There Are Hardly Words.

Yesterday was my last day at Walk In The Light, and needless to say it was heartbreaking for me to say goodbye. These past 4 weeks were so transforming and impacting for me and for all of us, and I am coming away from it with different perspectives and countless relationships that I was able to form with people of all ages at both Walk In The Light and in the township of Haniville as well. Having gone through this experience that has really been a big part of this semester and of my life, I wanted to just post a brief overview of just a few different parts of my overall experience in hopes that you all will be able to possibly get a glimpse of why I have been so overwhelmed, exhausted, and joyful these past few weeks!

This is the Walk In The Light building where Phindile (one of the women who runs WITL) has her little office, and where church services and youth groups are all held inside. The walls and floor of the building are cement with a simple tin roof, and before services each week the pastor cleans the sanctuary by spraying out the room with a hose to get the dirt out. To the left of this picture, right on the other side of the grass is a small playground that a previous APU semester group had built, and each day when the kids in Haniville got out of school, they would come play on the playground and run around on the soccer field, and some days we had time to join them and be their own personal jungle gyms!
These are a few of the women from the community who work at WITL in the fields, and in this picture they are on their lunch break, but they are some of the sweetest, most joyful, and hardest working women I have ever met. We had group meetings with these women and some of the gogos (grannies) from the community every Tuesday and Thursday as part of our Community Engagement section of our time there, and in those meetings we sang songs with them (zulu songs, of course), danced, played games, laughed, and really got to know them better and hear their stories and the things they have been through. These women are so full of life and such a joy to be around, and after one of our meetings with them I cried tears of joy for just how present God is and how at work He is in this community and in the lives of
these beautiful women. This is a part of the field that we took weeds and grass out of in order for the women workers to be able to use it for more gardening space. With the big group that we had, we were able to do this whole field in a few days, where it would have taken the gogos and the women a much longer time to complete. We also dug a trench through this area and through the rest of the field and up the hill, and the trench was so that an irrigation system can be installed to water the gardens instead of having to be watered by hand by the women each day. They were so appreciative of the work we did in the field in the hot sun, and we had so much fun doing it since we did it along side them and each other, singing songs in both zulu and in english.
This is a picture of what the inside of the building looks like, and where they hold community church services every Sunday, junior youth group every Wednesday, and senior youth group every Friday. At the beginning of every day when we arrived, we met as a group in these chairs and one of us would lead a devotion and share a few verses to encourage us, we would sing songs together with help from Phindile on the zulu songs, and then pray for our day. It was an awesome way to start each day, to regroup and get back on the same page, and to daily prepare our hearts for selfless service and to invite the Lord to be in all parts of our work.
Each morning we carried all the building supplies from the Walk In The Light building through Haniville to the place where Mandla lived, the man we were building a new house for. Mandla lives in a mud hut like many of the other residents in Haniville, but after doing countless home visits to HIV and TB infected people of the town, it is obvious to me that Mandla's living situation is the worst I have seen. Mandla is also positive for both of these diseases in addition to being paralyzed after being stabbed in the back last year by his daughter's boyfriend. He is an amazing man with an undying faith for the Lord, and the joy he brought us is just indescribable. A few times when we were at his house, his daughter was there with him, and it was such a strong symbol of grace to all of us that he still talks to his daughter and loves her so much, despite what happened. One more thing (of many) that really stood out to me throughout our time of talking with him and getting to know him was that the only picture he had of his wife who had passed away was her passport ID. Just subtle things like that really make me recognize my wealth and the things I take for granted every single day.
Stage 1: we dug out the earth where we would build the new one-room house. (Mandla's current house is seen in the back)
Stage 2: after measuring, digging, and picking through rock, we installed the poles (all with Michael, our zulu-speaking instructor for the building process).
Stage 3: beams for the roof and wire netting for the walls. (32 degrees celcius on these days)
Stage 4: long green branches were nailed across the wiring on both sides, and we filled the empty wire cages with rocks and other rubble that the children helped us collect from along the sides of the road.
I have a hundred pictures of the kids that swarmed our work site each day, eager to play with us and help us build the house. Having them come to be with us each day made it nearly impossible not to form relationships with these children who are desperately thirsty for love and attention. They are the definition of unconditional love, and I was truly blessed to learn the true meaning of joy from them.
A precious girl named Andizwa. I will be praying for her every day.