Snapshots from South Africa

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

A sign in Masiphumelele (Masi for short), one of the black townships

Amber reading a letter from one of her prayer partners
The first year, Scott shelled one pea, this year Lee Ann painted one wall of trim (and okay, she did some gardening today too)
Girls in the Hood- L to R, Rachel, Amber, & Amanda

A beautiful rainbow from Noordhoek beach, near the team house

Larry & Rachel praying together on the porch at Capri

Our entire team at the Cape of Good Hope

Rachel and Amy's Nighttime Experience

Rachel and I jumped at the chance to work 7PM to 7AM Tuesday and Wednesday at the Hospice turned Healthcare Center. We had six female and five male patients all with HIV/AIDS and /or TB. The first night all but one woman was very resistant to us being there. The men were much more receiptive (go figure). There was one man in particular who took an interest in us and shared his story. As you can imagine, this was a humbling experience for us for a stranger to "spill his guts" so openly and without reservation. This gentleman was diagnosed with HIV three years ago is physically what we back in the states would imagine as the typical progression of AIDS. The difference is what we saw in how his diagnosis affected his heart. He insists the day he was diagnosed was the first day his life truly started. He told us the last three years have been the best in his life. The common theme he kept coming back to was "no pain, no gain". He explained that when he is without pain, he neglects his time with the Lord. When he is in pain, is the time he is closest to the Lord and remembers to be with Him. He prefers the pain over not.


Our second night proved to be more fruitful in that the women seemed to receive us as soon as we came thru the door. It is as if the first night they were watching us to discern our motivation for being there and could feel free to accept us. We decided to pamper them with hand cleansing and massages. Before we could finish with the first patient, a couple of other women were calling out "me next!". As I reflect back on the experience I remember seeing my two strong, soft white hands clasping one frail, thin, rough black hand between them and wanting to cry. I wish I could capture that moment on film to take home with me because I know my memories of this week will fade and I will forget the details. I pray the Lord will help me to remember these small details as they were so important at the time. We then proceeded to the men who even enjoyed a hand massage themselves.



Although different languages were spoken and we needed a translator for one patient, I felt the compassion in our voice outweighed any language barrier there might have been. The language of love and compassion is a universal language.



We completed our two night "assignment" tearfully and realized bonds had been formed in that short time. As Rachel and I reflect on our time together, we agreed that although we had both treated terminally ill patients in the past, walking into a ward full of people who will probably all have died by the next time we return was a different type of experience.

Retreat

Tuesday and Wednesday was the retreat for the workers at the hospice. After the fun games, we finally got down to business. We had many things planned for them, including self-help sessions, worshipping, games, and just having a good ole time.



Tuesday

The first session was about self esteem (Leader- Tom Dooley). In that session, we made picture frames for the girls to put a picture (we also took their picture) in and so that we could post it up on their new bulletin board that our construction team put up at the hospice. The next session was about team building (Leader- Melanie Wilson Hammer). For that session, we had the girls decorate a canvas square with things that they cared about. Each girl got up to share their square, and then they were able to form a quilt by joining them together.



Wednesday

The session started off super early, the girls just had finished breakfast along with only 2 hours of sleep. (they must of had a good time in their bunks) The first session was on boundaries (Leader- Melanie) but we started off with Tod Sandberg leading worship (and let me tell you, these women can sing). After we sang which felt like an hour because they just love to sing, and they also blessed us with singing their own praise songs in Xhousa (pronounced as Cosa). Then we had them do an icebreaker that I (Amber) led. This activity got them to break up into groups and discuss what makes them unique and special. The next session was on stress ( Leader- Patty Taylor) and she went over the different types of hugs and how they have such a positive effect on people. Which, we also got to practice and the women seemed to really enjoy that! The last session of the day was used for a time of encouragement (Leader- Jennifer Beasley). We used that time to break into small prayer groups so that we could pray over the girls and learned what their needs and concerns are. This proved to be a wonderful bonding time for both the leaders and the women. We handed out bracelets that Jennifer had found that had both American flag and South African flag colors. We gave this to them as a reminder that whenever they look at that we are praying for them and we love them.



