CO-WORKERS

These are my co-workers! Nkululeko (South Africa), Kristina (Ger), Yohan (Korea), me, Steffi (Ger), Spi (South Africa), Michaela (Ger), and Meredeth (USA). They are fabulous and the community here is amazing. We are family here and we have so much fun together. What is particularly fun is that we all come from such different cultures. Every Monday one person cooks for the group some special food from their culture. We are also constantly laughing about all of our differences and interactions. Last week the Zulu girl, Spi, cook a great beef curry that you eat with your hands and no one uses napkins here!

HOME VISITS
One of the projects of this organization is to support the community. They have a doctor that goes out and does home visits as well as others workers who go and help with different things that the families may need. I have been able to go on home visits with the staff to see what they are doing with the Zulu community. They give food, but also help families learn ways to sustain themselves, live healthier, and prevent the spread of HIV. There are some very hard welfare systems that just facilitate downward spiraling. One is that if you are not married and have a child, you get a monthly stipend from the gov't. Families are so poverty stricken, that the teenage girls go out and get pregnant with anyone, just to feed their family and be more well-off.
I was not able to take many photos while at the homes but this home was a man's who was very sick and had to go to the hospital. We checked in on him to see how he was doing, but he was not home yet. His house was so small, perhaps he could just fit lying down.
We also visited a family of 33, yes, 33 people, mostly children, all living in 2 very small houses. There were about 5 adults, grandma and her adult children and then all their kids. No one really worked in the family and they were very sick and starving. Our community program is donating seeds and vegatables for them to grow and go their often to teach them and help them. But that home was shocking to see. The kids were sick and covered with flies and the grandmother said that some kids had to skip meals. She also said that some of the older girls had gone off to live with (and sleep with) guys to have a "better off" life. The grandmother wanted so much for them to have a hope and a good future and to do well in school.
The poverty is overwelming and you leave the homes not being able to do much, no resources to help, mentalities that make the problems worse, and all you can do is pray that God would do something.

THE LITTLE ONES

I must say that little kids are the ones that are the cutest and the most easy for me to love. I get to do the Sunday School with them on Sundays and I see them during the week sometimes. They have the most simple love for everyone. They run up to you with big hugs and if you are squatting, they try to pile on you. It just makes you feel so loved. They are all so precious and special and have such cute personalities. These little ones also are some of the hardest workers, who are often unloading the food truck! After Sunday school they love to go out to swing, so I take them to the swingset.

CULTURAL EXPERIENCES
This country is very unusual, with its combination of English, Zulu, and Afrikans languages. Communicating with the kids is fairly easy as they learn English in school, yet their mother language is Zulu. It is harder to communicate with the little kids as they haven't learned much English yet, but you just give a 2-thumbs up and say, "Shop! Shop!" (I think this is some sort of British thing). Even though there is an English culture in general there are still things that are completely foreign here. First, there are little things like the amount of people/kids who fit in cars!

I was standing in line at a supermarket and a strange man came up behind me and said quietly, "Are you in Que?". My New York "Weird Man Inner Alarm" went off and I was filled with anxiety. What is he trying to ask me?? I did the New York thing of ignoring the crazy person. He said it again. I asked my Korean coworker who was with me what the guy was saying and he had no clue. The guy got frustrated and asked again, so I finally decided to respond to him. After a few minutes of questions and re-wording things I found that it simply meant, "Are you in line"! We all had a good laugh! But I was very glad to have learned that expression because a week later, the Korean guy (Yohan) and I took a child to the ER and it was all about knowing what "Que" to stand in and where the "Que" started and I would have been their for days if I didn't get it!

JAMES
Let me introduce you to James. He is a rambunctious, helarious boy who at times can be mean, but also has a little boy "soft side" of him. He is 16 years old. When he was 8 years old he came to the orphanage dying of AIDS with 2 weeks to live. But he made it through and now he is medically stable. But he has so many emotional issues from his life of abandonment and sickness.
He is currently in 6th grade, even though he is 16 and can barely spell or do math. He struggles with a lot, but loves to play soccer everyday and wants so badly to do better in school. Here he is in his school uniform.


So please pray for James, that he would know how important he is to God and that he knows he has a hope and a future, that he would learn more in school and heal from a LOT.

