After a missed connection, my mother arrived late Saturday night, exhausted and without luggage. Because her flight was delayed, she wasn’t able to experience the service at Word and Life Saturday night.
Instead of attending Word Sunday morning, we went to the Soweto Vineyard church for a more traditional service. Afterward, we went to an African craft market in Rosebank. This is very similar to Shipsawana in the States; dozens of booths set up with all kinds of goods from around the continent. There you can find anything from biltong (like beef jerky) and other foods to beaded jewelry and animals to clothing of all sorts (even belly dancing outfits) to paintings to candles to painted ostrich eggs. It was quite the assortment and kept us engaged for most of the day.
On Monday, Nikki and Reagan took us to the University of Johannesburg so that we could compare it to a university in the States (my mother is a chemistry professor at GVSU, 
so they thought she would be interested in this). The school was HUGE, with about 100,000 students attending. Other than the size, it wasn’t much different from Cornerstone. The campus consisted of a huge building that contained most of the classes as well as a few other buildings containing labs and four dorms. Most of the students live off campus.
Tuesday we worked in one of the schools, Goedehoop Primary (pronounced who-da-whoop, which means good hope in English). This was probably one of my favorite parts of the week mainly because I got to show my mother what I do every day. It was quite the experience! We had not been told that the schedule at the school had been changed, so our first class wasn’t the class that we normally teach (typically, we teach the first few classes for the teachers as a way to train them in the program, and then they teach the rest of their classes.) This class was a class that the teacher usually taught. It was unbelievable how far behind they were! We’ve been using a sound card to teach the small sounds of the alphabet for the past month; when we asked the students to pull it out, they didn’t know what we were talking about. When we went over it with them, they didn’t know many of the sounds. What a vast difference from the classes we’ve been teaching! I discovered why this was during the next class.
Because Reagan and Nikki were rolling out at Reiger Park Secondary, my mother and I were supposed to teach the next class on our own. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem, bu
t right as we finished the sound card, a lady interrupted us and told us that Cynergy must come to a stop for the day so that they could perform a survey that had to be completed that day. Because I wasn’t sure who this woman was (she could have easily been 
someone from district or the government; turns out she was just one of the vice principals at the school), I let her take our time to do the survey. The woman gave the survey to the teacher while my mother and I stepped outside, prepared to finish our English lesson after the survey was completed. When we left, chaos broke out. The teacher sat and read over the survey for a good ten minutes with no interaction with her students. As most unsupervised kids do, the students began to get out of their seats and run around the room, playing and chatting. Things went downhill from there. Once she was finally ready to begin the survey, she couldn’t get control of her class. She screamed and swore and slammed her stick on the desk, but she couldn’t get the learners to settle; they’ve learned to tune out her tantrums. Because of this, it took the teacher over an hour and a half to try to do the survey, our entire Cynergy time wasted. After only being on the first question after all of this tim
e, she ran to the vice principle for help. The vice principle walked into the room, quieted the class, and completed the entire survey in three minutes. Crazy! Though it made for a hectic morning, I was grateful that my mother could see what we deal with everyday. It isn’t the learners that are our struggle but the educators. It’s also been difficult for me to learn the balance between standing up for the learners’ education and not stepping on the educators toes; one wrong move and they’ve fight with everything they have to get us out of their school. We’re a threat to them; if they were doing their job properly ours wouldn’t be necessary.
