Jonathan and Nhlaka

You see, this child followed Jonathan around everywhere the whole time we were in Durban last year. While it initially seemed he was most interested in the camera equipment Jonathan carried, it quickly became evident that more than anything he really had a need to be loved and given some attention from a man. His father is not present in the home, his mom works in a factory that is not near their house, so he lives with his older sister and they do the best they can. They’re doing their best, but it isn’t God’s best for them. Jonathan was the only man on our team of eight that traveled to South Africa last year. He was almost always followed or surrounded by a crowd of little boys. Many of these boys don’t have fathers in their homes. When I think of how much we love our little child who is currently only the size of an ear of corn and how hard it must be for those mothers to raise their boys, it was not hard for me to support Jonathan in returning to Durban. Don’t get me wrong, I miss him like crazy and sleep horribly all alone, but it’s worth it. Worth it for me to know that the Lord is using Jonathan to work in the hearts of these children to tell them He has a good purpose for their lives and for Jonathan to love them in a way maybe they don’t experience all that often. My prayer during this time is that they realize that regardless of the situation around them, God is interested in their hearts and their future. God is bigger than AIDS, bigger than shanty towns, bigger than parents who cannot or will not provide for them. My prayer for the people of Cato Manor today comes from Psalm 5:11~
“Let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
 let them ever sing for joy,
and spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may exult in you.”
Lord, may those who are facing situations that seem terrible still find reasons to rejoice. May your grace and your peace be enough for them. Lord give us wisdom to see how we can serve those who are struggling and may our struggles be seen in the light of your grace and goodness.

Things are about to get emotional around here; by this I mean that things are emotional around here. Big time. I can’t go to church without tearing up, especially right now when we’re in the beginning stages of a vision campaign that includes sharing Christ’s love by caring for 2,000 orphans, helping set free 1,000 slaves, planting churches and working in communities to help combat HIV/AIDS and MOST IMPORTANTLY sharing the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ that compares to no other.

If you know me at all, the idea of children suffering or not being provided for on account of my American selfishness is a huge issue for me. We are rich. No matter how you calculate it, we are rich. Jonathan and I have enough. More than enough. In fact, I invited some friends over for dinner last week and I didn’t need to go shopping for much in the way of extra groceries because we already had everything required to serve dinner for five people. This, coupled with the fact that there are so many friends and family members we love and enjoy spending time with makes us rich in my mind. Yes, I would really like it if we got swanky new appliances and had a washing machine that maybe didn’t like to eat little holes in my shirts (and why MY shirts?!?!? Why not Jonathan’s?), but I’ve never had to wear those holey shirts because I didn’t have anything else. I just wear them because well, it’s usually one of my favorites that gets the hole and I’m not ready to give up on it yet. It’s funny how things snowball. I go from thinking about replacing the shirt, to replacing the washing machine and dryer and then to new flooring in the laundry room and then thinking about the kitchen appliances and how nice it would be to have a dishwasher that had the spinny washy bar thing on the top to really scrub the items on the upper shelf. Then, I remember that in just a couple of weeks, Jonathan will be seeing this:

Cato Manor. Durban, South Africa

Photos such as this help me to quickly forget my wants and remind me of the BIG work God is doing through his people in South Africa and how glad I am that God is doing the same thing here. Big things. Life changing things in my life and in the lives of my friends and family that I CAN SEE happening! God is setting people free from slavery everyday. Maybe for me my chains of slavery aren’t illness, poverty and despair, but things like fashion, image and comfort. Maybe God doesn’t want me to be comfortable because it’s in those times of discomfort that I am able to remember that my life is not my own.

And the Lord brings to my heart Scripture like this: ”Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.” 1 Timothy 6:17-18

What was it I wanted again?

Africa. To me it seems sort of cliché to say, We’re going on a mission trip to Africa and yet, the call was undeniable. We were going despite the timing and the craziness of our jobs and the fact that I had no vacation time and that I prefer to travel by myself (I know, that last one makes me seem like a terrible, selfish person, which sometimes I am). For months before I was plagued with thoughts of my own inadequacies, that I had nothing to offer compared to the talents of our teammates, that I was forcing my poor coworker to bear the burden of a whole staff to assist on her own during my absence and that there are other people who are better with children or have medical backgrounds or have the ability to captivate crowds with their speaking. Despite all of this, God’s call was clear: GO.

