Wrap It Up

Now that I’m comin to the close of the trip I’m gonna just go ahead and wrap things up a bit.

To start with, t’would be a shame to ignore this past weekend. On Saturday we went to Harrismith to buy some stuff for the chilluns of Leratong and Limakatso. At one point, someone noticed while at Leratong Children’s Home that many of the kids have terrible shoes and a couple without. So later, we all talked together and decided that the 24 of us were going to buy them shoes. So we basically each donated some money and went from there. Luckily, our wonderful supporters must’ve all been quite generous people because we ended up with enough money to not only buy shoes for the children at Leratong, but also for the children at Limakatso totaling around 60 kids AND we STILL had leftover money and it was even enough to buy blankets and some toys for all of em. It was a crazy amount of money for a bunch of poor missionaries to give, though it’s truly all thanks to wonderful people back home.
So on Saturday, we went to Harrismith and purchased all that stuff. It was a crazy time trying to even find only 3 specific pairs of shoes each then toys in that little town. Honestly, it was a really frustrating day, but it was worth it knowing the cause.
Sunday I spent hiking in the cold wetness. It was amazing. We hit up the “Bushmen Caves,” did some bouldering, then, on impulse, climbed a mountain. It was a fabulous day. Great break from all the frustrations of the day before– also, good compensation for days to come.
Yesterday (Monday) was spent jumping from school to school to children’s home to food. Essentially, we stopped at both Limakatso and Leratong and handed them the shoes and blankets and such, hung out a bit, then moved on. It was pretty cool to be able to go back to see kids you connected with a week or two or three ago, then not so cool to have to say good bye for good this time. But at least we left them with their shoes.
The rest of the day was spent going to some schools to watch the 24/7 interns do a presentation about an after school program they do during their school year. It was kinda cool, but having to go back today (Tuesday) and watch them do it all over again was rather boring.

Moving on… We start debriefing tomorrow. We’ll have a day of it on base then leave for safari/more debriefing Thursday morning. The main reason I’m writing this blog now is that once we leave for safari, I won’t have internet access till getting home, so I’m trying to wrap up as much as possible now. When I get home, I’ll certainly upload more photos. It’s INCREDIBLY difficult to here with African “high speed internet.” Plus, it’s hard to find the time to just sit around uploading photos. Plus, who would want to just do that when you’re in Africa? Anyways… What else… Ah. Wrap It Up. I actually stole that from a wonderful Muslim restaurant we went to Saturday. It’s called “Wrap It Up.” Pretty fabulous. They gave us a free Sparksport, aka, the most intense/ultimate fries ever. Made me wanna have a heart attack after the first fry. Pretty fabulous though. But yes…
I KNOW I had more I wanted to tell ya’ll before leaving, but now it’s not comin to me.

While I’m at it, I just thought I should mention that on August 16th I’ll be doin a presentation dealy at my church (Sunnycrest UMC) if ya’ll are interested. It’s possible there’ll be some African food there to try. At the very least there will be some candy. Not much, but some. Plus I’m planning on teaching people as much about Basotho culture as I can cram into the time I’ll allot for that because I’ve found a new, deep appreciation for culture. It’s interesting stuff. Plus of course I’ll talk about what exactly I’ve been doing here and what EXACTLY has happened, though most people that’ve been reading this might hear some stuff again… In that case, thank you. I really do appreciate people reading this and especially commenting, though I’ve heard people have had issues with that. I’m in Africa though, I honestly haven’t taken the time to try and figure out what might be wrong, but I hopefully will when I get back.

One last note: I fly out Saturday around 6pm I believe– that’s 11am Central time– so start prayin around then and don’t stop till at least 1:40pm (Central) Sunday for safe travel.
Thank you!

One last time:
With love from Africa,
Ben