FROM ALLIE: Home visits & walking through Haniville
We have been here at walk in the light for a week now and each day we are discovering more and more about God and about the ministry Bruce has begun in Haniville. One aspect of Bruce’s ministry is picking up patients from the township who need to receive meds or treatment and take them to the local clinic or the hospital in town. Most of the men and women that Bruce picks up are sick with TB or HIV or both. Many of the patients do not have the ability to get to the clinic on their own because they are so weak or don’t have a mode of transportation.
On the second day we went through Haniville and did home visits. Most of the people we visited are sick with TB and HIV. It has been difficult to see so much sickness and pain. I am constantly being reminded of how precious life is and how comfortable the life I live is. Each day Bruce picks up anywhere from five to eleven patients and transports them to the clinic. It is hard to imagine this being my every day reality. I think that seeing this much poverty and disease has been hard for all of us. I know for me personally it has brought up questions of why do I get to live the life I live? Why am I so privileged?
Bruce talked about how the goal of his ministry was to love his neighbor, and for Walk in the Light, Haniville is their direct neighbor. They are just across the street from the community. I am really wrestling with the question of how can I love my neighbor? What would it look like if we all loved our neighbor the way that God calls us to love each other? I would say that through my past trips the children of Africa have taught me how to love and live with joy. My heart’s desire is to learn how to live with reckless faith and learn how to empower the people of Haniville.
I think that is one thing that Walk in the Light is doing, they are empowering their neighbors and teaching them how to care for one another, how to lift each other up as brothers and sisters in Christ. Working with Bruce has been such a blessing already. I feel like there is so much I have to learn from him. It has been incredible working side by side with him.
FROM SARAH: Bible studies with the youth
Our team has experienced one week of helping and observing the daily happenings of Walk in the Light. I think we are now becoming settled and will be able, week by week, to be comfortable and take on more tasks. Almost every day after school the kids of Haniville come to Walk in the Light to play. We’ve been playing soccer, getting dominated by their superior soccer skills, playing games, singing songs, and just sitting and talking. The children have been teaching us bits of Zulu and also some intense dances, which we have yet to perfect. :) After play time we go into the church for some Bible lessons. There are three different age groups that we’ve been involved in on different days: the Junior Youth (ages 12-15), the Senior Youth (ages 16-18), and Young Adults (19 and early 20s). It’s been really interesting and fun getting to know the youth of this community. We’re looking forward to developing relationships with our next four weeks.
Also, Bruce (who heads up the ministry) has a lot of great ideas that involve us working with the older youth to start up some programs for the younger ones. Hopefully, these programs will last much longer than our short stay here. Other than that, I’ve enjoyed seeing the people of this community worship God and share their joy with us. There is a lot of potential here for collaborative work and thriving relationships. We’ve all expressed thankfulness for being able to be involved in what is going on here.
CYNTHIA: Cleaning up the preschool and sorting clothes
Our first week at Walk in the Light has been filled with many different ministry opportunities. On Friday, we had the chance to clean out rooms next to the church that will become the classrooms of the preschool at Walk in the Light. It was pretty dusty, so much so that we took little shifts sweeping the rooms. Dane and Erin had bandanas covering their mouths…DIVAS. We collected so much dust in our mucus that all of our snot was black, YUCK! It was nice to see the progression of this ministry and how we can help.
While cleaning another room, the boys discovered the mythical creature known as a water scorpion. For those of you who aren’t familiar, this is a huge spider that still haunts Rory and Dane in their sleep…haha. On Thursday, our team sorted through clothes donated to Walk in the Light. We separated them into men and women’s clothing and then into age groups. After separating them, we got to make outfits. The great thing about our team is our ability to make every project into a fun activity. For example, a seemingly boring task like sorting clothes became a fun time finding cute outfits. We plan to pass out the clothes to the people of Haniville on Monday.
A hilarious moment during our day of sorting clothes was the infamous “poop panties”. Part of sorting clothes included going through undergarments that were sketchy to say the least. Not only were the panties large enough to pass as circus tent but more than half of them were also stained with poop! Not only had some woman almost pooped her pants everyday but she had decided to donate all of these poop panties to a church…LOL.
FROM ERIN: Clinic Runs-
Every morning throughout the week, Walk in the Light provides transportation for those who need to be taken to the local free clinic to get their medication. Our team has split up into 4 groups, and every day we trade off going with Bruce (or Neils) and Pandile on these clinic runs. The other day Dane, Allie, and I went along with Neils on one of these runs. We picked up a 24 year old guy named TK and took him to get his meds. The clinic is located at the bottom of the hill, right below the township of Haniville.
Many people will walk there to have their daily check-ups, however, there are many others who either literally can’t walk there themselves or they simply won’t go because of the long walk back uphill home. Currently, there are only a couple nurses who are working at the clinic, so many of the people have to wait outside for hours before they get a chance to go in.
We’re looking forward to building relationships with the people Bruce and Neils takes to the clinic regularly, and we’re hoping to encourage the other people of Haniville who aren’t taking advantage of the free clinic to start taking better care of themselves by letting Walk in the Light give them a free ride to get their medication.
Getting on the plane in Cape Town to Durban!
This one is for Claudia Todd. It's Rory Todd at the Cape of Good Hope- the Light House
The gang (minus Dane, because the sea food platter didn't settle well with him!) at the southern most point in Africa!
This is Cale in the London airport when he was sick. He will probably be made that I posted this! Oh well!
More pictures to come.... We haven't uploaded any pictures of us at Walk In the Light, but they'll be coming! :)
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