A Way Forward

There are less than 3 months before I go back to Canada. Parts of me are excited to go and see my friends and family and other parts of me are not excited to leave at all. Lily has become a second home to me. And you could ask anyone who has come to visit me or knows me here and they would agree with me. These kids and teenagers aren’t just 'Lily kids and teens’ to me they are ‘my kids and teens’.

As I type this up I realize I sound like the classic missionary everyone expects me to say, but its true. Each one of these kids has a grasp on my heart and won’t let go. I also have friends I have made that I will never forget. Its going to be hard to leave them.

This all being said, as I have finally told my family and gotten their opinion, I have been taking steps to see what it means to come back to Lily to serve longer. I believe God is calling me to come back and continue to serve here at Lily. I have been looking to in options with MCC and another organization called SIM. I am still in the applying stage but if anyone has any questions about me coming back I am happy to answer. When coming back with SIM, I will be raising support. So I ask that you would come and pray along side me as I take these steps, asking God to provide a way and answers for me as I go along.

Okay, on the Lily side of things…I spend almost everyday with the kids and know each of them in different capacities. My favourite days are actually getting kids of all ages to participate in a game together. 

Being the beginning of August, it is also time for sponsorship reports. Over the past 2 years I have taken over a lot of the writing for sponsorship updates as many of our kids are sponsored to help with financial costs here at Lily. The money goes toward the basics of food, water, electricity, school fees, clothes etc. (If you are interested in sponsoring, check out http://www.loveusa.org) These updates give me the great opportunity to take pictures and capture each of these beautiful kids in their everyday lives. Along with asking them questions about who they really are and want to be. I get to know them better when doing these reports. I am so thankful I have been able to have these opportunities to interact with them better.

Until next time, say hello to your neighbour.

Boys playing with the race cars!

Bootcamp day

Soccer at iKhethlo Children's Village (Lily kids won)

Evening Photoshoot with teen boys. :)

Mom and Dad's Visit

Okay I am really terrible at this! I was planning on writing a blog about my time with my parents right after they left…and look now its been 2 months….and I still haven’t. I am sorry to all those who faithfully were reading my blog and I just messed that up.

Well, I will write here about my time with my parents with lots of pictures and then I will try to do another one in the next weeks just talking about the last 2 months and how they went with the holidays and getting everyone in to the swing of school again.

So…..

Guess what!?! My parents came to visit me! It was a great experience. And I am so thrilled that I first got too share Lily with them and all the kids, teenagers and people who mean a lot to me. Secondly, I am so glad I got to have a holiday with them! Sharing the time in Cape Town was amazing and I am glad I finally got to go and have some holiday time.

The first week and a bit was spent here in the KZN province. Mom, Dad, Murray and Colleen got to do some touring around the local area and then most importantly (well to me anyway) they got to be and work at Lily with me. I wasn’t sure at first what I was going to have them do while here, but quickly thought of how great it would be to have them help us spruce up the library here. They quickly got to work cleaning it out; also getting to see how hot a summers day can get!  We all quickly started working on clearing out the books from the library and washing the walls so that the next day they came back out to Lily they would bring the paint and start painting right away. The work was done quickly and professionally ;)  While other were busy painting my mom and I sat and went through the books. Trying to decide what was worth keeping.

Today the library is used well and I have seen a huge difference in the way the kids respect the area. The kids love coming in and reading. It is a nice quiet space for them to get away from all the noise that is often around Lily. The kids and teenagers have really been enjoying all the books my mom brought which Red Deer Lake School donated to our library! Thank you Red Deer Lake School for helping expand our library.

Then came the holiday time. I was not really looking forward to actually leaving the kids for 2 weeks but it ended up being a great time with my parents. We drove from Durban to Cape Town and back. This was a long trip but the time and memories along the way were great. We went to wineries, walked with elephants, went up Table Mountain, ate great sea food and met some really great people along the way. Here are just a few pictures of what we got to do…

Plettenburg Bay - Elephant Sanctuary

Eating at Oscar's Cafe in Hillcrest

Aquarium in Cape Town

Mom, Dad and I at the beach

Money and Me

Beautiful view on a tour bus around Cape Town

Sunset on Signal Hill

At the tip point of Cape Point with Dad

Getting to penguins...Probably my highlight!

Thank you Dad, Mom, Murray and Colleen for coming and sharing this experience with me. Its nice to know there are just a few more people back in Canada who can have a little bit of a reference of where I am and who I am talking about then I mention peoples names.

Until next time….read Hebrews 12: 1-2

“ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race makes out for us, fixing out eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning in shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Better Late Than Never

Prisca, Laura and I in Drakensburg (Spelt wrong I think...)

Dear Friends and Family,

Drawing during activity time

I want to apologize. This past year I have not been good at communicating how serving God has been going for me. There have been lots of struggles and many happy times as well.

