After three planes, thirty hours of traveling, and countless packages of pretzels; our team arrived safely at Bethesda, South Africa (north of Pretoria.)
Bethesda is a small village/mission group that has greatly improved the lives of 32 orphans. The children are put in homes with Christian foster parents and 4-7 other children. The people in these homes soon become their family. Bethesda also has a small- but very good- school.
A Christian organization like Bethesda is a much-needed help in an area torn by extreme poverty, hunger, violence, AIDS, and disease. 14-year-olds or younger often manage families single-handedly if their parents die, those lucky enough to have homes often live in tin shacks, and children as young as 18 months are left to the streets. The children at Bethesda came from situations like these.
On Tuesday, however, our group was too worn-out from jet lag to jump right into mission work; so we introduced ourselves to the children and to Bethesda. We also realized the people managing Bethesda work extremely hard- most juggle two jobs on top of managing their families.
Yesterday we helped the Matjeni family move in to their new home. We washed windows, cleaned carpet, caulked windows, played soccer with the kids, and enjoyed all the food that was prepared for us. Later in the afternoon we drove back to Bethesda where we had dinner and celebrated New Year's Eve with the Shikwambe family. After they left, our group played a fanatical version of Extreme Around-The-World Ping-Pong to exhaustion.
So far today we have been enjoying the New Year by working on the school-house. The guys are building a wall to seperate the first and second grade classrooms, and the women are cleaning the windows and floors.
Over the next few weeks, we plan to build, clean, and minister in several other areas of South Africa.
Bye for now and happy New Year!
1 comment:
Hey all great to hear from you. So many people are praying for this team. Drink lots of water and thanks for spreading the word!
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