“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
