how they expected to run it.  I am blessed to have taught beside Michael whom had a beautiful outline in his mind and brought it like it was butter.

We came back to an awesome photo-scavenger hunt in which kids needed to take pictures with eachother.  After that Julius and I ran off to the Academy to finish off our poem that we were writing on Brotherhood.  It turned out pretty amazing.  I hope to have a bio published on that kid or Nqaba or whatnot.  These kids are remarkable, I would also like to get some of their stories on video so that we can share them with people.

Fraternity

Two friends,
on this pleasant earth,
seperated at birth.

We had a great prayer discussion with Peter and a great debriefing before we headed off to bed– at least the reast of the team.  I needed to blog, journal, and prep for tomorrow.  Awesome. :

Seperate in culture,
Seperate in time,
Seperate in strength,
Seperate in rhyme–

Me and my friend
are two nations.

No–

We are One Nation.
We cry together.
We are burdened.
We are one flesh.

A divine fraternity,
based on trust–
Providing safety
is a must

One Movement,
One Body,
One Shield,
One Army.

We are the Army of God–
We fight the Battle together.

Julius & Jon–
Jesus & I.

Julius & Jon: Divine Fraternity Poem Video

Today we woke up at a glorious 8am to meet yet the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen.  It was an absolutely amazing day.  Blue skies, red mountains, beautiful trees, nice weather– it was amazing.

Church service was at 9am, and it went to 11:30, although it was long, no one felt it because it was so impactful.  We showed them a Rockharbor service by taking communion, some songs, and an awesome service by Michael…  He shared about his past and what went on in his life and how he came to know Christ and how transformation and healing is now present in his life.  Nono also shared her testimony on her life and how God impacted her.  There were even a few others that shared, then we closed in prayer, praise songs, and an amazing time.

I began to write a poem with Julius in which I am hoping will be awesome!  It will be about the brace of brotherhood and what it means to us.

We also did an awesome game of soccer with the Academy.  It ended in a tie game– but it was filled with some awesome shots.

Sinetimba wanted to give us a run-down on politics and political history in ZA, so he pulled us aside and he did a panel discussion.  It was very informative.

Had an ice cream social with the team and kids, and that went well– on top of that we just hung out with them and just talked and embraced the absolutely amazing day.

Then we had a nice affirmation session with the ZA-RH crew.  It was awesome.

Today was a generally good day.  I woke up around 5am to a beautiful sunrise breaking through the clouds onto the mountains– revealing their warm colors.  It was honestly, the most amazing sunrise  I have seen in a long time– it was so unique in nature.  Then we went to tend to OVC (Orphaned and Vulnerable Children) in sweet home.

We laughed, did skits and games with the kids– they loved it.  There was also a man suspiciously walking up to Jess so I “triangle-proxied” his steps so that he would focus on me instead of her– thats some scary stuff.  But this man had so much pain, he couldn’t really tell what type of pain he had, all he would say is “its my problem, and I have to deal with my problem– but you have problems, and you need to deal with them, but I need to deal with mine.”  We prayed over him and asked God to heal the pain and refill his spirit.

We came home and relaxed for a bit before doing our choreographed ZA dance by Jess.  We also split into gender games so that the girls could do fingerpainting while the guys threw socks at eachother in a game of war.

I think something might have been in the ribs we ate for dinner as some of us are all feeling some starting symptoms of some rad food poisoning.   Lovely.  Those bathrooms are out of order for sure.

We woke up today around 5:30 am so that we could make it to Robben island in time.  Traffic into Cape Town is heavy around 7AM as everyone commutes to that location for work.  We ended up getting to the boat launch about half an hour before, but the CHEs that we were taking came one minute too late.    This is the equivillent to a holocaust museum for them, and its a rather big event.

Robben Island is definately a neat place.  Its such an event to see where Nelson Mandella was held and how he taught his peers and what they thought of eachother.  If they were unable to communicate, they would take sand from the ground and pour it through their inmates’ hand in order to show that they were of the same land fighting for the same rights.  Almost like calling them brother.

