Day 1-2
Over 100 volunteers from AIM, LXP, MXP and locals in at least ten different vehicles drove 3 hours to a small town of Somerset East. Since February things have been coming into alignment and doors have been opening for us to enter this town. Hearing the history of us even making it here was amazing and magnifies what a mighty God we serve. Not only are we in this community to bring light on issues of HIV/AIDS but to also minister to the families that have opened their houses up for us. In this town there are still notable segregations. The whites, blacks and coloreds don’t mingle too much so seeing a group of young people of different backgrounds, cultures and nationalities come and work and minister together to reach this community is ministry in itself. God has amazing things planned for this little community and I’m excited to see how He is going to continue to minister to us all.
Day 3
This morning we all went to church with our host families and ate lunch with them afterwards. For many it was a new experience attending church of a different denomination. We joined together as a large group and covered the rest of the day in prayer. We headed down to the youth center located in the township and invited everyone around to join us as well. The kickoff ceremony went well and the week had officially began.
Day 4
The school I am going into is the largest high school with almost 1500 students. They speak Afrikaans and are colored. There are students that live in the hostel behind the school because they travel from different towns. Grades 8 and 9 were given to us to watch the movie and to go through the curriculum with. After blacking out the very tall windows and setting the sound up, the students filed into the hall. We watched the movie and the students were dismissed.
Day 5
We are to start teaching the curriculum today. This morning we received news of a strike. At that point it was only a rumor. We went ahead and continued planning to teach, loaded up into 2 buses (it is very entertaining to see 30 people pile into two 8 person vans) and went off to Aeroville High School. As we pulled up the rumors were confirmed. The students had been released from class and we didn’t know where to go from there. After meeting with a head teacher we found out that we could meet with the students living at the hostel but only had 40 minutes to do so. All of our planning went out the window. Instead of curriculum we played games with them and were able to begin building relationships. While if we had been in class we would have had grades 8 and 9 only, now we had up to grade 12. Praise the Lord!
Day 6
This morning we found out the teachers are still on strike and the students aren’t in school. We planned on doing the same thing as the day before…relational ministry with intentional questions. Within 10 minutes our plans had changed again. Once more we piled into our 2 busses and headed off to a Xhosa primary school in the township. We blacked out more windows and set up the sound system. Over 100 students sat in a room for 2 hours on broken chairs. Wow! I realized how spoiled I am as an American. After showing the movie to them we had only ten minutes to talk with them. After many interruptions later, we finished asking the kids questions and were on our way out the door. The other half of the team had returned from visiting the students at Aeroville and it was a good day for all.
Tonight we had a youth rally at the youth center. A choir performed as well as the AIM team with a DRIME and another group of ladies that dance. We showed another movie called “In Your Face” which is the truth about diseases you get when sleeping around. Definitely a powerful movie. A message was shared and close to 80 kids filled the front area to receive Christ and to be free!
Day 7
Beginning the day I was unsure of what it was going to look like. I figured that half of the team was going to return to Nojoli Primary school while the other half was going to return to the hostels at Aeroville High. Right before leaving we found out that all of us were going to Aeroville to spend time with the kids. Once again we loaded up the vehicles and headed to the school. Upon arrival we found out that the students had returned to class even though the principal situation hadn’t been fixed. We scrambled together with our teaching groups to prepare a 45 minute lesson. It was Thursday and we were just beginning with day one’s lesson. It turned out quite well.
Day 8
I stayed home today because I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed yesterday evening. I do know that we had been given about 30 minutes for an assembly for the entire student body as well as an hours worth of teaching time later that day with only grades 8 and 9. At the assembly some of our students performed a DRIME to “Set Me Free,” one of our friends from Zimbabwe gave a powerful testimony, and a brief message was given. The 1500 students were captivated by our time there. There was Voluntary Testing and Counseling for HIV/AIDS held at the youth center from 1-4. There were so many people that showed up from the community that the nurses doing the testing stayed until after 6pm! From one nurse there were 1 in 25 that tested positive and from another nurse there was 1 out of 45. For an area that is said to have the highest HIV rate in South Africa we were praising the Lord! Many of our team also participated in the testing as students from their classes also came for testing.
Day 9
We loaded up the busses after a long week in Somerset East. About an hour down the road the bus I was in lost a tire. We were going about 120 kph and the next thing we saw was the front tire bouncing down the highway. Praise the Lord it was a front tire and the bus didn’t overturn. We all found seats in other vehicles even if it was a bit cramped.
All this week in the different schools and communities we have gone into we have seen the enemy try to come in to distract us and keep us from ministering to this community and bringing the truth in as well. Some of our volunteers are sick, schools randomly go on strike, water stops working in the schools and principals are changing their mind about allowing us time to speak to these kids. No matter, we serve a mighty God and He has this all under control.
