Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Port Elizabeth Visit & Safari




Just another amazing and sunny day in beautiful SA!  We’ve been so blessed to be able to travel to MOSAIC’s third location in Port Elizabeth.  This site is approximately 600 miles from Wellington where we’ve been building the houses and spending time at the Community Center.  Carl and Estelle Kirstein are the managers of this location and they and their staff are doing incredible work with some 59 children from the community.  The center is bright and open, colorfully decorated, with well-equipped classrooms, a kitchen and a large outdoor space where the kids can run and play.  When we arrived this afternoon, the children were joyfully playing a game with the parachute Cammy had purchased for them in the U.S. and it was a wonderful sight to behold.  The future looks so promising for this Mosaic site and the community, as they anticipate the construction of the 21 homes planned for the not-too-distant future.






On a ‘side-trip’, we had the opportunity to experience two different game parks where we took in the magnificence of God’s creation in those acres and acres of open space.  Be sure to ask a S.A. traveler to show you his/her photos(VERY UPCLOSE!) of lions, zebra, elephants, giraffes, hippo, a crocodile and many smaller animals.  For some of us, our favorite creature was the elusive warthog!  These scenes and creatures are simply stunning and we are beyond grateful to have had this chance to take a break and take it all in.

Two hippos are in the water behind the crocodile.  :-)





We are returning to Wellington this evening and then will prepare for our final full day in S.A..  Our time has passed so quickly and yet it seems as though we’ve been away from home and loved ones for a very long time.  It will be really hard to say good-by to those we have come to love here in this wonderful country.  Your continued prayers for our travels and experiences are deeply appreciated.  

Blessings, dear ones, in HIM.
Pastor Vicki 



Saturday, November 23, 2019

Bible Study






Oh, mercy…how does one sum up what goes on here in S.A.???  Louise Conradie, wife of Meyer Conradie, the CEO and of MOSAIC,  leads a Bible Study for the Mosaic Mothers and Friday was the last of their meetings for this year.  Some of us had the rich blessing of joining these women for their time of study and fellowship.  Louise has the amazing ability to affirm and lift up these women whose lives  are often besieged with heartache, challenge and need.  They come together for worship, for prayer, and for study of  the Word, and to hold one another up.  Louise started our time together with worship.  That translated into a time of music and the freedom to move about the yard in the brilliant sunshine and warmth to simply to ‘be’ with the Lord- using rhythmic instruments, just  lifting up gratitude to the Lord.  We then spoke of the power of prayer and sisterhood.

Louise  then talked about wisdom of keeping our buckets full with the Spirit of Christ: through prayer, through scripture, the wisdom of  meditation and prayer:   simply spending time with the Lord.  

We ended our time together with Holy Communion and Anointing.  Never, never in my life have ever felt the presence of the Holy Spirit more profoundly- being with women of faith who trust in the Lord in ways that I can barely comprehend.  I lift up praise and thanksgiving to the Lord for the way I see the movement of his Holy Spirit in this country and with these people. 

Thank you, thank you, Jesus, for the way you move and work in our lives.  Amen.

In HIM, Pastor Vicki




Thursday, November 21, 2019

Connections


One of the really neat things about being a part of this mission trip is the connections and, in some cases, re-connections we get to make with the people here in South Africa. At the work site, we work with many local men who have been hired to build the houses. In most cases, these men have never worked with women, let alone WHITE women. The first morning can sometimes be awkward as they adjust to having us around. Don’t get me wrong, they are always polite and gracious. It’s just obvious that this is new to some of them. To help us all to get to know one another we wear name tags made with masking tape and a Sharpie. (Shout out to Joe Lisowski who started that on our trip in 2016!)



On the morning of Day 1, we were a little short on trowels. I was working along side Kim and we both had regular, full-size trowels  That left one of the South African men with nothing but a small trowel (that I affectionately dubbed “Baby Trowel”). This man’s name is Simphiwe. At one point, when Kim laid her trowel down momentarily and turned away, Simphiwe took the opportunity to “steal” her large trowel and leave her with baby trowel. When Kim realized this, she called Simphiwe out for his theft and we all smiled and laughed and went back to work. At the very first opportunity, when Simphiwe put down his trowel and wasn’t looking, Kim stole her trowel back and left baby trowel for him.  When Simphiwe turned around and saw this, he busted out laughing, as we all did. For the rest of that day, Kim and I called Simphiwe ‘Baby Trowel’ or, sometimes, just ‘Baby’. We asked him if he was okay with us calling him that and he assured us he was. When we arrived at the work site on Day 2, we discovered that on his construction vest Simphiwe had written “Baby Trawell” (sic). This amused Kim and I greatly because, clearly, he was owning his new nickname.

If you look closely, you can see the words "baby trawell" in the gray strip.



Connections like that are priceless. It’s only when you step out of your everyday life and put yourself in someone else’s world that you can form such relationships even if they are fleeting and temporary. I, personally, will never forget Simphiwe or, should I say, Baby Trowel.

Blessings,
Lynne Kreher