Here is what I learned:
Not surprisingly, children in Africa are like children anywhere.

The girls liked to play with my hair:

During group activities, they encourage and help each other out: 

They LOVE technology:

Most importantly, they love being loved. I could just tell by sitting with the children and how they responded to us, that they were happy just to have us there. They held our hands, they followed Jonathan around like he was a celebrity (probably because he treats like they are the most important person in the room-I know, world’s best husband, more on that later), they began to open up and laughed when we joked with them, taught us Zulu words and phrases, translated things into English for me and told us of their dreams to become scientists, archaeologists, teachers, writers, good wives and great parents and making their community a safe place.

People have been asking what the biggest memory/highlight/experience for me during our time in Durban and there are many memories that will last a lifetime; the way the children loved us, the beauty of South Africa, the faces and people, our amazing host family, Glenridge Church, but my answer is always the same: being there with Jonathan. For two weeks we spent essentially every moment together (except for bathroom breaks) and I never once wished I was experiencing things by myself or needed “Kelly time” during our trip. I am constantly amazed and thankful that Jonathan has chosen me to be his wife. What a blessing to be married to someone who is more concerned about loving people in a Christ-like way than anything else (and to be the recipient of such love daily).

God met me where I was in Durban and used me despite my shyness, my anxiety over being socially awkward and incredible fear of doing things in front of large groups. I sang into a microphone, I spoke in front of a large group, I made balloon animals like it was what I did on the weekends at home. It was in those moments of being out of my comfort zone that I felt the kids drawing closer to us and hopefully, ultimately drawn closer to God. Our theme for the first camp was “You are Valuable” and the second camp was “Overcoming Obstacles” sometimes I think it’s pretty funny that we set out to teach something we need to learn ourselves. This was one of those times. Praise the Lord for thinking those children in Africa are so valuable He called a group of Americans to travel hours and hours to spend time with them and that His idea of my self-worth is radically different from mine on those days when I fail to see His gifts as anything but burdens.

Maybe you’ll never go to Africa, but I’ll bet you’re being called to something. Just listen to that calling and then GO.

Here is a photo of us with them on our last day:

Also, we could not have done half as well with the children during the leadership camp and holiday club if it wasn’t for the youth workers. I wasn’t able to get a photo of everyone, but I’ll share what we have:

Kelly and Akhona

Kelly and Wendy

Kelly and Lineo

Kelly and Thuts

Jonathan and Nathi

And we don’t have photos of them, but we are so thankful to Glenda for allowing us to be part of the ministry of iThemba Lethu for our time in Durban and to Anton and Derik who drove us around and made sure we had everything we needed and Ang and Alison who spent time with us and brightened our days each time we were in the office and Liz for taking us around and letting us join in an outing to the beach and for Mark who drove Jonathan and I home and told us about the area. Also, we are so glad that Patrick and Shannon were able to be our tour guides for a day and tell us more of the history of Durban and take us to places we wouldn’t have otherwise seen! We are grateful for your hospitality and you’re all welcome at our house anytime!

 We can’t forget our team: Jodie, our fearless and organized leader who helped us roll with the punches and be flexible and Natalie, Lisa, Tami and Kinsey who were always there supporting and encouraging us and each other. You truly made the trip for us! Thank you!

Upon arriving to the gate, Jonathan took this photo of me by the sign (if you can’t read it, I’m pointing to the part that says “Keep a safe distance from elephants”). Telling. Very telling.

We got settled into our room and made our way to the main lodge area where we met our guide and loaded into a truck that looked like the one below for our three hour game viewing drive:

We set out to see the “Big Five” of Africa: Lion, African Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Black Rhinoceros and Leopard.

