Time to say our goodbyes!

We all woke up nice and early to give us enough time to have our last warm shower at Hands. We finished packing and squeezing everything into our suitcases, and went and enjoyed our final breakfast sitting on the veranda.

We gathered with all the Hands family for the community meeting. Last week, we were in Siyathuthuka for community prayer, so this was a new experience for us! The meeting began with announcements and birthdays. Herman and Charissa were determined that we would sing to both David and Adam before we left - even though their birthdays aren't until the 31st August! This gave us a great chance to surround them with our love and thank God for all the blessing he has given them - plus an opportunity to sing the new Happy Birthday song again!

We weren't the only people leaving today, there was a couple from Australia who were leaving to head to Zambia, and a long term couple, who have been living at Hands for the past few years, were leaving to go home to Canada for a rest, and hopefully to renew their visas for another 3 years. We were invited to share some of our highlights and impacts from our time with Hands, before they placed their hands on our shoulders and prayed for us. We were then lucky enough to be able to share a song that we had learnt in preparation for our trip to Africa - Baba Yetu, which is the Lord's Prayer in Swahili. We apologised for our pronunciation of the language, but I think it was very welcomed by the people there! The morning finished with George sharing a message from the bible about David and Jonathon's friendship. He summed it up by saying that no matter who you are or what your background is, if your paths cross it is part of God's plan for you, and we should take time to explore that relationship together.

It was then time to load up the mini-bus with all our suitcases and say our final goodbyes and thank yous. Luckily there was just enough to grab a couple of cheeky group photos! We jumped in the bus and waved goodbye to Hands! Our amazing two weeks with Hands had come to an end, but we did promise them that we would be back!

On our journey to Johannesburg Airport, Chris was 'fortunate' enough to be sat in the front with our driver Ed. As a group we decided that Ed must be a tour guide normally because for the WHOLE 4 hours, Chris had the 'delight' to listen to EVERYTHING Ed was telling him! This was highly comical to us sitting in the back of the bus in which we all giggled at Chris' misfortune!

We arrived at the airport, swiftly checked in our bags and passed through security. We had a couple of hours to spare, so this gave us enough time to grab a drink and buy some souvenirs to take back home. We got in the queue for our gate and then boarded the plane.

Bye - Bye South Africa - thanks for some amazing memories and an incredible two weeks! I'm sure many of us will be back!