We also did some touristy stuff like wandering around the mall downtown and viewing all of the trinkets. We also ate a little lunch and I had a traditional dish of fish that was pretty fresh and pretty good

On the way back home, I had the most amazing discussion with this man Peter.  We talked about our aspirations and whatnot.  He has been to Kenya, Iran, Sudan, Congo, etc.  He preaches to youngins, and goes wherever the Lord brings him.  He has been held hostage, driven across rivers, been pulled by oxen across rivers, etc.  His story is absolutely amazing– but even more impressive is his passion for God.  That is exactally how I want to be.  He was talking to me about what his needs were, and I wanted to fulfill the need for a web communication type of thing where he would be able to stay in touch with those who were mentoured and learned from him.  He loves to stay in touch with the churches he starts and with anyone in general, so this would be a great way for him to do this.He recommended a book on servatude that was written by the man who carried his Cross across the globe.

We came back home and I was definately in the heart of the servant– I couldn’t get enough of serving others.  I wanted to help dishes, serving food, cleaning, and however I could.  We eventually went back to the other building where we are sleeping and then some watched romeo and juliet while others slept.

What a better way to spend a birthday.  It is truely amazing here.  So many experiences and so many stories that I wish I could remember already.  I have been blessed to be on such a journey with some amazing friends.  At 12am we were still up from the night before and they sang happy birthday! How amazing.

We began the morning at 7am again.  Another awesome worship led by Emily.  Then we got ready for sweet home and we were off!  There were tons of kids running after the car as we drove into sweet home.  There were so many smiling faces and impatient feet and open hearts.  We spent the first hour just warming up to the kids and throwing them up in the air and other various strenuous activities .

I immediately connected to this one little girl– unfortunately her diaper had not been changed in quite a long time, diahrea had been seeping through her clothing.  As difficult as that was to bypass, there is a greater issue at hand.  It seemed as though her eyes had not seen a smile and her back had not had a welcoming hand in a long time.  Looking past the stench and filth of her clothes, she needed to be embraced.  For a long period of time she had been crying, so I embraced her and began to sing Blessed Redeemer.  After a little bit of the song had been seeping into her heart she began to stop crying– She eventually fell asleep in my arms feeling protected and never letting go.

Later on that day we were sitting by the tire of a car listening to Erika speak stories from the Bible.  I was pointing out parts on the car for her to touch as she was embracing new adventures into colors shapes and sizes.  All of this exploration while diligently chewing on a satisfying bright-red balloon which she had been chewing for hours on end.  She found some dried mud on the rim of the wheel and began to hand it to me.  Being polite, I made a happy face and accepted the gift of gratitude.  She looked at me and realized that this had made me quite happy, and hence tried to find some more dried mud for her to give me.  After several times of looking for mud and handing it to me, she couldn’t find any more– and she decided that she wanted to give me her balloon…..

Here I am, coming clear across the world to serve–  And here is this girl, pretty much has nothing but soaking, filthy clothes and this red balloon, and she is trying to give it to me.  This is the last piece of entertainment and possession that this little girl has, and she is giving this balloon to me.

What a display of Love……  She has absolutely no word in English, but she knows that I was happy when she served whatever she had to me– She gave her all, and in return just wanted a smile and a hug.

There were some amazing times on this day– Again, I couldn’t have had a better birthday.  It was actually nice waking up thinking that I am serving the Lord rather than,”its mybirthday!”  We were going on the prayer walk around sweet home to pray for the community.  Two little boys had joined me and were holding my hand.  About half way through they were getting somewhat bored, so we began to sing the Round song, “Bubblin..  Bu-bu-bu Bubblin” and they were just enthused.  Before you knew it, most of the kids were singing along with the lyrics:

Jesus’ love is-a bubblin-over,
Jesus’ love bubbles in my soul

While the other half sang:

Bu bu bu Bubblin
Bu bu bu Bubblin

These kids were singing at the top of their lungs in any which way that they could…  I jokingly had some of them sing at the top of their key range, and some of the guys wayyyy down low in their voice.  It was fuuuun.

Then that song got a little old so we began to sing the beloved song “Who let the Dogs Out?!”  And then pure chaos broke out.    Kids were doin the dog voices, were were trading off, it was raaaad!

A lady from Sweet Home that was HIV positive, had TB, and also had Menginitis.  She had wandered in looking for some sort of food.  Deb and I immediately tended to her as she had mentioned that she was HIV positive and started balling her eyes out.  We prayed for her, and she said she was doing better– but I spent the next half hour to hour trying to explain to her why we couldn’t take her to the clinic for treatment.

This is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do– Pray over someone with an amazing word from God, and then tell them that we weren’t capable or didn’t have the means to help her get to the clinic to help her pain.

