During this week of ministry, we got to work on houses that are being built in a brand new community! This neighborhood is right next to the Global Campus and will house all the people who are in the Global Community. This includes people who work for the school, partner with the Global Challenge, or many other potential faucets. The community here is so strong and tight knit that it’s been so fun to be immersed in their lives. We spent the week helping to finish up a few different houses. In the first house, we worked to scrape and clean bricks from the extra cement that was on them. We also painted the ceiling of a garage and started on the walls. The next day we moved inside the house and painted some bedrooms and gave them their final coat. It’s exciting that people will be able to move in very soon. Then for the rest of the week we worked on painting boards that will be used for ceiling tiles in a separate house. There’s a few houses that have already been completed and families have moved in, however the majority of the neighborhood is still under construction with varying levels of completion. We got to meet with one of the women who will be moving into the house that we were painting and she has the coolest life story. She’s spent most of her life working in Russia and India, and now is looking to settle in and retire in the Global Community in South Africa.
This week was also our first week of having a new leader. Ethan will be with us for the next two weeks and then we will get another leader for the remainder of South Africa. It has been really fun to get a new perspective on our team. He is really good at asking hard questions and noticing some areas on our team that we need to keep building in. Primarily, our team has so much fun together and we love being around each other, but no one is ever vulnerable with one another. Ethan has made it his goal that while we are with him he is determined for us to be closer and more emotional with each other, but it’s been difficult because no one on the team naturally likes to be open. We’re all very independent and have the mindset that we can do it ourselves without outside opinions.
Then on the weekend, we got to go bungee jumping!!. Our host reassured us that it’s very safe and that the ropes they use are changed after every jump. We got up Saturday morning, drove 2 hours into the mountains, and arrived at bungee jumping by 8am. The bridge we jumped off of was Bloukrans Bridge, known for being one of the tallest bridge bungee jumps in the world. They have tons of cool plaques and posters from Guiness World Records on the walls. They also have a certificate for the oldest person to complete a bungee jump. The man was 96 years old! When it was our turn to jump, the got us all harnessed up and sent us over to the edge of the bridge. There we zip lined out to the platform and got to see just how high up we would be! Then they started calling the order that we would jump in, Lydia went first and I was right after her. As they had Lydia at the edge they started putting the straps on my harness for the jump and then brought me over to the edge. The whole experience was exciting but I was really nervous right before I jumped! Being in the free fall was super fun but after you had jumped it took a few minutes for one of the guides to come down and pull you back up. This left me hanging upside down for a while staring at the canyon. It was super pretty, it had a river running through it leading out to the ocean. There were also lots of trees and greenery covering the whole canyon which was so fun to look out. When I finally got back up I got to celebrate and watch the rest of my friends as they took their turn jumping. My team was the only full team to go. We like to joke about how we do everything together but this was just another testament to our friendship. I love them so much!
January 13 – January 19 2023
