Monday - Oshoek

Monday

The morning started early for the men as it was once again time for their morning prayer. This week it focused around Psalm 49 and how we should 'be still' to know God, whilst it was also a good opportunity for general prayer requests. The following poem based on Psalm 49 was shared by Daytona.

Be

Do not do

Or pretend to be

Anything

Just be.

Be still

Calm those

Anxious, unruly

Whirling thoughts

Into stillness.

Be still and know

As the flower knows the sun's rays

As the heart knows love

Open yourself to knowing.

Be still and know that I am

Here and now

Around you and within you

Behind you and before

Wherever you are

I am

Be still and know that I am God

Your Father and Mother

Your companion and Healer

Your life and your all.

Be still.

Be still and know.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know that I am God.

We then quickly moved across the site to general Monday morning worship. We all began by singing a South African version of 'Happy Birthday', congratulating one of the maintenance team on 43 years of marriage, and bidding one of the 'Hands' team a fond farewell as he moves back to Canada. The worship consisted of one Swati song and three English songs - some of which we could join along with better than others! Kat followed this up by talking about how our worship is not about us, it is about God. It doesn't matter if the worship 'doesn't do much' for us, our praise should be focused on God regardless of the song, our action, or our ability to sing it!

For the last part we were split into four groups (via uno cards), in which we each prayed for a different country that 'Hands at Work' receives short term teams from. We each prayed for slightly different topics, yet all relating to the teams that have already come and the teams that are yet to arrive. The Australian group prayed all at once, which is a style more common in Africa. The American group prayed for 'Nurses for Africa' who have been recently working in a few countries across Africa. The Canadian group prayed for a team soon to visit Zimbabwe and the logistics that this requires. The U.K. group focused on us, as we are currently the only short term team serving in White River.

The drive to Oshoek was quite long but absolutely worth it for the views. Most of the group fell asleep at some point on the journey but those that stayed awake were treated to some beautiful acacia forests and mountain views. Once we arrived we consulted Dave's camera to find that we were 1,374m above sea level - this certainly explained a lot of our ears needing to pop!

After leaving our belongings in the provided accommodation we headed straight to the care point. It was evident from the very beginning that the children were very different compared to those of the other communities we had visited. We found their behaviour more challenging and it was harder to interact with them. We later found out that this was probably due to their situations at home. The care point was less established and was far from 'Hands at Work' so they were unable to give as much regular support. In fact, we were only the eighth short term team to ever visit that care point. They had recently been donated uniforms in January so they appeared very clean, but before this there had been a bit issue with the children not being cleaned or washed by their parents or care givers.

Oshoek is the last South African town before the border and we saw the effect that this had on their life at home and their attitudes at the care point. Many of the children are regularly moved between South Africa and Swaziland (both legally and illegally) by their care givers and this has a massive impact on their upbringing. For a lot of the children it means they don't properly settle at school and miss many weeks or months of the school year. This is shown in their poor grades and the fact that some children fail to progress or are held back from the next grade. For many of the families they travel into South Africa without identity documents, this means that they are unable to get a job, or claim any benefits or grants from the South African government. The poverty generated by this is a growing problem and one that is very difficult to fix. In relation to all of this, we found that we were more there to teach the children rather than to simply play with them. We were teaching them life skills, something that we found challenging and quite a shock.

In Oshoek behaviour was the biggest barrier, whereas earlier it had always been the language. It was evident that there were many children in great need, with vulnerabilities that we had not seen in earlier communities. Some children walked over 3 miles to school, and others grew up in a house with absolutely no income. Nevertheless, the care point was in between a crèche and primary school, making it easier for some children to attend as they could go straight to the care point.

After arriving at the care point we were all quickly put to work. The boys went off in a 4x4 to get water from the nearest pump. The journey was made much easier with the 4x4 as most of it was off-road and carrying all that water would have been impossible in one journey. We filled up over 200 litres which was a lot of hard work! Taking turns filling up the bottles and using the pump certainly made it easier.

The girls stayed at the care point to help in preparing the food. They set to chopping up onions and carrots but their cabbage skills were not quite good enough! The care workers showed them the proper South African way to chop up a cabbage! There was also Sem (a South African style of semolina) and beans to go with our meal later.

The previously mentioned behaviour, made playing with some of the children harder, we had to adopt a role closer to that of a teacher or role model, whereas in other communities we had acted as more of a friend to many of the children. Shortly after lunch, a bus arrived to take many of the children home; the smaller number this meant, guaranteed that we could work closer to individuals or small groups of the children. They enjoyed playing ladders (with Alice P and Claire), our new favourite of Impala, Impala, Lion (with Alice P and Dave), and football (with Adam). We also got the chance to talk to some of the older children about our favourite singers and their taste in music, whilst some of our girls got their hair done.

In the evening Jessica gave us an interesting talk about relying on God completely, particularly focusing on Proverbs 3:5 - she herself was having trouble coping, particularly with the accommodation in Oshoek. She taught us a short song that got stuck in all of our heads! We then played a game of 'who is in the bag' lead by Alice P, there were some very funny turns and impressions from both teams! We went in for an early night and got lots of sleep, regardless of the cold, we all felt warm under our covers and were refreshed by the morning.