South Africa

Transcript

so um as most of you all know um myself as well as um my mom and sister leah were in south africa at the beginning of this year and um yeah i'm gonna just share a bit um kind of give you an idea of what that experience was like um these were all the wonderful people we were working with and oh okay um these were all the wonderful people we were working with as you can see my family as well as um some other faces you might recognize um oh yeah um yeah and before i get um really into this i just want to give you all um our thanks and for all the um support you've given us and all the donations you've provided and all the financial help it was very much appreciated all right so um some of the people who are um currently working in south africa um i don't know how many of you know the the skippers this is uh lucas and leona they are currently living in hope field which is about an hour north of cape town so we got to hear quite a bit about their um faith journey and the challenges they've had in life um they've been putting their life's work into serving with all their heart and energy and they're kind of hard to keep up with but um so right now they're working on a ton of different projects but bible classes programs called days for girls leading leadership classes and back in when they were um working in other regions of south africa they would have um a facility to hold these all these programs in as well as um places for volunteers to stay um and run projects no problem with my notes there we go um but yeah that's our hope to eventually um get those facilities up and running they only recently moved to the cape town area and have begun making connections there and um so this is their home and it's a beautiful area um beautiful sunsets and these are their children um we got luellen lavandi and liesel and all all of them are married and have children um henry and liesel live right next door and this is where um my family was staying with uh henry liesel this is henry and liesel and they have four children while we were there actually they um had just had um a pair of twins as you can see here um but yeah this whole family was going through so much during our stay and um the fact that they were able to on top of all the stuff they're going through with their family that they were able to just continue to um help us with the projects we were working on and um all the work they did is just fantastic okay nope okay yeah there's supposed to be a clip here but yeah they they were born while we were there do i have to click a certain button no it's not working i'm sorry all right all right um this is the newborn twins and um henry um he runs this workshop where um he tries to build connections with the community holding um family fun workshops where parents and children from the community can come and learn how to build um practical things they can use at home he showed us a bit on like how that sort of works and we made these like seed planters together and it was a lot of fun these are their older children ruby and amberly and the twins teagan and tyler um and this is in charleston val who um both were a couple from scotland who had moved to south africa years ago and have been um working with everyone there they are the parents of stacy who is married to lewellen and and we've got to hear a lot about their their journey during um long drives between our different projects um but yeah they put so much work there into it while we were there um um charles at the time was helping um fix up the um shower at um henry and liesel's place um while they were at the hospital um at the time he had already hurt himself um while he was playing football with the kids so um but yeah yeah he kept going he was always very helpful and it was um inspiring to see um here's what we were shopping for uh supplies and this is stacy and llewellyn who are expecting a child themselves and this is michael and londy they live in the cape town area and they have two children um lexi and zante and you might recognize these people ben and hannah and seth and rebecca who worked on several projects with us and this is the crew that i was hanging out with most of the time um this is like me and aaliyah obviously and uh brother josh and our newly baptized uh sister pippa um she's from pretoria so it's me on the other side of the country um so this is the uh local chris philippine hall in cape town where we um ran a puppet show for the the young people there and let's see um afterwards some of us went over to the home of uh brother asamani and his family and you can see them here we're dropping off supplies these are his children this is home and so a lot of the work we were doing um was with um different um zoom classes we were doing at the time um rebecca and hannah and aaliyah all for and my mom all presented um sister classes online and um as well as sunday school classes and puppet shows online as well um josh and myself and seth and ben all presented different exhortations and bible classes online as well so yeah a lot of the work that we were doing there was um what what they had done um the locals had um made connections with different people in the community and a lot of what we were doing was different um random acts of kindness to um help them where they they needed it so here you can see we are one of the things we did a lot was um making different food parcels which we'd get different fruits and veggies and pasta and such and sort them into packages that we would deliver to people who were in need we did a soup kitchen one day here's us all preparing some soup um cook it all in smaller crock pots and then combine it all together in one big pot and deliver that and we're distributing it here in a place called green village and there should be another clip here but okay okay [Music] bye so um a lot of what they were doing is making connections with the local community because they just moved in there and um the cape town of occlegia is rather small so they're hoping to make connections with the community and hopefully something will grow and some more folks in green village um another thing we did was helping a local farmer vaccinate his sheep this was um lucas and leona's neighbor um yeah that was um an interesting experience so we had um yeah wrangled them up and hold them well they got their vaccination and so another