There have been so many blogs I have started and wanted to post…I am determined to post this one today.

I am sorry to those who have been praying for me regularly and I have been terrible at telling you how things are really going here. My hope is that over the next 10 months I will communicate better. Even if it is just a few pictures of the happy things that are going on around the children’s village.

2016 was a long year but generally went by pretty fast for me. I have stayed in 4 different places since the beginning of the year. But what I am most thankful for is God helping me to be able to be back here at Lily fully. There was a few months February until August that I was staying at another children’s village and then driving into Lily 4 days a week. Than from mid August until end of September I was living with the Occupational Therapist from Lily. And we would drive in together everyday. Jemma and I got along well.

Ice skating with the teens

There were many ups and downs through this time as I missed out on things that were happening in the village in the evenings like youth, teen movie nights and volunteers get togethers, different things like that. But through it all I know God was in it. He was teaching me patience and so much more. Which I don’t have it all figured out yet. God is faithful. I was also able to make connections with people that I wouldn’t have if I wouldn’t have moved. I thank God for those friendships that I made over this time.

Than September I moved back onsite. I have now been living with another volunteer named Christy for 4 months. Slowly making the house we are living in homey. We often don’t have water but it will often come on in the evenings for a while and thats when we fill up all our 5 litre jugs. Bathing with 5-10L of water is fun…you should try sometime! ;) Its a daily occurrence here! With our washing machine not really working and the water often not on I have been learning how to wash my clothes by hand. I actually don’t mind it.

A meal with friends before Tyla left

When it comes to work and being here onsite I have struggled a bit. I am so happy to be here and get to see the kids and wake up to them being so goofy outside the houses. It can some times feel like the there are not many things for me to do, but then I look around and realize the relationships are what I am here for. Not the actual physical labour of doing things. For the longest time I thought serving and missions was supposed to be doing, building, fixing something you can see, but its not. Its actually furthering God’s kingdom by showing his love. And sometimes that can be shown in the physical things. Often what is needed is being able to sit down with some of these kids and teens one on one to play a stone game or uno or letting them talk while you listen. God has been challenging me in this the whole year. 

Tyla and I at the game drive

The elephant that tried to charge us and some giraffe friends

October came and that meant so did my friend Tyla! This was a great time! Tyla hadn’t ever traveled outside of North America. So she got to discover lots of things while she was here! She was great at interacting with the kids. She picked up on names so quickly! I was very surprised. Though I should have known as she is always willing to try and laugh at herself if she messes up. While Tyla was here we rented a car and drove up the coast to go on a game drive to see animals! It is a very white person thing to do, but we enjoyed it none the less. I actually got to see my first wild lion, which was exciting for me. We also got charged at by an elephant that wasn’t too happy but we backed away and everything was fine! (By the way during the game drive we had a driver in a big truck, not just us in a little car) Tyla also taught me how to drive standard in our rental car which was helpful especially because MCC was planning on letting me us a car to get around and it was a standard. (Now I am a pro, Thanks Ty!) I think one of my favourite times was when we got to go on a bike ride with one of the girls who had graduated last December, Nomali. Nomali and I have become good friends so having Tyla be able to come and meet her was good. I really enjoyed that they got along. Tyla might have better stories of when she was here.

Now Christmas and New Years have already come and gone as well. Both were really great and special. Christmas was almost perfect. Lots of money was donated and gifts were as well. This made Christmas and New Years celebrations possible. Thank you to everyone who was apart of that! We were also blessed with having extra hands around to help with the activities, most of the young adults who graduated last year and were all off being collage students came back for the holidays to be volunteers. It has been a blessing having them around again and to see how they have grown over the year. Here are some pictures of the holiday celebrations….

Some activities on Christmas Day.

Helping out with drinks Christmas Day!

After have 8 months without water we had a party in the pool!

Post matrics enjoying time together

Christmas Day Jumping Castle

Now it is January 20th, the kids are back to school and things are quiet. All of us are happy the kids are back. This means doing admin type work in the mornings, or prepping of the afternoon activities. Then the exciting rush as the kids all come home from school. Many of the kids and teens have struggled with school, we so badly want them to succeed. This year we really want to focus on reading and getting their reading to a level that is should be at using the resources we have and trying to encourage reading alone and with others. 

On a different note today being the 20th means only 9 more sleeps until I get to give both my parents a really big hug in person! Not only am I excited to be able to see them in person but get to show them around and introduce them to my ‘family’ here.

If you are willing somethings you could pray for would be:

• the kids motivation to try to get better marks or better at reading
• the plans for those who have graduated
• relationships between staff and volunteers to get better
• for the kids who have been reunited with family to be adjusting to life well
• the time with my parents to be good

Until next time…say hello the the person at the check out counter and ask them how they are doing.