Closing Time

Our time here is quickly coming to an end. The past four months have flown by and have been filled up joy, frustration, change and lots of fun. Going into this I never could have guessed what was going to happen or expected to meet so many great people or learn so much. I came to South Africa not knowing what I would be doing; all I knew was we were working with a local church and that was about it. Over four months later and we have not only been able to work with the youth at EBC but also got to spend our weeks with the crazy and hilarious kids at the orphanage playing who knows how many games of uno (we lost count after a while) and helping with homework. I was even given the opportunity to counsel one girl a little bit. Our weeks were also spent working with grade 2 at aurora and just helping out teacher Emilia (who is incredible for teaching both grade 2 and grade 3) with class work and a lot of reading test.



In these past four months we have been able to see a little boy (kektzo) at the orphanage go from being close to death and skin and bones when we first met him to becoming healthier and he has put on weight and see him smile and his personality and just see him act like a kid. We were also able to watch as Thebule progressed developmentally and see her able to crawl and walk with the help of someone holding her hand and just her smile back at you and imitate your facial expressions and clap. It’s the small things. Thebule and a few other smaller kids have developmental delays so it has been great to see her progress.


Living here and being able to work with these kids has been amazing and my experience here is more then I could have imagined. The past two weeks have been sad as we have had to say good-bye to the kids at aurora and the orphanage as well as to the friends that we've made. Last week we did have the oppurtunity to have a Christmas party with Aurora School. Thanks to the donations from people that Sarah, Mandy, and Lisa (they are americans and Canadians that live in our complex and have been going with us to Aurora) knew they were able to provide these kids with a pizza party and each a christmas gift and a lunch box with fruit and toothbrush/paste. It was so incredible to be a part of that that day and to just see how excited these kids were to open up their gift and find a baby doll or marbles. It really was amazing and we were all just as excited as the kids were. There even was a santa clause thanks to one of the men that works with Sarah and Mandy's husbands. It was a great way to end our time with them.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support during this entire time. I have greatly apprieciated them and so have my teamates. I will update again once I am back in the states for one or two final posts.