Leah - July 27

“Motho ke motho ka batho- A person is a person through other people” –African proverb

A sign at the entrance to The Apartheid Museum

July 27 was a Friday packed full with history, love, and ,of course, Jesus. We started off the day with an amazing breakfast and a perspective of a white women living through Apartheid, both provided by Glenda, the owner of the Castle.  She described the confusion and frustration of living with parents who supported the movement, but believed the truth that a person is a human, no matter the color of their skin. The passion and emotion behind her words brought true light to the foreign tragedy. Her story, however, was just warm up for us. Then we went to the Apartheid museum. This museum was packed full of information and representations of the whole history of Apartheid and included an exhibit about the life of Nelson Mandela. We were at the museum for a solid two hours, and I personally spent 90 minutes just reading about Nelson Mandela. The whole museum was silent not only because we were constantly reading, but also because of the material made everyone speechless.

The team with Ma Ethel and all her children

            After our little history lesson at the museum, we met up with Sihle Mooi, a pastor for a church located in Soweto. We went to lunch at a local buffet that had interesting food. Of course I tried it all because, well, we are in Africa. What I didn’t realize was that my first big bite was of cow intestine and stomach. I am just going to say that it wasn’t for me. Everything else, however, was delicious. My favorite part of the meal was when Eric went up and played the xylophone with the natives.

Sihle then took us to Ma Ethel’s, who is an exceptional women! She is 78 years old and for over 30 years has opened up her home to abandoned children. At this time, she is housing 35 children in her 3 bedroom home. She says that Jesus has blessed her with all these children and when she loves on them, she loves on Him; so, she is able to love Him all day everyday. After a tour of her home, we were lucky enough to get a concert from not only all the children, but also Ma Ethal. You could just see the light in their souls while worshiping Him. The beauty in that house was so pronounced that you couldn’t help but have a smile on your face. However, we still had to experience the difficulty of saying goodbye.

Children from the neighborhood in Soweto

Connecting with some children from Ma Ethel's Home

The last stop of the day was to Porsche and Wendy’s home. This mother and daughter team live in a township in Soweto. their home is half the size of my bedroom, but they are proud to live there. Wendy, the daughter, is the representation for physical science for her school at a competition on Saturday. She also runs a bible study in her township which partners with Sihle’s church. Wendy is only 16 years old, but has spiritual maturity of a women three times her age. While we were at Wendy’s home, we also had the privilege of playing with the children of the township. I met two girls, Angel and Taylor. Angel is ten, her favorite color is pink, and has the prettiest smile I have ever seen. However, Taylor was a mystery, we had no way of verbally communicating with each other. Nevertheless, just embracing her and loving on her made a connection between us the will never be forgotten. Both Taylor and Angel exerted raw love and I have no doubt that God was present in that time we spent together. When we left the township to head home, Sihle told us that the children we just spent time with rarely got that much affection, and we made a difference in their lives.

The beautiful Ma Ethel sharing her powerful story

            In the past two weeks, we have experience so many different places and set the foundation for so many relationships that is as been bittersweet. The bitter part is mainly that we only get to love on these people for a few hours max. however, it is so sweet that we get to share our love with so many different kinds of people. I cant lie, it has been wearing; Nevertheless, it is totally worth it. 

 

-Leah :-]