As I come up on being a month here I have so many new experiences, is it so hard to share everything. I wish I could write everyday. It is restful here and challenging here at the same time. My days are so different, so much slower than New York, but a lot of new things. But I will try to give you a general day in the life of Christy in South Africa.
I am up at 6am, usually to run on the dirt road near the orphanage, with cows or worthogs (yes, worthogs!) grazing nearby. Then I drive some of the kids to school and staff around (in a rickety stick-shift on the wrong side of the road!). After, I come home for breakfast and do a variety of different things, such as home visits in the community, some of the administration work in the office, or food distribution. Then when the kids come home we do a tutoring/after school program with them. This week I will start some counseling groups with the older girls to help them talk about abandonment, rape (yes, a lot of our young girls have been raped), having no parents, living with many health problems, etc. I haven't done much with children so you can pray for me!
Many things that I have been doing are new to me, not necessarily my gifting or experience, and so I have really come up against times where I am saying to God, "Oh! This is hard! I am not cut out for this!" But God says to me, "All that I require is that you love me, love these kids and depend on me everyday!" How many people in the Bible said that very same thing and that was no excuse to God and they did great things. And so I have been depending very much on God everyday.
We finish up our days around 6pm and then the volunteers come back to our houses, often cooking and eating together and talking. It feels like a very old fashioned lifestyle here. We have a TV, but not much to watch, no telephone in our house, and just each other (no other people in our lives) to keep us company. We have nice houses, with clean water, but sometimes it is not running. I have come to appreciate the simple pleasure of running water! We also do not have full showers, just a spray hose, so I am not sure when I will be really clean again! Not for a while! But hey, who cares! I am in Africa!
Today, I am going to several homes in the community where we distrbute food to the poor, to follow up on their needs. We distribute food no more than twice to a home, so that they don't become dependent; but then go to their homes to transition them into helping themselves more (like teaching them to grow their own food, helping them get care they need, etc). That will be interesting I am sure! I'll tell you more about it!

Samkelo

Let me introduce to you Samkelo. He is one of the cutest little boys I have ever met. He is 4 years old and cannot walk (for no good reason, other than he never learned). I help him do exercises to strengthen his legs each day.

He is on his way to the hospital for a monthly visit to the physiatrist.

You can pray that he would learn to walk and to know how much God loves him. He also has such medical complications. I want to bring him home in my suite case!!!!

I have been doing a variety of things here at the orphanage to get to know the kids and also to get to know how the whole thing is run. I have been doing after school programs, food shopping for kids, going to medical appts with them, doing therapies with the disabled kids, etc. Basically everything. Last week I went to experience what the monthly food shopping is like. Basically it is buying about $8000 of huge bags of rice and veggies and milk and everything they eat, loading it onto a pick up truck and driving it home in the heat, hoping no one will steal anything at a stop light. Of course we got a flat tire too, which is normal life. And of course we do much of the loading and all of the unloading! So do the little children back at the orphanage.

Here are some of the kids running to a birthday party that the orphanage was having for them. It was a very touching time, as each one is celebrated and valued. I really respect this place. It is a very special orphanage and God is doing great things through it. It is well established with the South African government.

So I hope to introduce you to some special kids soon.

We'll, I've been here for 2 weeks now. How can I possibly describe all of my experiences to you! Currently, I am living in a small house of volunteers amongst the little houses of the orphanage children. It is hot and sunny here and to think of snow seems so strange!





These are the little houses that about 6 children live in with a house mother. There are 22 houses and we live in one of them. I live with 2 other girls who are so sweet. There are 3 German girls, an American (who works in a different part), and a Korean guy here volunteering. It is great because we hang out together and share life. Here are the kids going off to school in their uniforms. Most of them go to a school in the community but the education here is really bad.

These kids have come from all sorts of very difficult backrounds and the social welfare system of South Africa has given these kids to Lily Of the Valley because their parents are no longer able to care for them becuase of AIDS, or sexual/physical abuse, etc. The kids have so many issues and they need so much love and care.

It is actaully very challenging to care for them. They are street kids who have been toughened by abuse, abandonment, and neglect. On top of that they have all sorts of medical issues and some are disabled. Somehow we think that orphans are these little angels who can do no wrong and are perfectly humble and thankful for everything, but they are actually very tough. Many times they can be so selfish, demanding, ungrateful, and disrespectful. It takes a long time to break through their hardened hearts. I have been learning so much about God's love through that. Because that is exactly who God loves to pursue. Every morning He says to me, "Christy, love these precious children who I have created! Show them how much they mean to me! So far the world has not that well, but I want you to show them how precious they are! And remember you are really just like them, Christy!" His love burns on and on and never fails.

But saying all that, in the last couple of weeks, I have been getting to know these faces and these little children and have been FALLING IN LOVE with them!! They are all so precious and even with their problems, they have such life, playfulness, and joy. I hope to share with you some of these kids especially so you can pray for them!

In the last few weeks I have also had some very unusual experiences, good and bad:

To my excitement, I learned that we live right next to an animal reserve and so in 5 minutes we can drive out to a safari where we saw zebras, hippos, rhinos, bucks, and even giraffes!

The second night I was here, I got one hour sleep because about 50 blood thirsty misquitos were trying to eat me alive (it sounded like a motorcycle race in my room). I had a misquito net but they got inside of it. That was one moment I really wanted to start crying. But problem solved and I get good sleep now, THANK GOODNESS!