White River South Africa

Well I do believe I am getting worse and worse at this blogging thing. I've been in South Africa for two weeks now and don't have a single blog up about it :) Arriving in South Africa, we took a three hour van ride to Nelspruit where the Ten Thousand Homes (TTH) crew picked us up and took us the rest of the way to the base in White River. It was about 9pm when we arrived at the base, all tired from traveling. They kindly fed us some soup and showed us to our rooms. We are split up between these little cabins that house 6 people but we only have three in each. When the morning came I finally had a chance to look around and take Africa in :) :) My expectations I must admit were a little off. I think I had this standardized view of Africa being desert with huts and blazing hot sun and gorgeous sunsets which I was super stoked for. Thats more in west Africa.. where the desert actually is.. haa. South Africa is in fact much different :) The base reminded me a lot of Camp Hebron, living in cabins surrounded by a more wooded area with a long dirt lane to get to the base. There is this one rock that is back in a grove of trees that you can sit on and see over the communities below. I love to have quiet time there and sun tan or just sit and be still. The weather is also surprisingly cold. Its heading into their fall season and the past two weeks have been on the cooler rainier side. The base is run mostly by Americans, there are some South African volunteers, Stanley and Lennon, who are two of the coolest guys ever and have wicked awesome dance skills.. as do most of the teenage guys here haha.. they're just born with it I'm convinced. The staff of Ten Thousand Homes (TTH) is super nice and right from the start gave us orientation and introductions and a base tour and we even did a prayer walk around base for the ministry and we just felt  so welcomed and connected right in from the start. We are in charge of cooking all our own meals which has been fun :) :) No more rice and beans everyday!! If fact we wont even allow such a thing to get put on the menu :) haha Me and two others are on the food committee and we make a weekly menu and buy all the groceries and then we have a cooking schedule. It can get pretty hectic at times cooking for 12 people but its been lots of fun learning more in the kitchen. It makes me feel like I'm back at the cafe :) so its nice :)

South African culture is verrryy layed back and I think shocked us all coming from the craziness of the Sao Paulo city into the countryside of Africa. Time is slowed down here and they have funny says such as NOW means right now and NOW NOW meaning in a little bit and JUST NOW meaning maybe weeks from now haha so you have to be careful what you say ;) It's quite normal for some one to say they will meet you at 4 and not arrive till 6 or for something to start a half hour later than scheduled haha its an event oriented culture. The base itself is very still and quite.. it was hard to get used to but I'm enjoying the quite now :) I love being back in the country...driving in the back of a truck on a dirt road. Its bliss :)
Most everyone speaks English and others will speak either Afrikaan or Siswati. Our first Sunday being here we got to go to the local church in Mbonsweni, a community TTH has been investing in. I was so excited to see what an African church service was like. The minute their voices started singing songs of worship I had tears in my eyes. It was one of the most beautiful sounds I'd ever heard. There was no song leader or music book. Someone, anyone that wanted to really, would just start singing a song from their seat and everyone would join in. But people knew just when to join in, how to harmonize, when to sing quiet and loud. For some of the songs the youth boys would do this stomp and clapping thing. It was so natural the way it flowed from them... their voices so powerful and beautiful.

Our first full week here we helped with two feedings that TTH does every week. We'll be doing them every Wednesday and Thursday during our time here. The feedings are held in the Mbonsweni and Dwaleni communities. The community volunteers that help out at Mbonsweni are a group of kids our age that are really fun to hangout with, and teh volunteers that help with the feeding in Dwaleni are this group of sweet older ladies :) Its a fun contrast between the two feedings and neat to get to know the different generations. The older women.. or grandmas.. are called Gogos. We start cutting vegetables and prepping food around 10.. This past time they served cow intestine, "pop" ( a corn flour type thing), and veggies :) mmMMMmmmmmm haha. Around 2, after school lets out, the kids come. About 200 come to Mbonsweni and 300-400 come to the Dwaleni feeding. So many kids!! Are they are all so precious!! They say that most kids here are either a single or double parent orphans. It so sad to think of the types of homes these children are going back to. And to think this may be their only meal for the week. They don't put a limit the amount of kids that can come, anyone can come, but we do run out of food sometimes sadly :( Last week at the Dwaleni feeding someone had music playing and I had such a precious time dancing with the little kids. It so nice to be able to speak English with them to and have a conversation. I think that was another thing that really was weird seeing/hearing. English everywhere. I've only ever been in countries where no one can understand you and you can't understand them. Its nice having English around and it makes it really easy to adjust, it feel like home. The rest of our time the first week was pretty relaxed getting acquainted with the base and the town and where to buy groceries and do laundry and what not.

Our second week was church again Sunday, then in the afternoon we had a house party to celebrate the finishing of one of TTH houses they have been working on for these two twin teenager boys and their mom. So after church the congregation walked over to the house and we sang songs and prayed for it and one of the staff from base had baked brownies :) It was cool to see more of what TTH is doing on the ground to see the excitement this family had for their new home. Their previous house had been burnt in a house fire. After that was a youth service which was more like 10 of us.. a mixture of church youth and my teammates and me.. sitting in a circle discussing struggles and things we wanted to be free from and how to get free from those things. It was so neat because it felt so normal, it felt like small group at home.. sitting around discussing things and praying for each other. It was really cool Sunday to spend so much time in the community with the church members and youth. I got to talk to quite a few people and i already feel as though I know them so well :)

Monday we had some meetings as a team and discussed ministry. One of our main goals is to really serve the Ten Thousand Homes staff and the base by doing media work for them. We will be collecting footage to make a trailer for their ministry/website as well as individual movies for them with them being interview and sharing testimonies that they can show their supporters. We are also going to do a day in the life of a Ten Thousand Homes worker and follow some of them around doing documentary work. One of the couples, Zach and Anneka, she's South African and he is Texan, are the base leaders. She is an incredible artists and is currently working on a project sewing a bunch of sweet handmade bags. They have three young girls though and so its hard for her to get a lot of work done. You can tell she is a busy mom and has a hard time finding time for herself. We really want to bless them by giving them a date night every week and baby sitting the kids. I babysat for her last friday which was a lot of fun. It was cool to get to know her more, she is a neat woman and I love her accent ;) She is a white South African so she has a bit of the British accent.

Tuesday we worked on another house TTH is finishing up, I helped to paint windows and sand/chisel the widow sills. The story if the family that this house is for is very interesting and I will write a full blog on it next. Some others from our team went and helped out at a daycare a lady from the church runs. Wed and Thurs are the weekly feedings at Mbonsweni and Dwaleni and Friday is working around base and doing media work. As far as future ministry we are still planning on splitting into groups of two and living in a child-headed home for two-three nights. That wont be for another week or so yet. And we are planning a week long outreach to Swaziland.


This past Tuesday we had our first South African Braai (bbq) on base. Every first and third tuesday the base has a Bring and Braai where you bring your own meat and then a dish to share. It was a lot of fun to be together with all the base staff and fellowship and eat :) :) Other than that, the only other things going on are is easter is this weekend!!! So we are thinking up some fun team things to do that may include an easter egg hunt for the staff kids on base ;) and a sunrise worship set on the rock for us :D as well as possibly some hot-crossed buns mmhm

I hope this can give you an overall glimpse into my life in Africa so far. I will be here for 6 weeks and I already feel so at home. I love it so much and I can't wait to see all thats in store for our time :) Internet is very expensive, you can buy it from the base but I've already put to much money into it that I am now only going to use it once a week on the weekends when we go to a cafe that has cheaper WIFI. I'm sorry the updates wont be as often I'll try to make them long and detailed when I do :)