“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” Eleanor Brownn

This week has been encouraging and restful for us. A team from america have been here on a mission trip for the past week. ‘Nothing can wear you out like caring for people’. We have only been here three weeks but the energy needed constantly with the kids here leaves us all exhausted.

The Americans were running a holiday bible club for a couple of hours after we finished homework for the day which was the perfect napping opportunity for me! Each day this week there was always something new to look forward to. As well as the crafts, games and songs for the VBS we had; a cook out one night (the boys even helped to grill the meat), a movie night with popcorn (one child actually ate the paper bag the popcorn was in – they really will eat anything), KFC one night (they eat all the bones from the chicken too…), a piñata (they hit that thing so hard to get to those sweets) and a running race. N.B. Notice how all the activities are based around food – we gave out ice cream after the race incase you were thinking that one didn’t involve something edible.

The highlight of the week was taking 20 of the kids who had never been on a bus to a beautiful beach in Durban on Saturday. It really made me appreciate things seeing how much joy they can get from just splashing around. To me, I would consider learning to swim as a basic life skill but none of these kids have ever been taught. It puts things into perspective realising how little people here can have but how easy it is to give them a little bit of happiness. ‘The things you take for granted someone else is praying for.’

When you are with children who haven’t had the opportunity to experience things, it always feels like you are on an adventure of discovery. We jumped waves and fell over in the sea, caught a crab, saw some fish in the rock pools, found a coconut which we ate after cracking it open, ate hot dogs, buried each other in the sand and sang our lungs out on the bus.

It was cloudy all morning at the beach even though it wasn’t cold. We now all know how strong the sun is here though as we are very red and sore today with sunburnt toes, shoulders and noses.

It was really lovely to get the chance to spend a couple of hours catching up with Ty from Tearfund while he is in South Africa briefly. It makes a change to be able to chat to someone from home while we are in this context. We have been very lucky to have the opportunity to spend time with, get to know, and learn from such a variety of great people who have served at Tabitha while we have been here so far.

In my opinion you should never miss an opportunity to celebrate. It is something fun for us to do together as a team as well as bringing a little bit of our home traditions here with us. In this spirit we enjoyed pancakes on Tuesday (we even pushed the boat out and had savoury as well as sweet!) and have decided to make the most of lent.

We were inspired by our daily devotions to do things differently and rather than give something up, we are taking up living generously. 40 generous acts – we are given a specific challenge each day. A heart turned towards God and serving others is wide open to God’s blessings and hopefully our lives will become bigger as we give. Let’s pray we can make a difference in people’s lives by doing this as well as learning all the ways we can express and live out generosity…

“Pure and genuine religion means caring for orphans in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” James 1:27

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“The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow”

When you plan to go to live in an orphanage for six months I guess the image in your head involves the kids embracing you with open arms and loving you and all the attention you give them. I’d love to say that is the reality – and sometimes it really is like the dream. However I have found the last week extremely challenging. I didn’t think about the fact that the children haven’t been taught know how to give and receive love properly. That they have learnt to play up in order to get attention. That they will push the boundaries with us as they get to know us to see how much they can get away with. And that we aren’t always here to be their friend but we have to be able to discipline them too otherwise they will walk over us. These are totally dysfunctional kids who I am already starting to love to pieces.

“Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations”

I am learning to remind myself every day that these kids need unconditional love and patience more than anything. Whether they are cuddling you, or pinning you against the wall, drawing you pictures or saying the meanest things they can think of. I guess we are all sinners in the eyes of God but he still thinks we all deserve to be loved. Going back and remembering the individual kids stories puts things back into perspective when they are really making you angry.

Another challenge which I wasn’t expecting is having a language barrier. The majority of people in South Africa do speak English and coming to an orphanage where the kids are brought up speaking English it wasn’t even something I considered which would be hard. Zulu is the most common language in this area – most of the staff are from nearby communities and don’t speak much English at all, some Zulu kids come to the school here and struggle to learn in English too. Not to mention the fact the Tabitha kids like to use Zulu (or even pretend Zulu if they don’t actually know any) to try and intimidate us.

I think the language is lovely to listen to though. There are five clicks – two of the kids names here have clicks in them and I am trying to master them. One of the most amazing things is every morning we have prayers with the Zulu caregivers which involves them all singing. It’s emotional how passionate they all are in worship and how incredible it sounds with just their voices! It really is so eye opening how music can bring people together even in a language which is completely foreign to me.

