Ministries

            The first part of our trip in Africa is called the Awakening. It goes from September to December, during which we spend our time being discipled (one on one/ team) and doing ministry. Everyone on the team has a specific ministry that they work with everyday and mine is the Algoa Frail Care Centre/ Virginia’s Crèche. To pick our ministries we were given a list of nine options to pray over, number from favourite to least favourite, and then pray more. I felt God calling me to go to the Frail Centre as soon as I heard about it so I put it on the top of my list and prayed. I now alternate between Algoa and Virginia’s each day and I love it!

Algoa Frail Care Centre – A frail centre for people with mental and physical disabilities. Most residences suffer from severe cerebral palsy and many have cystic fibrosis. It is a place where they can get treatment, be taken care of and most importantly be loved. There are over 250 residences of all ages with most of them being children and I get to love on every single one of them.

Virginia’s Crèche – Virginia’s is a baby daycare in a township in Humansdorp. Last year the small room where she runs her centre was flooded in a huge rainstorm and was basically ruined. Thankfully the Lord connected her to AIM team here and made it possible for them to fix up her room. It is now a really cute little daycare centre that is safe, and fun to be in.

So far I have only gotten to visit both ministries for a few hours but I loved the time I spent at each one. We were at Virginia’s for about 20 minutes and she just showed us around her small home and crèche and introduced us to a few of the babies. The toddlers were off playing so we didn’t get to meet them but there was a set of two month old twins that were amazing and another seven month old baby. While there we will mostly spend our time playing with the kids as well as cleaning and doing the wash (it is very difficult to do a whole load of blankets by hand!).  We will be doing this on Tuesdays and Thursdays so please pray that we will be effective in this ministry and in the community of Humansdorp.

We also got to visit Algoa which was an experience. I honestly had no idea what to expect in going there, whether it was a hospital type place or something in a township where tons of people were crammed into one small room. We had a meeting the day before we left with a man named Daniel who makes special chairs for each of the children so they can sit up easily. He told us a lot about it but I still wasn’t able to picture what it would be like. The only thing I knew is that it would be hard; hard to see and process. We were warned many times that if we felt over whelmed while in the wards that we could go outside and walk around. Daniel also told us a really great thing that we sort of knew but didn’t really think about and that is that God made everything beautiful. It can be so easy to look at these people and get mad at God for making them with all their disabilities and pain and forget the fact that he made them that way and loves them that way. Who are we to think any differently?

Anyway, pleasantly it is like a hospital. It is inside a big compound and there are a bunch of different wards split into physical ability and gender. The wards are called Harmony, Eden, Haven and Bambina.   The first ward we went in was the girls ward, Harmony. It was a huge room with tons of beds many of which were like cribs. Upon entering we were greeted by a handful of girls who were mobile, the rest were in their beds. They were all so beautiful and I wish I could describe the looks on their faces when we started hugging them. I don’t think any were able to talk, but with their eyes, words aren’t necessary.  We got a bit of time to go through each ward and my goal was to touch each resident and say their name to them at least once. I think I got to almost everyone and I am so blessed by them. I will never ever forget the smiles they get when you touch them and say their name or knowing that even though some of them have absolutely no reaction they can still probably feel your love and more importantly God’s love. Honestly, I love this place and I can’t wait to further our ministry there. Please pay for my ministry team (Me, Meghan Jarrell, Brianna Poster, Sara Patterson and our leader Isabel Maldonado) that we will have strength and faith as we do this work. It can be very draining even though there is nothing physical to it and also please pray for the nurses and residents at Algoa.