Monday, February 24, 2014

As the Tan Lines Fade

I've decide to debrief my trip and just write it all out. So enjoy but I suggest you many want to read in in a few sittings, three months gets lengthy.


I went with Experience Missions through their Immersion program along with 11 other people from all over the states and Canada. While in South Africa we spent our time in two different communities. Pomfret was the first community and it was very remote town on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Pomfret was a mining town but they were mining epitasis so that stopped. Then the government gave the town to the 32 battalion (Angolans that fought for South Africa in the Angolan Bush War) then about 7 years ago the government decide they didn’t want those people there anymore and tool away their police, mail services and hospital. When the people still didn’t leave they start to tare down the people’s houses. So that’s the history we were walking into. There was red sand everywhere and beautiful trees and cactuses. Our team all lived together in one of the houses owned by ECO the organization we were working through while in Pomfret. ECO runs a children’s home (basically an orphanage) and also runs feeding houses and Gotata (to be explained later) in the community. Our team was spilt into three groups, the works team, ministry team and children’s team. I was the leader of the works team. We would work in the vegetable gardens in the mornings and find odd jobs whether that was picking up garbage, gardening or chasing donkeys out of our trash pile. For the first week in the afternoons we would go to the computer room that was donated to ECO and help kids with their English. You see school is taught in English but for most of the kids English is there forth or fifth language so doing well in school can be difficult.  We would work with either math or English programs on the computers. Sadly we couldn’t continue this because after our first week there we lost electricity which also stopping the water pump.  In my time of a little over a month in Pomfret I showered four times. In the evenings we would play soccer, Frisbee or other games with the kids from the neighborhood and the children’s home. On Saturdays we would have Gotata, which is basically like a VBS program. We would go around in a truck with a trailer load up all the kids in town and take them to an empty lot. Then we would sing songs with them and perform a bible story for the kids. Then we would play games with them until the sun started to set. Then we would send them home with a snack to eat. On the odd day I also got to help the kids in the child home get ready for school and play with the kids in the crèche (which is a preschool).  That was always super fun J
The second community we spent time in was a squatter camp called Olievenhoutbosch. While working in Olieven our team was spilt up and living with host families in a city 15 minutes away from Olieven. Every morning we would meet at the church and drive into the squatter camp. On Monday mornings I would go to the community center to spend time with the grannies there that met each week to do crafts and have a time of community. We would always start with pray and singing and I’ve never seen so many elderly people dancing in my life. Friday afternoons we would go to the old age home and bring cupcakes to the people and staff there. We would sit and talk with them and sing to them. For the rest of the week for the first few weeks we worked in the disability centre. We would play with the kids and make bracelets and other crafts for the disability centre to sell for their income. At the disability centre I met Dee, the most beautiful girl ever! She’s 11 years old, blind and has both physical and mental disabilities. Because she’s blind she grabs for what she hears and holds on with a death grip. So when the other kids would go by her and get grabbed so they would get upset at Dee. Therefore most of the time Dee would just sit in the corner by herself.  One day I went up to her and just held her hands and started to move her arms and make sounds with the movements and she just lit up. By the end of the week I could walk up to her and say “hi Dee.” And she would start bouncing and reaching for me.  In the lasts weeks I worked at the school in the morning I would work with one of the teachers and help her in the classroom sometimes teaching the class by myself. In the afternoons we would help the afterschool care personal with feeding the kids lunch and playing games with them. Because it’s summer in South Africa right now school was let out in early December so when the school closed we worked with Mama Asie. She ran a crèche and an orphanage and we worked in her garden planting fruit trees, weeding, mowing the lawn and such. Mama Asie would use her produce from the garden for the crèche and also sell it for income. In one of those last days working in the community I got to go back to the disability centre and I went up to Dee and said “hi Dee.” Once again and she still remembered me. I never say her so excited. She taught me that the littlest interaction could cause me to give my heart away. It didn’t matter that I all I was doing was shaking her hand for hours on end I was giving her attention and love and that’s all that mattered, not the activity but what the activity meant.
