Day 2 was a blast!

Today at Bible Boot Camp we focused on obedience. Joshua 24:24 states, "We will serve the Lord our God, and we will obey Him." This verse was the cornerstone of our craft and Bible story, Joshua and the wall of Jericho.

The kids welcomed us yet again with open arms ready to learn about the tools the Lord provides. Every day we face challenges, therefore we are focusing on helping the kids cope with everyday strife. Examples are families affected by HIV or AIDS, insufficient funds to pay for basic needs, and various types of abuse. These kids want to be loved, and that is just what we are doing. We are not only teaching them, but they are teaching us to be satisfied with the little things in life. They love to be hugged and played with, and braid our hair. These braids usually result in a massive ball of knots, but they sure have fun styling our hair!

Our craft for today was to first write "courage" on their second stone, or tool, for their tool belt. Then, they colored and decorated construction paper representing the horns that blew right before the wall of Jericho came tumbling down. Joanne is doing a wonderful job running our craft rotation! At story time, Laura and Tre brilliantly demonstrated how the wall of Jericho fell down. The kids patiently waited as the wall slowly crumbled, then cheered as the wall completely fell.

Jeremy is leading our music rotation, and these kids absolutely love to sing! It warms our hearts to know that they are learning the same hymns and songs that many of us learned as kids. Their faces light up when they sing, and it brings smiles to our faces. Adam is leading game time, and of course every child loves to run, scream, and engage in friendly competition. 

It is a complete joy to interact with these children. We are greatly impressed with how polite the kids are. They say please when they are asking for something, and know when to say thank you. Tomorrow's lesson focus is faith.

Side note: we have hundreds of pictures, but we haven't been able to upload any just yet. Stay tuned!

Written by Savanna and Hillary

We have arrived!

Hello friends and family!

We arrived Saturday afternoon safely at East London Airport. We were welcomed that evening at a Braai (South African BBQ) at Pastor Barry's home. Everything was delicious!

Sunday morning we attended church services at First City Baptist Church and Shad Mashologu Memorial Baptist Church. Unfortunately for the attendees at the Shad Mashoulogu Memorial Baptist Church we were asked to lead a song on stage. Our attempt at singing "Amazing Grace" was shameful compared to the beautiful voices of the Khosa women. Following church Bebe and his wife Ethene welcomed us into their home for a Sunday lunch comparable to that of our Thanksgiving Dinner! After lunch, it was back to the church to plan for Holiday Club. We spent a couple of hours prepping crafts, stories, and sorting all of the supplies we brought. Thank you so much to everyone who donated supplies and clothing...they have been and will continue to be a great blessing! Just when we thought we had eaten enough food for the day, it was off to Paula and Louie's for dinner.

This morning it was up at the crack of dawn to start Holiday Club! We were greeted by 100+ children who were divided into 4 groups, and who were rotated through 4 stations: Story, Craft, Games, and Music. Our theme for the week is "Bible Boot Camp" which will equip the children to face life's challenges and giants. Today's focus was on courage and we used the story of David and Goliath to illustrate this point. Overall it was a crazy morning meeting all of the kids, but they were very happy to have us and we were even more overjoyed to show them God's love. Following Holiday Club, we split into 3 teams: 1 team went on a tour of the villages with Bebe, 1 team painted the outside wall of the newest building which will house grades 5-7 in the future, and the last team shoveled fill and debris to form a platform which will hold the school's new water tanks. These water tanks will collect rainwater which will supply the school with the water it needs and therefore eliminate the need for the schools to pay for city supplied water.

Currently, we are prepping crafts and props for tomorrow's lesson, so tune in tomorrow to hear all about that!

 Love,
Hillary and Stacey

Getting ready to send The Journey's 10th Team to East London

One week from today the Journey's 10th mission team will head to East London, South Africa, to partner with First City Baptist Church and the many outreach programs it supports.  We're excited to send a team of 15 people over the July 4th holiday week. 

More to come!

Wrapping it all up

5 of the 7 team members are back in New York today after wrapping up a great trip.  We spent Friday finishing up the painting project, and hosting the junior youth of FCBC.  During our 3 hours with them, we focused on some singing, story, crafts and games. 

It was a great week and we can't believe it went by so quickly.  Definitely puts it in perspective when you spend the week focusing on what's important in life.  All of us agree that we got a lot more out of our service than we put in, and feel blessed to have shared the experience serving those in East London.  Thank you for your support along the way, and we can't wait to share more details and photos of our journey. 

As mentioned, we were able to finish up the cry room project, and left FCBC with a great new room that will hopefully brighten up the service for families for years to come.  We wanted to share a few photos of the 2 walls that were drawn out by Susan & Monique.

We give thanks

It's been a couple of days since we last provided an update, so wanted to share the many opportunities and experiences that we have to be thankful for here in South Africa.  On Wednesday, we spent the morning working on our projects at the church.  The cry room painting is coming along, and we'll be posting photos soon of our progress. 

We also headed to Arcadia school to visit with the 7th grade class.  Arcadia is a school for children with special needs.  We had a great conversation with them and discussed everything about lifestyle choices to Justin Bieber...yes Bieber fever exists all the way around the world!

After lunch we headed on our game drive at Inkwenkwazi.  Despite some light rain, we saw a ton of animals and their babies....what a treat!  We then took the evening off and enjoyed some great food and time with South African friends. 

On Thursday, we headed back to Hope and enjoyed the morning with the kids.  So many of their stories will be coming back, and how we can all be involved with these amazing kids.  After Hope we hosted Fun Club again at the church and enjoyed acting out stories, building crafts and playing games with the kids. 

After our activities, we shared Thanksgiving meal (turkey, dressing and all of the favorites) with a few families here...40 of us in total!  So much to be thankful for and it's hard to believe that we only have 1 full day left!  More to come...

Jeremy

Why we're here

Today First City Baptist Church took the Journey missions team on an emotional roller coaster ride.  First we went to Hope School where we met the most adorable children you ever want to see.  We played games and the children sang songs for us with the most beautiful voices we've ever heard.  But beyond the smiles which never left one childs face is a lot of hardship which is found outside of the walls of Hope School.  After we left Hope School we went with Donnae, Pastor Barry's wife to meet the women she ministers to through the Alibaster Jars program. Through the Alibaster Jars Program Donnae spreads God's love to women who are prostitutes letting them know that God loves us all.  The women love her and she loves them.  We all prayed and shared prayer requests. Last on our trip was Fun Club which was an amazing way to end the day with singing, stories and games which we'll do again on Thursday. 

Greetings from South Africa!

Greetings from South Africa!  We arrived safely bright and early Saturday morning before starting an eventful weekend.  We started off attending the First City Baptist Church Christmas Fair to decompress and met many members of the church.  After the fair, we all met our host families and then finished off the evening at our first braai (barbeque).  Sunday was a full day of church.  We began our day with morning worship at the First City Baptist church followed by a visit to the townships of Duncan Village and Potsdam, where we worshiped with Potsdam Baptist Church.  At Potsdam Baptist Church we had the opportunity to listen to the beautiful voices of the locals. After the tour of the townships, we had a lovely lunch cooked by Ethne and then went off to visit Gonubie beach.  Now that we've had some time to get acclimated we're looking forward to meeting the children and helping with restorations.

-Anita & Katie