Hi friends and family:) Been aching to be back in South Africa for the last year and a half and I'm finally here!!
I wanted to give a little background on Go Missions and the program for this trip. If you remember the three month trip in the beginning of 2021, it was through Experience Missions and the first half partnered with S.P.E.A.R., which stands for Stop Poaching Our Endangered African Rhinos. The vision is to bridge conservation and the gospel to the villages with the goal of empowering the people there to care for their community by community led conservation to improve socioeconomic circumstances. One of my closest friends, Rhyan, was on that three month trip with me. Rhyan has felt the call to form her own missions organization, Go Missions. Go Missions is partnering with SPEAR moving forward and will continue to work in the village we spent the first half of our three month trip in. The past year and a half she has worked so hard to get this organization started. This one month team is made up of some of her close friends to test out certain aspects of the program for what they want to include for future teams, do some business planning to work out final details of Go Missions, and some marketing.
Our team: Rhyan, Zachary, Will, Rylie, and Me
We have been in South Africa for a week now so let me catch you up on what we have been up to!
We left Minneapolis the 19th and traveled through the 21st. Everything went smoothly so thank you to everyone who was praying over our travels!
We spent two days in Marloth park recovering from jet lag and talking about the program. Marloth sits on the edge of the Kruger National Park so we were able to see some beautiful animals like giraffes, monkeys, wildebeest, elephants, warthogs, hippos, kudu, impala, waterbuck, and more! We went over the program the team for the next few weeks. The families we are partnering with also came over for a braai, which is very similar to a barbecue.
We went to KaHhoyi, the village Go Missions is working in, for one day to see the house and kiddos. We took a walk through the village with the kids, ate mangos from the tree, and met some of the teenagers we will be working with the last week.
Abel is one of our major community partners and we moved to his house in Komatipoort for up until the beginning of January. We spent Christmas at the house and did a small secret Santa among the team then had a Christmas braai at Sydney Repingas house, our partner with connections to the village.
My Christmas dinner:
Top left to right: garlic bread, pork, another bread(I don’t remember what it’s called.
Middle left to right: pap, hangover sausage, and beets
Bottom left to right: potato salad, mix of beans, and a spinach mushroom and liver mix
This is a slow week due to the holidays. We are unable to stay in the village just as an extra precaution because of holiday celebrations. Although we wish to be in KaHhoyi we are taking this time to get some business planning done for Go Missions and preparing our hearts and mind for the last week here where we will be living full time in the village.
Thank you for all the prayers and continued prayers!! It means so much to me!
Talk to you soon!