The Finishing Touches

My housemate and I left the house at 6:30 on Tuesday morning to fetch Momma Jayne from the airport! We went to breakfast at my favorite place, Lavender Blue. We enjoyed our first cup of coffee together in five months – we had a lot to catch up on! Although she was exhausted from traveling for two days, we needed to keep her awake to get her adjusted to the new time zone. After breakfast, we walked around the property which is full of lovely indigenous plants and flowers. Then, she met a few close neighbors that have become like family to me.

Mom in her element.

Last time with Masikhanye kids

 The first night she slept for fifteen hours, which was the same amount of my first night here. I was very concerned about her flying solo internationally, and that she had an overnight layover in the Johannesburg airport.  God sent an angel to watch over her, as he always does. She asked a man sitting next to her if he had a phone charger; he did not. He proceeded to get up from his seat and walk around asking others for the phone charger. He found one, and then helped my Mom connect to WiFi, find her luggage and then sat with her the entire night until her flight at 6am. His name was “George”. I couldn’t sit still watching the planes landing and checking the screen over and over again for flight 459. Her flight landed and people started piling in, my housemate noticed Mom before I did and stated, “I think that’s you Mom, she has the same walk!” Sure enough that was Mom!

The Foster Momma made me a full traditional dress made from schway schway!

Now, it’s Friday and we’ve definitely kept busy! We brought Mom to CATCH on Wednesday for girls club, which she helped with dress fittings for the Princess Shine Event on Friday. 10 girls have found perfectly fitting dresses so far! It felt like we were wedding gown shopping for each of these girls. It was so obvious when they found “the one” because they just couldn’t hold back their tickled smiles. We also drove into the informal settlement of Mzamomhle, and visited a few shacks of women from cell groups. The women were taking care of children while their parents are at work. With one caretaker, there were eight children in the shack. Two were sleeping on the ground, five were walking around and the caretaker had one strapped to her back. Because it’s not safe outside, these children are forced to stay inside the hot shack all day, with barely any sunlight. The walls are made of cardboard and tin. We brought apples and bananas to the children and attempted to talk to them. Even though these children are not permitted to go outside the shack, there are still hundreds of children running around outside that lack a caretaker during the day.

Mom chatting with Frank

On Thursday, Mom got to meet all the sweet children from Masikhanye Women’s Empowerment Group. The women sang songs for us, and then we played with the children outside. This is Mom’s element, so she was great with the kids and they loved playing with her. Later on, we iced cupcakes at a friends house for the Princess Shine event, and had a true South African braai later on. Now, it’s Friday morning and I’m praying and believing that all will fall together for this event. There is such a stillness and peace over the whole thing – I believe that these girls will receive from it what they’re meant to. My prayer for these girls is that they truly believe in what the Word of God says about them and that, “He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think according to the power and at work within us” Ephesians 3:20. If they struggle to believe the words of Paul, I pray they have an unwavering faith in the words of Jesus… “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” John 14:14.

Today will be my last day at CATCH. It’s surreal to me, so surreal. Only God knows the future, and he understands my heart… I’ll be doing this type of work again soon. On Saturday, we head out to Morgan Bay to visit a nice resort on the beach! Some nice relaxing time before heading back to the States. Here we go!

xoxo