Our last week at RivLife :(

We just finished up our last week at RivLife.  Our last day was filled with joy, tears, and laughter.  We are so thankful for the time that we were able to spend at RivLife!  I will highlight some exciting things that happened this week and then talk about our last day at our service site.

On Monay:  we worked in the garden and said our goodbyes to these women.  Then, as always, we went to the Creche and hung out with the kids there, and then finished up our day at the drop in center

On Tuesday: we went to the HIV/AIDS support group and the new women who had been talking to the boys the previous week showed up for the group!! This was very exciting to us because she has been struggling with the disease and we know that this support group will be a great place for her to get involved and discuss her struggles. 

On Wednesday: we went to the Gogo support group in Madiba and we ended up staying later and did some home visits with Nomvula.  In our time with the gogo's, they fed us a meal, we bought some scarfs from them, took pictures with them, thanked them, and were able to spend our last day just hanging out, talking, and laughing with these women.  They gave all of our team members a bead necklace as a thank you which was so cool!  After our time with these women, we began doing home visits.  I think our whole group would agree that these home visits were an amazing experience for all of us.  Although we had spent the last few weeks at an AIDS support group, this was the first time that the reality of the disease has really hit me. There is usually at least one person per home that is infected with the disease and we saw people who were very, very sick.  This really challenged me and my faith because I started thinking "Do I have faith great enough that God could heal people THIS sick?"  It is very overwhelming to see people this sick and to have the amount of faith it takes to know that God can do ANYTHING.  We were able to pray over people in all four homes that we visited which was also amazing.  In one of the homes, we were about to leave when they asked us to stay a little longer so that they could talk to us.  We did not know what to expect in this moment, but then the man in the home disclosed to Nomvula that he was also HIV positive.  After a person discloses, Nomvula (or whoever their sponsor is) can then go through the process of helping them apply for grants in order to receive money to help pay for their treatments.  The strength and courage that these people have is truly amazing! Although many people do not want to be tested because of the social stigma that comes along with being positive, there are many who have been tested and continue to rely on God through all of their struggles.

On Thursday: we started out by going to the HIV/AIDS support group.  We arrived and all of the women and children were dressed in their traditional Zulu skirts and beads and they had a table set up with a bunch of crafts that they had made.  They started out by serving all of us traditional Zulu bread and some sort of cooked leaves that are healthy for you :)  Then, they had all of their kids sing and dance for us.  During the singing and dancing, they presented us with gifts that they had made for us.  The boys received these wooden sticks that are a traditional thing in South Africa and a bead necklace and the girls received a bead necklace and earrings!  Then we sat in a circle with these women and talked about our experiences that we had with them.  This was truly amazing because they told us how much we impacted and changed their lives and we were able to tell them the same.  They told us that we made them feel loved, we made them feel like human beings again, they appreciated that we didn't treat them any different then we would other people.  It was SO amazing to see the ways that God had worked within this community that we formed with them.  This time that we spent at this support group really affirmed in our group the power of relationships and sharing God's love.  We originally wanted to help these women with their business, help them plan things for their group, etc.  But after meeting with them, we decided that relationships and love and helping them to see their worth and value was something that would really benefit them as a group.  It was VERY hard to say goodbye to these women.  They all started crying and we just kept hugging them and hugging them.  We took tons of pictures and told them that we would continue to write to them.  We reminded them that they are SO loved and that we have learned so much from them and have truly been impacted by their faith in God.  As we were leaving, Lindiwe (the new woman who started coming to the support group) was crying and telling us how much we have impacted her life.  She said that when she was diagnosed with AIDS, she felt like she was given the death sentence.  She said she had been locking herself in her house and just cleaning and avoiding going out in the community.  She told us that we were able to make her feel loved again, to make her feel like a human again.  She told us that she is going to continue going to the support group, go out of her house, she is going to start going to church again, and she is going to love herself again.  This was SUCH an amazing testimony of God's presence and love in this situation.  We then went to the Creche and had to say goodbye to Gogo Beatrice and all the kids.  The kids were hugging us over and over and the little boys were dog-piling Luke and Joey.  Being with these kids day in and day out for the last three and a half weeks has brought so much joy to our lives.  Then, we went to the drop-in center where they had prepared CHAKA-LAKA for us as a goodbye meal!  It was delicious and we played with the kids for our last hour and a half and finally said our goodbyes.  Saying goodbye to everyone was definitely hard, but we also know that the Lord has brought us so much joy from the people at RivLife.  We have no regrets in the way we did things during our time there.  God is so good and so faithful, and these people at RivLife have brought nothing other than joy, laughter, and love into our lives!!  They will forever be a memory and will always have a small piece of our hearts!

WE LOVE RIVLIFE <33

Last Weekend in Maritzburg!

This past weekend was our final full weekend in Pietermaritzburg and it was definitely eventful. On Friday night mine and Katie's D group went out to Indian food place that the guys had gone to dinner at a few weeks back. The place is absolutely delicious, and the conversation delightful! Our D group has become very close so it was a very nice way to end our time in Maritzburg together. Katie and I ate Tikki Masala and too much naan bread! oh and we shared some samoosas! We ended the night sneaking on the roof of the dinning hall (shhh don't tell anyone!) and just watching the stars and enjoying conversation with a few of our friends.

On Saturday about half of our group went to uShaka, which is the biggest water park in the Southern Hemisphere. However, it is not only a water park, it is a mall/Sea World/ water park. We had a blast (even though the slides had nothin' on Raging Waters! haha). We spent the day watching seal shows, looking at one of the most awesome aquarium i have ever seen, and going down pretty awesome water slides. It was a great day especially when katie and i were able to break away from the rest of the group and just enjoy time alone having fun on the water slides! Saturday night there was a talent show on campus, katie and i went to that but right when it was over (at 9:30pm) katie and i went back to our chalet's and fell asleep because we were exhausted from the day.

