First, we are so very thankful for our host family, the Meneses, who welcomed us into their home and let us sleep and eat as much as we wanted! Also, we rather enjoyed spending time with them.

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!

On our last weekend in Durban, we were taken to Hluhluwe Game Reserve. We were SO excited to have the chance to see some African wildlife (other than monkeys) up close! Upon entry to the park, we were all sort of thinking of the Lion King and amazed at the beauty that surrounded us! We saw a few animals as we were driving up to our lodge, which just heighted the excitement for me!

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 did some great fun things in the evenings whilst in Durban.

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…

The last official part of our “job” in South Africa was Holiday Club. iThemba Lethu has basically a day camp style program during the week of summer holidays (remember, southern hemi, it’s summer for them!). We were thrown for a bit of a loop when we found out the day before Holiday Club started that our team of seven would be split into two for programming at two locations. Even more sadly, Jonathan and I would be split due to logistics.

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:

It feels like I’m in a time warp. What we did two weeks ago seems like both yesterday and last year. At any rate, continuing the “story” of our time in South Africa, after returning from Pennington Beach Camp we went to Glenridge Church with our host families and had a really wonderful time praising the Lord together.

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….

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the schedule of events, we left the Seattle area and traveled to Durban, South Africa on Wednesday December 3rd.

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!