A Day in South Africa (according to our team)

Last night (Monday) - we enjoyed dinner with four of the staff from Seed of Hope. This provided a great way for us to connect on a more personal level to grow in our mutual understanding of each other. We'll be doing this again later in the week.


7:15am - Breakfast - always yummy (all our meals are prepared with great care and hospitality by our peace-giving hosts Cam and Cherie Richardson.

8:30am Staff meeting with Seed of Hope Staff - starts with singing a praise song to God; followed by a devotion (today Deve led that - 2 Samuel 5:17-25).

Morning meeting with the Go-go (grandmas) support group. Heather and Angela attended this meeting. While they were there they heard the disturbing story of one lady who worked as a domestic (housekeeper) for a White family in the days of Apartheid.  She told them, in part, how she used to cook, clean and look after their children, but she wasn't allowed to use the same dishes to eat on, as they did because she was black. She told them, in part, that when her boyfriend came around to visit her, because he didn't have a 'pass card' her family called the police and they arrested him.  Those parts are disturbing enough...

Meanwhile, the rest of us started in on our renovation project of prepping and painting two rooms. Les is the point person on this project and is doing an awesome job leading us. It is also helpful that everyone painting keeps reminding themselves: "Would Art Cotton approve of our work?" (You've trained us well Art...hope things go well with your painting project on Friday).

Lunch - we make sandwiches, enjoy a glass of juice and an apple, with groceries we've purchased from the local grocery store, Checkers.

After school workshops for  primary school children: baking, sewing, gardening, computers, reading. The children arrive from school just after 2pm, and play. Then they rotate through each workshop by grade level, from 3pm to 4pm.

Today Angela and Julia helped in the baking workshop with the Gr. 7 & 8.

Nico and Heather (after she helped with the painting on the bottom half of the walls) helped in the computer workshop with the Gr. 7 & 8.
Les and Don helped with the gardening workshop with the Gr. 5 & 6.

Aynsley read books and did writing with the Gr. 1 & 2.

Deve stayed and finished up the painting project (top half of the walls) for the day.

With a clear sky and little wind we went for a short walk along the Indian Ocean...just a couple of kilometres from where we are...

Back to our home (that's what it feels like) in time to get refreshed for dinner at 7pm, debrief the day, laughter, reminders for tomorrow (not necessarily in that order), and then everyone heads their separate ways just before 9pm.

Other thoughts:

"Kids are all the same no matter where they are in the world: quiet shy ones, outspoken ones and mischievous. They're all the here in South Africa. I got to read to them yesterday and bake cookies with them today." - Julia

"There's more than one way to get home. Even if you see a road that you know goes to where you want to end up, there's always another way to get there." - Nico (backseat passenger)

"You're never lost. You're always on an adventure." - Deve (navigator)

"-------" - Angela (driver)

"Great to be here in South Africa and meet the people we've been praying for. It's nice to get to work and help build up the Church. God is at work." - Don