Friday, Jan 9, 2009

Hello, friends and family! This note is being written in 90-degree weather at 8am in Hammanskraal South Africa. We are preparing for our day of work with a local hospice center in a township near here called Soshanguve. A local Christian woman associated with the nearby church runs the hospice. We will go into the township, an area of tin shacks, no running water, extreme heat and extreme poverty. Our team will split up with hospice workers and go to specific homes of ill people. We are expecting to wash linens, help bathe, help give medications, and provide love and comfort. It will be an exhausting yet fulfilling day. We will write a blog later about it. Earlier this week we finished work on the local school building. We installed a wall to provide extra room for the growing Christian school and completed the preparation for another school year to start next week. We all have been a part of construction, insulation, cleaning, painting, dry wall installation. Yesterday we had a "play day" with the local kids. There are 30 children who live in this compound. We have to remind ourselves that these children were orphaned or abandoned. Some of them were left in garbage dumpsters as infants, others were orphaned and left alone in the streets as young children. Now, they seem like any other American child: energetic, giggly, loving to play games, thanks to the love and support of the staff and house parents here. During our "play day" we set up an obstacle course, played partner tag, held a scavenger hunt, colored and drew, played duck duck goose, played water games and relay games. It was fun and HOT! After some rest time, last night we watched a movie that is very similar to the lives of some of these children. It showed the life of an orphaned "street" child, just fighting for his survival. It was very moving. The movie was titled "Beat The Drum". This is a place of contrast. Confusing contrast. There are extremes of life here: riches and poverty, joy and sorrow, educated and uneducated, beauty of nature and ugliness of tin shacks, sickness and health, love and hate, Jesus and medicine men, tin shack Christian churches with loud accapella music and large brick Christian churches with modern instruments. We've seen it all. Confusing. We continue to trust that Jesus will use us as needed. And we look forward to seeing all of you again soon. -Jocelyn Bruce