kristiapplesauce

Christmas in the Transkei

I heart Christmas in South Africa!!

We just got back from our 4 day trip to the Transkei - where we distributed Christmas parcels to all the Soup Club Mama's and also visited Project Samuel in the rural village of Selini. Mama Christina runs a day care center* there and we celebrated Christmas with her and all the kids. It was so much fun. We braiied/BBQed 150 hot dogs, had cold drinks (pop) and biscuits (crackers). We also gave all her volunteers a Christmas parcel as well.

For their gifts - Oceans (through the Child Sponsorship Program) gave the center athletic equipment, coloring books, new tables and chairs, and a bunch of new supplies for the kitchen where they serve all those kids everyday. Yay for Christmas!

*A day care center is a "safe place" where kids come in the morning to get breakfast and then go to school. This particular one has a pre-school on one side so the small ones stay there while the bigger kids walk some times up to 5K to school. In the afternoons they come back and have lunch (on the other side) and do homework and play. They stay until dark. Most kids in this community don't have anywhere else "safe" to go so they come here for food and community. They come here for love. Mama Christina was ministering to these kids well before we met her, and now her ministry has exploded. She and her army of volunteers are caring for over 100 kids/babies every day. The government is limiting and putting rules on orphanages and children homes, so we have found that these "day care centers" are the way we can effectively care for the needs of so many kids in the communities.

Back HOME!!!

So Daniel and I made it safe and sound back home. Woo hoo!!! Thank you for your prayers and well wishes. Seriously - You guys are rad! Please keep praying for us for direction and right decision making as we settle back in and make our way into our second year here. Wow! What a fabulous journey so far! Right now we don't have internet (working at the internet cafe at the moment) so communication is minimal...but all is well and we are HOME!!!! Yay!

Food distribution.

 After we got that free food from Shoprite, we got to go pass it out...it was again, one of   the coolest days ever (again). Yay...again.

God in our schools?

In America, we all just kind of know that God isn't allowed in our public (and most private) schools. That teachers are going to teach about evolution and principals aren't going to pray over their students. At least not publicly. Could you imagine singing? Worship songs actually ushering the students into their days? Teachers inviting the kids into their classrooms by prayer and by song? But that was what we faced a couple of days ago when we visited a school in the Transkie. These kids were hungry and sick. Some if not most come from broken homes. Not because of divorce but because of death...and yet here they were singing and praying to start their school day. What a stark difference from what we know and expect from our American schools. I think we can all learn from these teachers and kids who are fighting daily for survival. I believe there is hope left.

Yes, it is a live chicken.

So in the mist of the crazy...this happens. I seriously love our lives. Yay.

Where Kristi lives

This is the street where Kristi lives. This is the snake that resides there no more.

Day one with Mom and Monkey

My Mom's brother and my very cool uncle (Gordon) is her traveling partner on this trip; so my niece and nephew couldn't seem to figure out how to say "uncle Gordon" when they were learning how to talk...so he ended up being called "Monkey" by both of them...and it stuck. So that is what we all call him. Yay.

So day one with Mom and Monkey: We first went to the beach, of course. It is only 10 minutes from our house and we were quickly informed that it is the Indian ocean. Why neither one of us knew which Ocean it was, I don't know...but being that we are all from Kansas, I guess it really wasn't high on our priority list to know that information until now.

Then we trekked out to get the kids from school. Mom and Monk had a fun time trying to pronounce all 17 kids names in Xhosa.

Next was the market...we found some fabulous deals, and it was only the first day. Woo hoo. Mom wasn't wasting any time. I was thinking they might have some jet lag...but no. They wanted to see and do.

Then we went to Motherwell to see the cemetery. That is always a somber eperience to see the devistation HIV/AIDS has caused in this society.

Then we had the most fabulous opportunity to help Nosakhe with the soup kitchen. I love it when we go there! About 30 showed up and we got to play until it was ready and then we served some split pea soup and Yup! We got to feed some kids. I love that!  

And I bet you only saw other cars on your way to work this morning.

What is it that they are doing again?

Yesterday Daniel and I had the most productive day. We spent most of the morning and afternoon signing up kids for the CHILD SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM which is technically why we are here; our actual job description if you will. So we spent all day taking pictures of kids and signing up children and meeting their care takers. What that really means (in case you are still confused) is that when people in the States have an urge to help a starving kid here, we hook that kid up with a sponsor. It is so cool for us. My profile picture in the left hand corner are all kids who are sponsored or who are looking to get sponsored. I always change it. We are the "quality control" on this side...making sure that the kids are actually getting the food and getting some school clothes. Some organizations "skim" off the top, like they take some of that money to do whatever with it...calling it "processing fees" or "administration fees" but really all they are doing is stealing from the people they claim to be helping....(no, I am not bitter.) What is so so so cool about Oceans is that 100% of all the money here goes to these kids. All of it. We may not know all about everything about starving kids in Africa...but we are all about feeding kids and I think that -that is a start. Yay. I love that I get to be a part of this!! So I have included pictures here and on the side under "township" about what our day looked like. It was kind of wild. I did things yesterday I would have never have done back home. NEVER!!Things I was addemate about. Did I spell that right? A-d-d-e-m-a-t-e. Whatever. Some people that I fell in love with and some people that I didn't. People that I would have had to have had a "conversation" with if it were different circumstances...but whatever, you know? God is growing me and I am becoming somebody new. I held a baby all the way across town in my arms because car seats "just aren't apart of life here" and I learned that there is more to judging people and myself then just by Americas standards.

Eye spy

In this place of danger and unsafe driving....rules on the road don't really apply. Actually, I don't even know what the driving rules are. But for some reason my American license is good here, so whatever. I assume that the basic structure for driving is the same (from where I come from and here). But something that I am not so sure that I will ever get used to is that wherever we go anywhere there are these "taxis" that are basically any and all cars that are available and then you have to stuff as many people in them as possible. I am not joking. I have seen cars with 13 people in them. It is wild. The most popular of course is the kombi (van) and/or the bucky (truck) these are great because you can seriously stuff 30 or more easily. The other day I was stuck behind a car that had over 7 people in it as it stopped and dropped off or picked up more people. I couldn't get around it...but when I finally got my chance, I didn't because of what I saw. The driver stopped, got out and let somebody out of the trunk. What? I don't know but it was one of the craziest things ever.