I loved my time in South Africa. I heard from God so many times. Some of the most important lessons I learn from Him are that because of Christ we are working from perfection not to perfection and Christianity is not about striving for perfection because we already have it. I learned that we have to be rooted in Christ but rooting in a way that when we are turned upside-down our roots will not give way.  I learned that God is a sympatric crier. Their was one night when my teammates was crying and me, being a sympatric crier was crying right alone with her and I was just praying over her when I heard so clear in my head “break my heart for what breaks yours.”  God cry’s when we cry and he collects each teardrop. I also learned that God doesn’t need us to do His work. He chose’s to include us and let it change us. On the day that Nelson Mandela died we didn’t go into Olieven but rather went out of the city until we knew how the country would react to this news. We went to a community called Vastfontein and got to see a few different ministries. One we went to was called “House of the Good News of Jesus Christ.” It was a half way house for women would have come out of prostitution. So we were listening to Wenzel (the man who started the organization with his wife) introducing us to the ministry and after about 15 minutes of talking about how the organization got started and such he was like “so you want to go to a brothel?” and away we went. We went to talk and pray with the girls and as we were doing that one of my team mates was approached by one of the ladies and she said “I need to talk to you, can you get me out?” and my team mate was able to help this lady meet Wenzel and she was able to get her one year old baby and get out after only a week of being at the brothel. We were even supposed to go to Vastfontein that day yet we got to see God change a woman’s life forever. It reminds me how we are sinner stuck in sin and God comes into our life and changes it forever and then His lets us be part of His plan to bring the kingdom. Another cool thing was that usually when I’m put in situations were I have to approach people and talk to them about God I get nervous and think “what if I say the wrong thing, say too much or not enough?” but when we were driving to the brothel I felt complete peace. No matter if I say the ‘wrong’ thing or not God can use what I’ve said to plant some sends. The weight of saying the ‘right’ thing to bring someone to Christ isn’t on my shoulders. He is in control.
A theme of the trip was that you can count the seeds in a mango but you can’t count the mangos in a seed. A lot of the time it what we were doing could seem pointless. Why are we picking up garbage when people will throw more on the ground the next day? How is sitting with this child that doesn’t respond to anything I do furthering the Kingdom? But something’s you’re the planter of seeds and you may never see the harvest. You may be watering the seed or digging the hole for the seed but you will never see the harvest. So it can seem hard when you can’t see the point. But I know my time in South Africa was not pointless. Every hour I spent making bracelets out of buttons or trimming trees or simply sitting and waiting for an opportunity to serve were not wasted hours and moments because though I may never see the harvest I planted seeds.
So there’s the overview. The highlight of my trip was probably just letting God lead my life. For the first time in my life I waited to hear what God wanted for my life and didn’t give a deadline of when He had to get back to me.  I really got to know God better and find out what my relationship with Him was and how it needed to change.  My lowdark (the opposite of highlight ;)) was probably coming home and having the struggle of trying to retain the same relationship I had with God as I did in Africa. I know that’s kind of cheating because it’s not really part of the South Africa adventure but all my struggles and challenges on the trip that seemed like lowdarks really taught me things about God and myself. One of my lowest moments of the trip brought on one of my most awestruck moments of the trip where God personally intervened in a church service to give me a message. Five people that I met that impacted my life the most were Mama Asie, Zelda, Dina, Mallory and Dee. Mama Asie just had such drive for life. She took charge of things and had such a wealth of knowledge that she was always willing to share. She didn’t just put us in the place she wanted us when we came to help, she asked us what we wanted to do and made sure we were serving in a place that we enjoyed. She is an exceptional businesswoman and truly cares for people. For her people are always top priorities. Zelda is the person in charge of ECO. She put her whole life into serving God. She relayed on God for everything and was such a role model. Dina started the disability centre after losing her own disabled son. She has such big dreams that seem almost impossible but that doesn’t stop her from dreaming and turning those dreams into something real. Mallory was a girl on my team who was never afraid to call me out on things. She struggled but didn’t hide it she shared her hurts and let herself be venerable. She would tell me  “you’re being dumb.” When I needed it and would hold me when I needed it. And Dee well she stole my heart. I saw Jesus in her and experience a bit of how God must feel loving us. Yes she does bad things some times and it hurts you but that never changes how much you love her. She lived with hopeless abandon. Dee pulled on my heart strings more then any other child in my life and I still can’t quite figure out why. I’ve learned so much from these five people and many many other people that I got to know in South Africa. I want to be like each of these people when I grow up. I want to care for people more that my time or schedule, I want to rely on God for everything, I want to dream big and believe that anything in possible through God, I want to be someone that will give it to you straight and but the type of person that people are drawn to and comfortable to open up to and I want to live with hopeless abandon holding nothing back.So as the tan lines fade I have many lessons to hold on to and memories to cherish.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

