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