South Africa Outreach - Week 10 Summary

Well, here ends our South Africa outreach. We left Kona 10 weeks and a few days ago and now we’re heading back to the other side of the world…literally! I am going to take the longest flight of my life…from Joberg to Atlanta is 17.5 hours (an additional 2 hours from on the way here)! I’m praying for a window seat or a whole row to myself to stretch out for such a long flight =)

Week 10’s focus was on debrief. Whew. All I can say is debriefing was exhausting! We had three and a half full days of debrief, including a questionnaire, discussions, remembering all the details of ministry we did, affirming one another and working on a presentation to show to our classmates and staff once we’re back in Kona. My emotions were all over the place this week as I remembered the good and the hard parts of this outreach. I really have had to press in to the Lord, wanting to finish well. What an experience!

We have a wonderful praise report when it comes to Shane’s head! By Monday or Tuesday of this week, all the head pain, blurry vision and dizziness was GONE!!!! Completely gone! We know from past head injuries that this is supernaturally quick in the area of healing for Shane’s head! Shane dealt with post-concussion symptoms for 6 months last time and now it was less than 2 weeks of symptoms! God is so good!

People from 9 different countries were praying for Shane and we are so thankful and touched. The countries included Canada, USA, Brazil, South Africa, the Philippines, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Finland! How awesome is that?!

Other random details from week 10:

- The pastor from the church we worked with here had our team over to his house for a wonderful evening of LOTS of South African food and great fellowship! I asked him if he bonds the same way with every team that works with them and we were so honored to find out that we were the first team of many to be invited to his house for a thank-you dinner. Wow! God really set that one up! What an honor and a blessing!

- Our team had a surprise visit from our ministry coordinator at our first location. That was really nice of Fola to come and say good-bye!

- We had an evening discussing our book reviews from our last required reading for DTS. Again, I really enjoyed Going Public With The Gospel! Now, I’m hoping to finish The Bait of Satan; Living Free From the Deadly Trap of Offense today so that I can read Why Not Women? on the airplane!

- We surprised the team with one last team outing on Wednesday evening for supper! All we told them was to be ready at 6pm and look normal-nice =) We took them to Ocean Basket for seafood, right on the shore of the ocean! We saw the sunset from our table on the patio of the dock. It was a fun and special team time to end with!

Well, that’s a wrap of 10 weeks of outreach in South Africa. Tomorrow we fly back to Kona and spend 6 days debriefing before heading home to Winnipeg. It’s going to be a crazy 80 degree difference in temperature between South Africa and Winnipeg! Wow!

I have mixed feelings about going home. I’m ready to leave South Africa, but not quite ready to go home yet. That’s why Kona is a great stepping stone in between! I’m definitely ready to go to Kona and see the other teams and debrief and relax together for a few days.

Good-bye South Africa! You and your people are so beautiful! I will miss you!