In the Past Week

I'm not keeping up worth he blogs very well but I'm doing okay...ish with the vlogs. Enjoy the latest on the last week if ministry.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=c4-feed-u&v=ghEgHjRvadY

Saturday, November 30, 2013

An update at last!

I'm so sorry that the blog updates have stopped. I must say doind a 5 minute vlog update is a lot easier than writing out everything...and quicker.  I can't remember what the last blog entry was so I may repeat myself bit bear with me :) 
At the moment I'm living with a host family that has 2 host brothers and 2 host sister and well as a mom and a dad.  Their house is huge and so beautiful (see the house tour vlog to see for yourself) and I can guess what some of you are thinking. "I thought she was supported to be on a missions trip and she's living at a house with a pool." But you have to understand that the reason that we are staying with people from a local church who are wealth is because we are supposed to bridge the gap. By telling our host families about our day in the squatter camp 15 minutes away from them hopefully they will see the need and opportunity to get involved. I think it's also preparing me for coming home. Going from sleeping in luxury to working in Olievenhoutbosch where the houses are made of tin and wire will help me when I go home to a Christmas season that the western world has made  all about gifts and food and excess.  So let me reassure you that I am on a missions trip. 
Working in Olieven has been very different from Pomfret but not in a bad way. When the team was in Pomfret I was the head of the work team. In this team we would find things that needed done. We helped in the vegetable tunnels, we cleaned up garbage and tried to fix the broken things around the Echo base, children's home and the house we were staying in. It could e rather challenging do to our lack of materials. In the last few days we made a connection with Pedro, a man who was trying to start a clinic (the only on for km in the area).  We were able to help him the first day by making and pouring concrete to make a platform for him to put his water tank on. The next few days we helped him out up the ceiling in the clinic. It was hard work but supper rewarding. I wish we could have done more to help but sadly we ran out of time. In Pomfret we were much more IN the community. We could walk to the store at 9:30 at night. We would walk the streets and play with the kids in our front yard. In Olieven we stay in the gated areas of the community centre, old age home, disability center and school. Which is different but again not bad. My first two weeks in Olieven I spent at the disability center and I loved it! We did crafts with buttons for hours at a time and got to play with the kids. I met this one girl names De. She's blind and has a mental disability. Because she's blind when the other kids go by she hears them and would grab on to them and get a very strong hold on them. They would cry and push De to make her let go. So one day I wet and sat with we and held her hands. Then I started to shake her arm while going "dudududa" and she loved it. She would laugh and if a stopped she would try and get my hand to shake again. By the last day she would recognize my voice. I could say "hi De" and she would get all excited. This little girl truly stole my heart and it was so hard to leave her on that last day. The school was a change of pace. The days go so much quicker. In the morning I would teach class when the teacher didn't want to then we would have break and go back to the classroom for half and hour. Following that u would leave and got to the kitchen for devotions with the after school care staff. Then we would prepare for the afternoon, setting up what would need set up and have lunch. We would then play with the kids till it was time to go home. This week there was a lot of Christmas parties and activities. It was so much fun! I could tell you a million stories about this week alone. Sadly I don't have time for that :/ we also got to have a Christmas party with the grannies at the community centre and we got to have some good conversations and singing with the people at the old age home. I can't believe I'll be leaving South Africa in 15 days! And I'll be home in 20!! I really do miss my family. I can't wait to sit with them and tell them all my stories. I can't wait to give them a hug and share meals with them again. There have been some hard days were all I want is a hug from my mom but even those days don't seem so bad in hindsight. God has been doing some amazing things in my life. I feel like I understand His will for my life and what my "career" is meant to be. I've grown so much closer with Him even though at times he seemed silent. I'm more in love with Him than I've ever been in my life and I can't wait to love Him more. Well there we have it! An update at last!   

Sunday, October 6, 2013

A Greeting from South Africa

After around 26 hours of traveling and a 17 1/2 hour flight the whole team is staff and sound in South Africa. Everything about this Country is beautiful! I guess the romance of it all will wear off sooner or later. It's so nice to be in a country that uses Celsius and Kilometers for starters. I can actually tell you what the temperature is and know what it means! (at the moment it's 26 degrees) Today is our day of rest to fight off the jet lag before we start training tonight and all of tomorrow and the next day. On the day after that next day we will be traveling to Pomfret and stay there until mid November. I have added two more blogs to Youtube but it's so hard to get them uploaded at all that I will not be putting all of them on the blog. To see all my vlog videos y'all (a term I'm picked up from the Americans on my team) will have to go to my youtube channel. you can find my youtube channel by typing "chewieImaon" into the youtube search or by using this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChewieImaon 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

The October 4th Update

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=em-upload_owner&v=AZJ199XXGC0&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAZJ199XXGC0%26feature%3Dem-upload_owner

Another vlog. This ones longer than most. I did this one last night and today is my last full day in North America for 84 days or something like that. Hope you enjoy the update.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Day 2 in Fort Wayne

Here it is! A video straight from Fort Wayne, Indian (not Illinois) hope you enjoy feel free to leave a comment about what you want to hear about. Sadly the video will not upload so you'll have to click a button to see it, work I know but it's SO worth it! ;)