I am in South Africa! After multiple plane rides, a 19-hour bus ride, and a total of 95 hours of travel, we made it to Heidelberg, WC, South Africa, on December 20th! I’ve held off on writing a blog because we didn’t really know what ministry was going to look like. To be honest, we still pretty much take it a day at a time, but I’ll tell you everything we’ve been up to over the past couple of weeks.
Our first two weeks were filled with helping out around the church we are partnered with, assisting with cleaning and painting. On the property, there is a church, a school, a Bible college, and the rooms where we are staying. We helped out wherever we could on the days that we didn’t have off for holidays. The holidays here were so much fun, and even though I didn’t get to spend them with my family, I was happy to spend them with my second family.
Last week, we hosted a week-long VBS for the kids in the community. We had a great turnout of 16 kids by the end of the week. That might not sound like a lot, but Heidelberg is a very small town, and we really got to pour into the kids who came. Some of the kids had never even been to church before because their parents didn’t let them, so we were able to share Bible lessons with them every day and tell them how much Jesus loves them. The kids absolutely loved it, and it was such a fun way to introduce them to Jesus. Our days were full of dancing, Bible lessons, snacks, crafts, and so many games! My teammate Sofia and I were in charge of the snacks, and I loved getting creative to make the snacks go along with the Bible lesson of the day. It was such a sweet week where we built some amazing relationships with the kids, and God moved through it so much more than I ever expected.
My time in South Africa has been great so far. There have definitely been ups and downs, but I have gotten to see God move in both. He has been teaching me so much about trust and what that looks like through the ups and downs. Funny enough, that was also the theme of our VBS week. It is so hard for me to trust when I don’t understand the plan, but God has been teaching me that trusting with all your heart means trusting even when you don’t understand.
Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and support! Please feel free to reach out anytime—I love hearing from you!
Check out my friend Cimmie’s video to get more of a glimpse into VBS:
