Uitenhage and Christmas

Uitenhage 1 week:

This was a quiet week for us, we did a couple things. We were on our own, so no church. We did house visits, picked up trash, did kid zone, and just hung out with the kids that always hung out in the street. We were staying in a black xhosa community. The apartide in South Africa ended just 10 years ago, so you can still feel the differences when you walk into different streets. There are clearly white areas, colored areas, and black areas. They are working on mixing, schools are mixed now but there is still lots of hurt from white people, rascism is still present. Bernard told me that by just hugging or greeting a black woman on the streets I was making a huge impact, he told me that they will never forget that day. Man it was crazy, I remember there was a group of older women, they call them Oma's, in the street when we were coming out from a house and they just stood their and we went around and greeted everyone I had a woman start crying because I touched her. Its cool how God can use a simple hug to heal a deep hurt.

At the house we were staying at I never was in the house, always sitting outside because there was shade haaa the house was right across the street from a shop. So young kids always were coming up to me asking me super funny questions like, “so on TV I see that everyone walks around with a gun, is that true?” There were some awesome doors opened up with the older youth during this week, I ended up talking for hours with these four boys and almost everynight we would pray together, it was cool.

Jbay for Christmas:

The holidays did not feel like holidays for me, one there was no snow, and two I never heard Christmas music. The food is a lot different as well, I cant really explain in over writing so you can ask me about it when I see you next. We had Christmas at our base leader, Dan's house, with our team, some staff, and another team from Canada. It was a packed house, and a whole new experience, it was one of the only Christmas's I have had without snow. During this weekend we had another staff member join us to help lead our DTS, his name is Ettienne he is 25 years old and wow his story is crazy. Ask me about it.