From the comfort of our seats we saw impala, rhinos, giraffe, zebra, cape buffalo, a warthog and elephants in the distance. I must say, I was slightly disappointed at the lack of lions, but it was very dark by the time we were making our way back to our lodge for dinner. As we were heading up a somewhat steep and windy dirt road surrounded by brush on both sides, we noticed the park vehicle ahead of us had a giant flashlight shining out the back. As we grew closer, we could hear people yelling and then, we could tell they were distinctly yelling at us. “Get back! Get back! An elephant! An elephant is charging us! Get back!” Hearing the panic in their voices, we knew they weren’t joking, but we really couldn’t see an elephant. Our quick-thinking guide put the vehicle in reverse and started heading back down the hill. Then we saw it in the headlights of the first vehicle-a rather sizable elephant running down the hill toward us with his ears flapping in the wind. Hm “an elephant running downhill has gravity on his side” was my second thought (after the first thought which I won’t share with the masses). Our driver was going at a clipping pace down the hill and was finally able to turn around after which I would say we were booking it out of there. We stopped after a few minutes to make sure the other vehicle made it out safely and then sped around the other side of the hill to make it back to the lodge. Just as we were getting close again, we saw ahead of us two large rhinos fighting in the road! They were not going to let us through. After being admonished by our guide to be quiet around the elephant, we were all silent. Then our guide started flicking the headlights, banging on the door of the truck and yelling! I thought I might wet my pants. The rhinos responded well to the noise though and broke free from their fighting and made way for us to pass. Hooray! I was SO very glad to make it to dinner that evening and didn’t even mind the Jurassic Park sized bugs that were in my hair, behind my ears and stuck inside Jonatha’s shirt. Okay, the one inside his shirt freaked me out.

About the noise factor, apparently elephants don’t give you a warning if they’re going to charge you so you should just be quiet and still and maybe it will forget you’re there. Other animals give you some sort of indication when they’re charging so you have some time to figure out your next move. Just a tip from our guide.

The next day, we took another game viewing drive and our guide, Johannes, just happened to be the fellow driving that other vehicle the night before. Turns out, the elephant was a male and um, in heat, and can’t find a mate. So he was pretty mad about that. So mad he was willing to attack anything in his way. I sure hope you found a mate, poor frustrated elephant.

That morning we were hoping to see something a little less exciting, like maybe just zebra standing in the shade and we did see a few vulchers, but mostly zebra and giraffe and they were moving slowly. It was perfect.

Here’s one of my favorite photos from that morning. It’s a baby rhino with its parent and a baby zebra with its parent.

If you’d like to see more photos from our game drive, please check out Jonathan’s photos here and here

We tried Bunny Chow-a local favorite:

We got to see the Indian Ocean!

We went to a themed restaurant and had our faces painted:

We had amazingly delicious coffee from this coffee shop:

We tried some local foods:

(This is our friend Tami with bread topped with avocado and other deliciousness)

I ordered the vegetarian platter! It was HUGE, but so very delicious!

We did a little shopping:

This style of beadwork is traditional Zulu art.

And I just thought these bowls were really pretty, but wouldn’t really fit in our suitcase.

We also got to go to a game park. More on that later…

We set out Tuesday morning to our respective locations: Jonathan, Jodie, Lisa and Natalie to one school and Tami, Kinsey and me to another school. I was really nervous. You know that feeling when you could cry at any moment, that’s how I felt all morning long. We had only five children for a very long time, then we were told that due to the numbers of children, we were going to join the team at the other school. Praise the Lord! The five children we had with us were great, but coming up with six hours of fun for five children can be difficult, especially when we didn’t know any Zulu other than Sawubona (hello).

Upon our arrival, Jonathan was giving the message based on Daniel:

These three days were filled with some great fun: music, games, messages, small group time and amazing skits created and put on by the children. They LOVED skits! It was so great to see them perform for us. I was impressed with their creativity and with the depth of understanding of the topic.

A real highlight for me was this fellow; he never told me his name, but each day he would meet me at the door, take my hand and my backpack and laptop bag and carry everything for me. I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn’t take no for an answer-everyday! Then he would hug me! Then we would sit down and talk, but he mostly just wanted to hold my hand. We can hold hands anytime, buddy, anytime. Here we are on the last day of club:

The theme for this club was “Overcoming Obstacles” more than anything, I think I was the one who received the most “teaching” during these days. It was encouraging to see the children engage with their youth workers and the parent workers and to even see a teacher come by to see how things were going. What a gift to be part of this local movement of God’s work.

Oh, and Jonathan had quite the crowd of boys and girls on the last day. They were teaching him Zulu. I still think it’s great that he had such a following:

Monday, we got to meet the babies at the iThemba Lethu transition home. And yes, we loved them! No, we cannot adopt from South Africa, but if you live in a country that’s not the U.S. you probably can and maybe you should!