I think we are all starting to settle into African life; going barefoot around the orphanage has become normal, we have learnt that time keeping is much more laid back here and are doing our best with the heat and humidity. However the bugs are something else. At night there are cockroaches everywhere. The other day there was a huge, gigantic, massive one on the toilet seat. I’m not exaggerating. We managed to catch it in a glass but now I’m always scared to go to the toilet in the night…

So yesterday we got to celebrate Valentines day with 41 wonderful kids. And despite the sticky lollipop hands, cake getting in our hair, being hit with balloons, having to make lots of cards and trying to make sure nobody got knocked over during the enthusiastic dancing I’m pretty sure we had the best time ever.

We have also been able to appreciate a bit of this beautiful country and it’s history (as well as being able to have a little break from the chaos here). We visited the Nelson Mandela monument, and even though it was drizzling, it really was a sight. You have to stand in exactly the right place and then all the poles line up and you can see Mandela’s face – artwork at it’s finest. I find it so interesting how this country has had such a big change so recently. However you can see there is still so many things which haven’t been resolved. I don’t think the future of South Africa is going to be easy.

It never fails to amaze me how we can be in town one minute and then see breathtaking nature within a short drive. We saw monkeys, springbok and zebras in a park, and could even get out of the car and get real close to them. We tried feeding them shortbread but I’m not sure that is in their regular diet… There is also an awesome waterfall close by which we visited. In the words of Molly it’s “almost Niagara Falls but just smaller”.

I am so thankful for the company I have on this trip. When you are totally emotional and missing home, fed up from a long day or just enjoying the new culture it’s the girls I am with that make everything so much better. Memories are always best when you have someone to share them with – especially if you are me and have to have someone to tell literally any and everything you see and do to. We have so much fun. Today we spent the car journey in the truck improvising our own instruments and just going crazy to the music. We had a bucket as a drum, air guitars and umbrellas as microphones, although we couldn’t sing most of the time we were laughing too much. Having a sore belly is the sign of a good day!

‘Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.’ Esther 4:14

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We have been in South Africa for 6 days and we have already been challenged in so many ways. It really is hard to explain the culture until you have experienced it first hand.

I knew I would be working with children suffering from HIV, but then you meet them and get to know them and realise how normal they are – it’s heartbreaking to think they have had to grow up knowing they haven’t got parents like most people and on top of that they have a terminal illness which will affect their future.

Tabitha does an amazing job of trying to give these 41 kids; a home with a ‘loving’ family, some prospects for the future through education and an almost normal life.

Some parts of South Africa are westernised. We have been to a mall which has everything you could find at home, but there is no doubt we are in Africa. The differences between wealthy and then a huge majority in poverty within a mile of each other is really difficult to see.

I have already had the opportunity to play football with the kids. I have been told and read about people in Africa playing football but actually seeing it blew me away. They played on the tarmac play area (which is just a car park) completely barefoot! So many people wanted to join in – girls and boys and of all different ages. There wasn’t a pitch marked out so the rules changed frequently whenever someone decided they wanted it to. You have to make sure you dodged the little tufts of grass sticking out from the cracks in the ground. All this in a scorching 38 degree heat. It was incredible to see how much of an international game it is, bringing people together.

There was a massive storm last night which isn’t common at this time of year because it’s summer here. It was apparently one of the worst storms even some of the South Africans had seen. The hailstones were the size of tennis balls and they broke quite a few parts of the roof in the orphanage, leaving the rain to come straight through. It was horrible to see how devastating it was for everyone here. We had to move a lot of the children into different rooms and spent a few hours putting buckets wherever we could and trying to save as much as possible. Although the staff said the roof had never been broken like that before, it doesn’t seem rare around here that things break and there is a struggle for the money to fix them.

Life here is never boring. Living in the orphanage means there is always something to do and someone to play with. I think we are all grateful that we have our own kitchen and lounge area where we can shut ourselves away from the kids when we need to.

I think it’s exciting that we have the opportunity to have such an impact on the kids lives during these next six months. We are their role models and so can influence them in a positive way. We have the responsibility to lead them in devotions, in reading groups, help them in their school work and in their free time and how they choose to spend it.

I can’t wait to see how we and they grow in these months.