place we visited was this blueberry farm in a place called wellington there were a lot of children in that area um did puppet shows there um a couple of bible stories you might recognize um oh um did i skip ahead too much okay um yeah we're doing a puppet show here of uh jonah and made crafts with them and this is uh and one of the um larger what they call townships there they're like more like slums so essentially what happened was a lot of people here were promised government housing if they didn't build any um permanent dwellings so they um set up these temporary shacks and they have to pay steep rent on the property and um yeah as of 2011 the population here is um in this township known as denune was a 31 thousand yeah it's a particularly dangerous situation the brothers there were doing work inside to noon at um at one point um helping out a school there but um it was a bit dangerous as there was only one road in and out so eventually the local people there told them that it provides them not to continue doing that so what they've been doing to try to continue to help the children in the area is they've set up their um this shipping container here they've outfitted it to be a building where they could um bring the children to here to give them the classes let's see you see we are painting it up making it a little more friendly oh yeah always on the move um some folks understood english but um i said some some folks understood english but the the main language in the area is afrikaans so um yeah um we weren't weren't the best at communicating with some people but um you know the the skippers and their family all understood it so and here's some some donations and supplies we had stocked there and we held a pup show here as well see we got jonah i got a whale made um whale crafts with the kids and also did a lot of different uh games and singing with them okay simon says stomp your foot it's time to swipe your other foot says clap your hands simon says jump and clap your hands that's pretty good jump up your hands [Music] one more time okay you're gonna dance with us [Music] we went downstairs we went down [Music] i so one more game we were playing with them okay one two three [Music] [Music] so yeah currently um they are transporting the children to to the container for these classes um it's a less than ideal um way of um transporting them they're it's a bit a bit crowded but and they can only bring so many kids at a time what their michael is hoping to do is raise funds to um buy a larger vehicle which they can use to transport the children um [Music] in noon i'm not sure if it's a government school or not um they said there was some sort of school there um i'm not entirely certain what how their situation is but but was school in session during this time um i don't believe so no okay more of their like um summer break i got you okay thank you little nerd january [Music] okay [Music] that's just outside one of the smaller townships oh did i miss a clip okay you guys is it heavy it's heavy yeah that's one of the care packages yeah this uh right right after we had done a class with them we were dropping them off back home so this this place here called the little brinks was uh started up by a local lady who um was adopting a child from one of the townships and um she saw that there was just so much need and there were so many children who were in need and decided that she had to do more she opened her home up as a safe place for um children and ended up adopting more children so um lalande had made a connection with her and she and michael would go regularly to her place and do educational games and songs with these children some of these children had were afraid of men or adults and but they um through all the constant love that they were given with michael and lulandi they had eventually gained their trust these educational games really help them to reach a level where they are have a qualification for adoption and have a better position to start attending school so this place uh green village um is uh closer to hope field um it's another township um and the this church building here has been used for um the girls program that leona runs as well as the children's bible club the the these kids we um we had um a spare bag of apples and we um josh and i um were sharing with them and they uh helped us go around the village and help find more children who were might might want some food and this is uh the women's program that leona presents on women's health issues and safety and they they were all given supplies and given self-defense courses and this is the children's program where they read them bible stories um did more puppet shows um these are some of the puppets um my mom and grandmother put a lot of hard work into making you might recognize uh got david and goliath here we've got jonah and the whale we've got jesus and the apostles and this is the local uh green village crash or what we'd call preschool um there's another connection they made with the um with jacqueline and her husband who run this preschool through their own funds um what we did is we went in there and helped her fix up the place did a lot of painting murals and um weeding thorns we planted a vegetable garden you'll see a little further on um paint this little um tricycle track for them to drive around on and we planted a garden um with um veggies to help um and here's leah and i doing some weeding and another project we did a lot um well at least once um we i guess they do this regularly um well we we all went out um to a local beach and just started picking up trash and we all had these matching t-shirts that all said um clean up for christ um and yeah um it was a nice way to um help take care of the environment and show that we care and um yeah we had people um come by and um ask us what we were up to and we were able to share our faith that way so that was really special and yeah so on some of the off days we um one of the off days we were able to see some of the natural beauty of the area and yeah these are um michael and londy's children's pets interesting choice found some other interesting animals and it's a lot of good food um a lot of great discussions over dinner um um some of the seaside and i think there's a clip here [Music] bye and yeah it's a great trip we made a lot of um great um connections and this is the view from on