We played with the children in the yard at the home and also got to take some of the older ones to the beach to play in the water! The two oldest boys LOVED playing with Jonathan in the surf.

Here is one of my favorite photos of our time with the boys Thomas and Duzy:

They are big lovers and such fun boys! Out of respect for their privacy, we won’t post many photos of our time with them, but suffice it to say that we loved each of the children and we’d love to show you photos and tell you stories in person! One little boy, Benny, was the first one to warm up to me and man, he stole my heart with his cuddles and smiles. And then there was little Stella, a strikingly beautiful baby girl who was clever and quiet and so much fun to be around. She wasn’t quite walking yet, but she would sit and talk with an amazing vocabulary! The only problem with Stella is that she didn’t want me to put her down and I didn’t want to put her down either, but my arms were tired! I’m not used to carrying anything for very long I guess! I’ll have to work out my arms a little more.

It was a great blessing for us to see the way the children were being loved and raised in a caring way that is growing them into loving and helpful kids. They all look out for each other and love each other like siblings (and yes, there are even tears and some hurt feelings over toys like siblings have too, which I thought was so great).

I believe we will need an Africa stories break for Christmas festivities. Stay tuned….

Here we are on the plane. Our first transatlantic flight together!

Arriving in the evening of December 4th, we were welcomed at the airport by Glenda and Mark and taken to our host family’s home. Raymond and Kathy were our wonderful and gracious hosts (along with their two lovely daughters, Zoe and Joelle). Friday morning we were picked up and taken to meet a busload of children who were heading to leadership camp for the weekend. After meeting T.P.-self-appointed representative of the group, who introduced himself and asked if we knew such and such celebrity, we arrived at Pennington Beach. Here’s the view from the cafeteria (yep, that’s the Indian Ocean!):

 The first activity was going to the beach with the children of the leadership camp (6th graders). It poured rain.

Later that night, we got to do a little program for them. Jodie gave the message from Luke 15 (parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin), explaining that they are so valuable to God that He is willing to leave everything behind in search for them and celebrate when they return! She also relayed that they are each so valuable to God that He called us to leave behind our families and lives in America to travel all this way to meet them! It was humbling to see how quickly the children responded to the message and how they opened up to us in response!

Saturday was when I really began to notice a trend that continued for the whole trip: Jonathan ALWAYS had a crowd around him:

The morning was spent participating in team building activities and the kids LOVED it. We joined groups and traveled with them as they did the foofee slide (zip line), obstacle course, rock climbing wall and group activities. It was a good time to get to know each person a little better too. That night, each child was given a Zulu Bible with a letter from their youth worker. Many of them have nothing so to have a book is special. We continue to pray that having a Bible has a significant impact on their lives.

The next morning, Jonathan sat with one of the campers and asked him to read passages in Zulu. These kids had endless questions about God, theology and the Bible!

We spent Sunday morning applying temporary tattoos, face painting, beading and hanging out with the children while they took turns to meet individually with their youth workers. After lunch, we headed back to Durban proper on the bus….the first three days. More to come!

In other update-ish news about our trip:

Travel from the US to South Africa went well. A real highlight for Kelly was having the immigration official say, “Is this you? Your face looks so fat!” (Just stamp my stinking passport, please) to which I replied “Thanks, I think, that must mean I look thin now.” -Note to readers-my passport photo was taken in JUNE as in six months ago, I’m certain I’m the same size.

Our host family is fantastic! They are a couple in their thirties who have two daughters who are seven and three. They have been very welcoming to us and so kind. We’ve seen quite a few performances of dances, music and listened to stories about things they’ve done each day. It’s been great.

The work of iThemba Lethu continues after we depart and the ministry here is incredible. The children in the transition home (orphanage) are well loved, cared for and love each other like brothers and sisters. There are about 12 children all age three and under and they are happy and cheerful and area always waving when we arrive each day. The school program is helping to restore a sense of respect and dignity to the children. They often talk about respect and how they should respect others and others should respect them. They are like children anywhere-love to perform skits and be on stage and love to talk about their families and school and what they want to be when they grow up. Some of them want to be archeologists or teachers or scientists; every student with whom I spoke wanted to have a good family when they grow up and help make their community safe. We are so thankful to be a small part of this ministry this week. More when we get home. It might take us a bit to process everything.

Sorry for the lack of photos, those will come when we return home….

Love you!
J&K