Pic 1- These are some of the wonderful Life Skills Educators that I've mentioned before. We had them over for pizza one night, then played with the self timer on my camera.
Pic 2- Happy Halloween!!
Can I just say that I can’t believe that it is November!!! What in the world?!? Time is flying by!!
I’ve kind of been holding out on you by not really talking much about one of the main things that I’ve been working on for Living Hope. 2 months ago the General Manager asked me to do some community research regarding orphans and vulnerable children. Living Hope is considering what their position will be in working with these children (future programming), so they wanted a little information to help them make a decision. So they asked for my help in this. Yikes!!! Kind of a scary task for me I must admit…
It has been a challenge because I don’t love research, gathering and interpreting information and talking to people on the phone that can’t understand me (and I can’t understand them either). But I know that God gave me what I needed to finish well and to actually be thankful that the project was assigned to me. I’ve gotten to learn about some other programs in Cape Town, and even visit a couple and see what they do. I have loved meeting and talking with people who have a heart to help others, and seeing the creative ways that communities are helping children and families. I guess being a social worker and kind of a fan of the “non-profit world,” this was a little bit fun for me ☺
This week, my major task has been to finish this up…and I do mean MAJOR TASK!! Working on this took me back to college and grad school days of writing papers…YUCK!! I loved learning and gathering the info, but putting it together in a way that would make sense to someone else has been a different story ☺
Looking back, now I can say how thankful I am for this assignment because I learned so much. Yesterday afternoon, I finished and e-mailed it off!! Out of my hands…AHHH THE FREEDOM!! I hope I get an A++++++. (I celebrated by having some good ole apple pie…made me feel like I was back in the south!)
The rest of my week has gone something like this…
Tuesday morning I led the devotional at the Living Hope Muizenburg Ctr. I talked about the parable of lost sheep. I pray that these men and women will understand how much our God pursues them and seeks them out- just like the shepherd in this story went looking for the ONE little sheep that was lost.
After devotion, I led the weekly support group with street people. The activity was painting with watercolors (take you back to when you were young??) It’s called paint journaling (thanks Julie!!). People always LOVE this activity!! No matter how old you are, there is just something wonderful about creating your own masterpiece ☺ It’s tons of fun for me to watch people do this…for some it’s VERY UNCOMFORTABLE, but for others it’s easy. My favorite is to watch someone who at the beginning is so unsure of themselves and uncomfortable with what they are doing, but as they keep going they really get into it and in the end feel a great sense of pride in what they created!! It’s kind of an opportunity to boost someone’s self worth and affirm their feelings and value. This is pretty much as good as it gets to me ☺
Let’s talk a little bit about the holiday situation here in South Africa…
This week was Halloween (you obviously know this). I’m not typically a big Halloween fan…just have never liked dressing up…don’t know why. But I guess when you are living in another country; anything that reminds you of home becomes kind of special. So, this I how we celebrated, we bought cheap masks (Mom says they looked more like Mardi Gras masks than Halloween masks---I’ll agree with that!!) and wore them to Living Hope. Not so much a popular thing to do since some consider this “Satan’s Holiday.” Oops, I like the words that another American volunteer used to describe Halloween…it’s all about kids and candy. And just so you know…we actually had trick or treaters…I guess they must have known that the American girls would give them candy ☺
Since it’s now November…my head is beginning to think of Thanksgiving (sadly, this American holiday is just that…an American holiday…so there aren’t any cute turkey, pilgrim or Indian decorations here). I’m thankful for a good “American” family here in SA, so we’ll have our own Thanksgiving celebration—Praise the Lord!! I can’t go without my turkey, dressing, and green bean casserole!!
So, since there is no Thanksgiving to celebrate…they’ve moved straight into Christmas!! Yes, that’s right…at the beginning of this week, the Christmas trees and decorations went up. I must admit that it feels a little funny walking around in flip-flops and a t-shirt looking at stockings and snowmen. So, I’m in the Christmas spirit a little bit early this year…me and my wives have definitely started listening to Christmas music!!
Well, I need to run over to the mall and the Christmas trees. It’s a “Get Tested” day for Living Hope at the mall. We set up a booth in the mall with HIV info and they do free testing. It only takes 12 minutes to find out your status. This is a great opportunity to educate people on how to stay negative and how to live a healthy lifestyle if they are positive. HIV is surrounded by stigma, denial, and secrecy- so for someone to get tested is a huge step in breaking the stigma. People are not very willing to go to a medical center to get tested, so we are bringing the testing to the people!!
Have a holly, jolly Christmas…
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