All in all the retreat was a blessing, to us! We ended the day with hugs and smiles and them knowing that they now have an American Family.

Construction Junction

Thursday, day 4 of working, and we are all finishing up our projects. You can't imagine the span Living Hope has across Cape Town- currently they have a Christian radio station started by John Thomas' wife Avril, they have centers at Muizenberg, Capri, Masiphumelele, Ocean View, Red Hill, & Capricorn, along with having the Health Care Centre. Their focus is primarily home based health care, and education about the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

Our construction team has been at the Capri center all week, adding a wall to a loft area to close in the upstairs, and repainting the whole interior of the building- no small task with concrete walls and vaulted ceilings! Living Hope used to use the Capri center as their central hub where the admin offices were. Having outgrown this building now, admin has moved next door, and Capri is more of multi-purpose building. Sewing classes are held upstairs and various support groups meet here during the week, and the Living Hope staff have their weekly Monday morning devotional time here as well, which we were blessed to be a part of on Monday. After a short devotional, each staff member went around the room and told what projects they would be working on during the week. We then spent a good amount of time in prayer and spontaneous song & worship. It was a privilege to be able to get a glimpse of what a typical day at Living Hope looks like.

After that, it was down to business, moving furniture out of the way, and prepping to paint. As you can see in the picture above, Bill Bedi, Christina, Rachel, & Tami helped to demolish the old reception desk (as Pat Ball, the Volunteer Co-ordinater for Living Hope, put it- to send the desk where all good desks go when they die!). Christina, Rachel and I tackled the top floor painting, while Leslie, Tami, and Amy started on the bottom floor. Construction seemed to be going well. I batted my eyelashes at Des, the Living Hope maintenance man and convinced him that we really did need some primer to cover the dark green paint. (Ask Bill Bedi to tell you the story if you know him- he embellishes it way more than I do!) Bill spent a lot of time supervising & talking to Des, and he did spend an entire day hanging the door. Tom Blough worked hard & quietly from atop the scaffolding, until his infectious laugh rang out through the rafters! We lost a few people to other projects during the week, and also picked up a few along the way. Christina became known as the Queen Bee. Larry, our friend from Alabama was shortened to Bama, and I was known as Kentucky.

We shared lots of laughs and did a lot of hard work- way more than my sedentary lifestyle is used to! I would say the construction team had a very different experience from most of the team because we were so secluded at Capri, having almost no interaction with any of the South Africans. God continued to remind me each day that whatever I do, to do it for God's glory- through all the menial tasks- whether that means scraping paint off the floor, trimming base boards, vacuuming, or building, that it is all for God's ultimate glory.

Our team repeatedly refer to our personality types in joking throughout the week to explain or justify certain behaviors according to the PLACE class DISC method. Well I am an I, a people person, so I was questioning why God would put me on the construction team when I have little skill in this area (although it turns out I am a pretty good painter), and away from the possibilities to form relationships with the people of Cape Town. I got my answer in some unexpected ways. I formed bonds with my fellow construction team mates, and we had a ball whatever we were doing. Secondly, we all got a surprise today when Marius, one of the health care center patients came by to give us a thank you card he had made and signed, along with other staff & patients signatures, to express their gratitude for our work at Capri. Here I was thinking all week that while I understood the importance of the work we were doing in the grand scheme of things for Living Hope, I couldn't see how it was impacting people on a personal level. Marius blessed us in this way, and as many of you know, you will go on a mission trip to try and bless others, and you end up being blessed yourself. Meeting Marius and hearing his story, and having him thank us for the work we did was just the little bit of relational bonding that I had been missing all week and God provided that for me!

I will close now by saying that almost never are your own expectations met when you go on a mission trip like this- things change and you almost never end up doing things exactly as planned. The only expectation that can be counted on is that if your hearts are prepared, then God will show up and work in you and through you, and He certainly has done that with our team.

