David and I kicked the year off with a short mission trip to Mavhusa in Limpopo and an even shorter trip to Kruger before hitting the ground running as we headed back to work on the 12th. We flew from Cape Town to Joburg on the 1st of January where we met up with a group of American students from Cornerstone who were joining us.
On the 2nd of January we made a stop at the Apartheid Museum, which was
very educational. I learnt a lot about the history of Apartheid and a
few other things I never knew... but all in all I doubt I'll go there
again.
At about midday we started the looooooong 5 hour drive to
Mavhusa for our 6 day stay at the JAM, (
Jabulani Africa Ministries) base there.
David and I decided to join the Cornerstone team going up
because we've praying about where God wants to send us for full time
mission work. This kind of came up in conversation with Git at about the
right time and we were like, "let's go and see", (this is explained in
more detail in my
Limpopo post
last year). During our stay there we helped the Cornerstone team build
their garden they wanted to start... this was crazy hard work as the
ground was super hard but so rewarding when we finally reached the
chance to plant the seeds. We met some of the people who live in the
village and spent quite a bit of time with the kids. One of my
highlights of the whole trip was when I was speaking to Queenie, she's a
lady who runs the feeding program for the kids, an old peoples group
and a whole lot of other ministries in the village. She was sharing her
ideas on starting a homework program and I was like yes... God has
totally laid the same thing on my heart. It was really cool to just see
how when God gives you a vision He includes all the right people for it
and then in random ways He co-ordinates a meeting and boom you meet and
hit it off.
The Three Stages Of The Garden
Spending Time With The Kids
During the whole trip I felt kind of neutral about the experience, there was no hyper emotional "yes I want to pack my bags, give up everything and come here" and there was no, "hell no". There was just a quiet... "Ok, I could totally do this if God called me here" In a way I'm glad there was no super emotional reaction because it's helped me to hear from God with regards to His heart for Mavhusa and to open my eyes to His vision - which is super epic in my opinion.
After 6 super hot days where comfort zones were stretched like using a long drop, rashes, sleeping with frogs, being touched all the time, language barriers getting crossed and being dirty all the time but a super rad time was had filled with a lot of laughs and fun it was time to say good-bye and head up to Kruger for the last two days.
We stayed at the
Pretoriuskop rest camp in Kruger. Kruger is absolutely beautiful and I fee super blessed that David and I were able to be go there and to see wild animals in their natural environment. I've been to elephant parks and those elephants, though wild have been tamed in some ways where you can feed them. The animals in Kruger are 100% wild. We saw lions, rhino, elephants, impala, kudu, wildebeest, buffalo and zebra, but the highlight for me was seeing a heard of elephants with babies!
xKx