Tuesday afternoon we began the journey to Kruger National Park where we would spend the next two days. About an hour away from the park, we stopped at Mercy Air for the night. It was stunning! Our room was absol
utely beautiful, as was the entire campus. Every little thing was considered and taken care of. I would have been content to spend our vacation there. It was so peaceful, relaxing, and quiet; the complete opposite of our crazy busy lives in the city. I laughed when I saw a Tulip Time poster decorated one of the walls; I guess no matter where you go, Holland just follows you. :)
Wednesday morning we got up crazy
early so we would reach the Kruger gate right when it opened at 5:30am. This place too was stunning. Kruger National Park is a wildlife preserve containing hundreds of thousands of animals. A far stretch from the zoo, these animals run around freely on mass amounts of land in their natural habits. The only thing protecting us from them was the metal of our car or the fences surrounding the rest camps. Driving around for most of the day, we saw dozens of elephants, giraffes, hippos, baboon, water buffalo, wildebeests, impala, birds of all sorts, hyena, zebras, ostriches, kudu, not to mention quite a few convincing stumps and stones. Because it is completely natural, one simply drives through the roads, eyes scanning the distance for any sign of life. It was an incredible experience! We even got ambushed by a group of baboons who decided the top of our car looked like a nice resting place.
Thursday was also spent in Kr
uger. We started the day earlier with a morning drive. A morning drive is a tour given by one of the park workers in a proper safari buckkie. It too was incredible. It was on this tour that we saw lions close enough to touch, though no one dared reach out a hand (thankfully!). The tour guide was very friendly and informative. After the tour, we spent the rest of the day once again driving around the park, scouting the area for animals. We left the park after experiencing a stunning scene of four giraffes and three zebras journeying together.
Friday we had planned to visit a crèche and an informal settlement, but these plans fell through. Instead, my mother, Laura, and I spent a relaxing morning sharing life experiences and breakfast. Afterward, we visited Word and Life so my mother could at least see the differences in the grounds of the two churches. Then Nikki and Reagan invited us to go to China City with
them, which is also sort of a giant flea market. There’s really nothing in the States to compare it with. There we dozens of shops filled with anything you could imagine sold at stock price; the more you bought, the cheaper each item cost. We then spent a relaxing evening at the seminary, recovering a bit from the craziness of the last few days.
We didn’t have much planned more Saturday, so we ended up spending most of the day at the Lakeside mall (wow we did a lot of shopping this week!). It amazes me how much time a mother and daughter can kill at a mall. Afterward, we quickly returned to the seminary for my mother’s suitcases then brought her to the airport. Her departure was bittersweet. Already part of me misses having her around, having something familiar here. This past week has felt like a vacation (which it was), so it was strange to have her leave and me stay. Still, I’m excited to get back into the swing of things. Though it was nice to have some down time and Kruger was a blast, these kids need to be loved and cared for.
Back to another week of work…
Praise the Lord!
-For an incredible week with my mother
-For Nikki. She has officially made herself my SA mother. It has been amazing to see our relationship grow from work oriented to something more personal. Honestly, I'm not sure how I'm going to leave her and Reagan and their family in a few months. Guess I'll just have to take them all home with me. Tehe.
-For Laura. I appreciate her more than words can say. It's incredible having someone here who not only understands my perspective as a single woman living so far away from everything familiar but also just having a friend here who I can share life with. Between her and the Klaasen family (Nikki and Reagan), I am incredibly blessed!
-For the beautiful sunshine!
-For creating such stunning creatures
-For fresh air
-For opportunity
-For encouragement
-For the incredible plan He has for me
-For empowering me
-For growing me
-For education
-For incredible friends
-For crazy dogs
-For laughter
Please pray:
-For funding for Cynergy. They DESPERATELY need it
-That Nikki is encouraged and reminded why she does what she does
-For Reagan's sister as she continues to recover from brain surgery
-For Marta. Her sister was found passed out earlier today with no signs of life. It took the ambulance over 4 hours to respond to their calls. It doesn't look good...
-That Nikki and Reagan find time to rest and to be with their family
-For the educators, that they are encouraged rather than threatened by Cynergy, that they learn to embrace the program, and that they see the impact and power that they have on these kids lives
-For the learners. That they work hard, but more importantly, that they discover their potential and worth
-For team unity
-That Laura is encouraged
-For wisdom, patience, grace, and perseverance
-That I'm able to get back into the swing of things
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