Pre-Retreat

Tuesday and Wednesday was the retreat for the hospice staff. We went to a place called Camp Faraway, not to be mistaken with Far Far Away. The retreat team consisted of Patty, Creely, Melanie, Tom D., Tod, Leigh Ann, and us (Jennifer and Amber).

We arrived to the camp a little early so that we could set up only to find that we had been beaten to the camp by the hospice staff! We got to set up for the retreat and after we finished we got to play impromtu games with the girls. Little did we know how competitive and aggressive these ladies are when it comes to playing games. Even games like Duck Duck Goose even though they don't say Duck Duck Goose.

Let's paint you a picture:

Twenty of us sitting in a circle outside on a beautiful day with the mountains in the background and our mascot, "the wild rooster" running amuck. The goal of the game is that one person has a ball and is walking in a circle behind all of us and at any point will drop the ball behind any given person. At that point, once that person has realized that they have the ball they have to get up as fast as they can and chase the other person around the circle. Here comes the South African version of Duck Duck Goose: instead of just tagging the person with the ball, you now have the option to chuck the ball at them. This proved to be quite dangerous (who knew that we needed to wear helmets). Let's give you an example of where a helmet could come in handy. As one lady was chasing another, she realized that she could not tag her before she returned to her spot. So out of desperation to win, she chucks the ball across the circle almost decapitating Amber's head. I (Jennifer) was a witness to this event and found it quite hilarious. Eventually, Amber did too.

Another game - what we will call Human Tug o' War. Here's how this game works: Two women pick between two food items for example Christmas Cake and Chocolate Cake. When you get up to them, they will ask you which one would you pick. Amber obviously picked Chocolate Cake and I picked Christmas Cake because that's the only word I understood. And this continues on with each woman until each team is built. Keep in mind these teams could be uneven if everyone picked the same kind of cake. But fortunately, it seemed to be even. Moving on to the actual physical part, the catch is you don't use a rope. You simply hang on to the person in front of you. The first person of each line tries to pull the other group across the line. Here's a picture of the end result:

We also played other games that included seeing "Auntie" Creely dancing to the baboon song. Here's a picture of that memorable moment:

We will be getting back to you with how the actual retreat turned out. Here's a sneak peek: It was a success.

Today was a fun day!

Today was a very interesting day! I had the opportunity to go with Noeline and visit all of the sites where Brentwood was working. It was amazing to see how God was using everyone in such different ways! This trip has been wonderful even though it is my third time things are different. The country is as beautiful as I remember it and for the best two days it has been extremely windy but today was one of those perfect weather days. We are posting a video from a kids club some of us got to go to yesterday. It was so much fun just to go and love on kids. The key to this trip has been do not make plans because God is going to do what He wants but the cool thing is we get to be a part of it!

Enjoy the video.
Danielle Schneider

Ministering to Cape Town , far & wide

Today was the second day of work for our team. We are all involved at various Living Hope locales using our specific gifts and talents for the Lord. We have a small team of IT people working in Muizenburg at Radio CCFM (the only Christian radio station in Cape Town), another group is hosting a retreat tonight and tomorrow for the health care workers of the Living Hope Health Care Centre, one group is doing construction at Capri (and are working so fast by the way, that they are conveniently finding more projects for us to do!!), some have been helping over in the craft store, some are landscaping at Capricorn and Muizenberg, and who knows what other odd jobs will pop up along the way that they'll ask us to tackle (Brentwood Baptist has a reputation for being a skilled, hardworking team whenever we come, and so they give us all the hard jobs to do!). Needless to say, we are spread out around Cape Town working hard for the Lord, but enjoy the time we have together as a team at night. We have bonded with the team members from other churches and welcomed them into the Brentwood family.

God is working in so many ways over here, and the joy is contagious. I am trying to get more pictures posted on here so you can see for yourself, but in the meantime, keep on praying for us. The theme for our devotional last night was teamwork, taken primarly from Romans chapter 12- we are all given different gifts and are all parts of the same body. Alone we can accomplish nothing, but with each other, and through the Lord we can do great things!