VBS went extremely well– Will did a great thing with the kids by teaching them without knowing english how to memorize Bible verses.  Kelsey did a fantastic time with the arts and crafts as we made backpacks for the kids.  Ended up making a bunch for CHE’s as they all wanted to see my maaad drawing skills.  Emily had some fun going outside with jump rope and a four-corner game that they made up on the spot.

Got back to the Academy in time for the talent show tryouts.  Then we went for some dinner at the kitchen and they happily sang the most amazing happy birthday song in English and in Xhosa.  I just received yet another beautiful card from Yanga, Azlle, Nathi, and Mimitha.

How blessed I am to be here on this day and with Jesus.  Jesus works in amazing ways, and up until this point I had some sort of curiosity as to why I am here as I cannot teach, I cannot do sports nearly as well as anyone here, but he has blessed me with and has used me to love others.  It is so amazing to see His hand at work.  I am so excited to see what is next.

Started another day with the morning worship.  That is definately the way to start any day.  We spend 30 minutes of our day devoted to songs and worship.  Then we break up into our devotion groups.  Mitch was especially Jesus-spoken today.  He was on a roll.  I just had to sit back and listen.

We then got ready for sweet home.  The team was going to sweet home and they were going to drop me off at the Church in Philippi for some IT work.  They needed some virus repair and network resolution.  For lunch they fed me the ever-so-popular goat soup inclusive with goat head and intestine.  Wow, what a lunch.  The team had so many wonderful experiences, but was really shaken by the affects of Sweet Home.  It was difficult to take in what type of situation these kids were living in.  The kids had broken glass, condoms, human waste, mold, lice, ringworm, etc.  It was a sad situation, but there is Beauty in the Pain– Thanks Cass!  Great phrase.

We got back and it was a scheduled culture night.  We had some african beats with traditional dancing, as well as the beloved chicken feet dinner.  They had us fooled when they said we were trying ostrich-eye.  They fed us and some of us had the gag-reflexes, but it turned out to just be a fruit instead.  Haha.  They got them good.

We had a touching closing with the group as we went to talk about our daily travels and how we were experiencing the moment.

Woke up at 6A to get started.  We went to the other building to do morning worship and devotionals with the kids.  Our group has only 5 people in it   We talked about prodical son and how it shows us our view of Jesus to us.  Next we made some lunch and headed off to Sweet Home.  We get there and get setup inside.  We also had to pick up church members from the local church in Philipi.  These trips are pretty fun because you have a completely different driving experience as you have to drive on the left hand side of the road as well as a left handed manual.  But these rides are also very dangerous as you cannot show any type of value or challenge as people get robbed at gunpoint simply on the township streets in mid-day.

Arriving at sweet home is definately a humbling experience…  You drive through some of the most poverty-stricken townships as they are being held together by shack material and barbe wire.  Its interesting that most of the people will not leave the township  because generations of family have grown up there.  The government even tried creating low-income homes for them to live in, but people will just turn around and rent out the location and remain in the township.

Its amazing how everyone is so content (hungry, and poor, but unbelievably happy).  If you were to hug one child, that would be the end of your lonliness as children from down the street would come and cling to you to pick them up.  Not even 10 minuets into the trip, Kenny, Andrew and I had 3 children in our arms, had a dance off, did some top spinning, jump rope, london bridge Afrikan style.  The Chays are also very friendly.  They are an amazing group of women that are diligent to learning the works of the trade.

We did several activities with the chays including a describing & drawing game, a tower building game, and a card game– each of these items focused on concepts that they could use to build their sewing business.  Oh man, everyone had a BLAST doing these activities as they couldn’t describe in english so they used Xhosa or hand signals hahaha.  How awesome.

Then we did a prayer walk around the Sweet home township.  Jess had the awesom task of doing the walk in crutches.  Before the walk, we had, at most, 4 kids…  By the end of the walk, we were holding hands with almost 20 kids.  What an image of God that is.  These kids are going to be in our VBS activities tomorrow!!!

On our way back to Bridges of Hope, we got Jess’s and Mitch’s luggage as it came in from London.  Once again, more grace shown by our Awesome God.

Getting back, we had a Afrikan Idol where they could sing or dance!  The actvitiy was a MAJOR hit.  You should see the video!  Kids loved it.  Might have to join in next time. . .

Closed up in some food and prayer and off to bed!