top of table mountain which is kind of the uh iconic landmark in the region brutal yeah i didn't bring enough water that was our clip oh okay in the hundreds [Music] oh [Music] oh yeah we eventually made it to the top and there's a lot of interesting plants up there oh yeah this is craziness oh yeah all right so um yeah as i kind of conclude this talk i just wanted to explore different ways we could um potentially um continue this and um also help like help both them the the south african brothers and sisters continue doing their good work as well as looking for ways that we can spread that kind of spirit and continue to look for ways to help our own communities and hopefully build connections and so um one thing like as i mentioned earlier michael and alandi are looking to raise funds to buy a vehicle to transport those children to the um the classes that they run i believe he's starting a gofundme i don't have the link yet but if i do get that i will share it with you all um and this last photo here was actually on not in south africa this is in rhode island um sister rebecca has continued to had this effort of the cleanup for christ and she's been sharing a lot of this on instagram and trying to get more people involved with this and i just think it's a great idea um um but yeah i just like to open it up at this point if anyone would like to share any ideas they they might have to share god's love not necessarily an idea but i just want to pick your brain what was what was the best part of this trip that made an impression on you what was what was the most impressionable thing that happened on on the trip that you t that you took away from this trip um yeah i'd say just like all the um hard work that um the this keeper's family is put into like helping their community even like when like while we were there like they've been going through quite a lot with their family um with with like the birth of children and um so much more and like it's inspiring to see all the work that they despite that that they continue to do to help um um for one just um house us for the week and then the other to just help continue um that work and um yeah that's thank you so follow-up question what was your favorite food item there outside of the pizza that we saw like traditional african uh food indoor beverages um oh man there's this one dish i just cannot for the life of remember what it's called okay could could you describe thank you yes could you describe it for us um uh it's got like it's kind of like a the uh south african sort of version of like a shepherd's pie sort of deal oh yeah yeah yeah okay i think i've seen i forget the name of it too but yeah i've seen a food show on delicious destinations cape town okay hold on i'm i'm done first of all thank you for the presentation that was great is there a list of items where you know that they need or where we can send stuff to like how would that all work um like you know school supplies or anything right um well i don't know i know that they want to organize some more of these kind of trips to there and we could definitely send supplies along with whoever goes on those next missions i'm not sure when the next one will be but um in the meantime mom do you know no okay okay yeah i'll let you all know if i thank you i have any more information oh yes thanks jacob um this was a sort of the culmination of the prepare to preach program is that right yes could you talk a little bit about prepare to preach p2p um yeah so that was um back in 2019 uh a slightly larger group of us um spent um a week in last summer that summer um in portland oregon where um we had um training just trying to look um we did some bible study as well as just um trying to figure out where our preaching strengths lie with each member of the team and yeah it was a great experience we had planned this trip um for 2020 but obviously that that plan did not follow through until this year but yeah so when you are on p2p one of the things i think i heard you say was that they helped you identify what your strengths were uh your preaching strengths is that how you described it yes and so then when you were in south africa you showed us a number of uh photos some of which were things like puppet shows other things were you know youth sports did you find yourself attracted to one or the other or was there an area that you prefer doing as opposed to uh tried to avoid um i mean um i it was all very very much enjoyable even if um certain things weren't particularly my best um suited for my talents but um yeah i definitely enjoyed working with the kids um yeah i like playing these sports with them as well as um like the digging holes to plant gardens in and um you know that like all of it was most certainly wonderful the williamsburg foundation has a podcast called that levi gelino hosts i think it's called the one uh a little faith a little faith and they recently uh they recently interviewed seth and um and josh and they talked a little bit about their experience the same time you were there and they talked a little bit about uh i think one of them said you know hey some people love the puppet shows not my thing right and i think the lesson that they were bringing out was that within the ecclesia we tend to have certain talents and i guess the question is do we try and strengthen our strengths and sort of go with what we're good at or do we weak do we try to strengthen our weaknesses and become more well-rounded do you have an opinion on that hmm i'm i i think that there's um value in both like i think we should develop our um the natural god-given talents that we do have and try to strengthen those to the best of our ability um but yeah there's also something to be said for um working on our weaknesses and trying to you know become more adapted to that thanks for this program yeah thank you i'm still waiting i'm still waiting for that promised uh sunday school breakfast that you had teased us with for week after week after week [Music] you really did have the food oh now i feel left out thanks jacob nice job [Applause] chris won't let me give up on this so here if whoops i don't know philip is it possible still to phil is it possible still to run the projector one okay turn the what oh hold on one second i don't need to talk all right so this is what you what we wanted for some reason it wasn't working in the show oh uh