This was our last Sunday in Maritzburg and we spent the day by going to Durban Beach and to the market that happens every Sunday. We went and walked around buying stuff for all of our loved ones at the shops and then finished off our day walking down the peer, looking out over the Indian Ocean, eating ice cream cones.

This weekend was truly excellent.

Let us know if you have any questions.

More coming your way!

Joey got burnt, but I kissed his shoulder with chapstick on and this is the result :)

Such an AMAZING day at RivLife!

Today was an absolutely amazing day at RivLife!!  We started out with the HIV/AIDS support group as we always do on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The boys were supposed to be carving with Bennett, but he did not come today because his wife had to go to the hospital to be with a client so he stayed home and looked after the baby.  It started out as a slow day because many of the group members did not show up today.  Our teacher (who is an awesome man!) came with us this morning so he was out front talking with Joey and Lucas.  Me and Beka were inside with three women and we were just talking and doing crafts!  While the girls were inside with the women, two women were passing by outside where the boys were and they stopped and were talking with the boys.  Menwhile, me and Beka continued our conversation inside and were telling the women how we meet with D-Groups at school (which is like a Bible study or a group that meets to talk about their weeks and prayer requests, etc) and we told them about something that we do called “high and low.”  For those of you who do not know what high and low is, it is a thing where we go around the circle and tell what our high for the week was and what the low was, or what we struggled with.  Then at the end, we will pray for the people and the struggles that they are currently facing.  We did this with the women and it was very successful.  The women enjoyed this and were very open with us about their struggles and I know that for me and Beka, we enjoyed this as well!  It was an amazing bonding moment and God was definitely in the whole situation.  We continued on to pray for these women and they were all very appreciative!  While Beka and I were in the room with the women, the boys had been outside talking to the girls still and something very amazing happened there as well!!  The women disclosed to them that they were also HIV positive and they talked with our teachers, the boys, and Nomvula, one of the volunteers and decided that they would start coming to the support group next week!!  The boys were continuing to have good conversation, so they stayed and Beka and I went to do some home visits with Nomvula to visit HIV patients who were sick and in bed.  The first women we visited had been taken medication for a month, but wasn’t seeing much improvement yet.  Her family asked us to pray for her, which was also a very good opportunity.  After we returned home from the home visits, one of the girls that had been talking to Joey and Lucas gave me a necklace! :)  It was so sweet of her and awesome to receive a gift from her :)  We also visited one other women after this, then we all made our way back to the main service site. We went to the crèche and had an amazing time there because we hadn’t gotten to see the kids for very long the day before due to the rain.  One bad thing that happened was one of the little girls was dancing, and she fell and split her chin open and it was GUSHING blood and the poor little girl was crying so much and so scared when she saw the blood.  Me and Joey both got a little sick to our stomachs when we saw this, but she ended up being okay (even though she probably should have gotten stitches)!! Then we went to the drop-in center and did out usual serving food and playing with the kids.  On the way home I took out my corn rows J

Katie and Nomvula

Katie after taking out her corn rows

the kids waiting at the gate

Zama

Joey and Lucas with some kids

BYE BYE!

Gogo's and Corn Rows...

Today (Wednesday) we went to the Gogo group at our friend Nomvula’s house.  It was raining super hard today so we all just hung out inside the house and talked and did crafts.  We were able to hear some of the women’s stories, which was very interesting!  We brought muffins for the gogo’s today and they LOVED them!!  The muffins we have here are really sweet and taste like cake.  I do not know if the gogo’s have ever had muffins or not, but they enjoyed them VERY much!!  Some of the kids were also hanging out with us because they did not go to school because it was raining too hard.  Nomvula’s older daughter, Asanda, asked if she could play with my (Katie’s hair) and she ended up doing my hair in corn rows! It was pretty funny!  Our ride forgot to come get us at 12, which is the normal time weusually get picked up and taking back to the main site.  We ended up staying at Nomvula’ house until 2 which was really fun and we were able to just hang out and see Nomvula’s house and talk with her family.  After this, we went to the drop-in center and we played duck, duck, goose with the kids until it was time to go!

Wood Carving and Crafts

Today (Tuesday) we went to the HIV/AIDS support group.  The group is made up of all women and one man.  Joey and Lucas got to carve spears out of wood with Bennett (the one man in the support group).  They had an awesome time just being able to spend time with him and talk with him while he taught them one of his skills.  Bennett had gone into the forest and cut down wood and the boys used this to carve out their spears.  They said that it was hard work, but they enjoyed doing it and are hoping to get to do a  different kind of carving with Bennett next week!!

 The girls stayed inside and did crafts with the women. There were a lot of new women at the support group and it was very cool to see almost everyone from the support group present. We all got to help the women embroider and some of the girls on our team got to hear some of the women's life stories.

the baby in Joey's beanie

sleepy baby :)

RivLife Week 2

so we concluded our second week at RivLife, however it was our first full week...if that makes sense. we continued with our time at the creche and the drop in center and it has been really amazing to see the trust and relationships being built. the kids are really getting comfortable with us and it just feels great when they see us coming down the road and they run up to us and hug us.

some new things we have done in this first full week is go to the HIV/AIDS support group that we will be attending for the rest of our time here. and also a gogo's (granny) group that we will be attending once a week. the HIV/AIDS group has been really amazing. we go there and hang out with the man and women who are a part of the group and spend about 3 hours each time. on the first day we were there, at the end of the day, one of the women asked us "you are not afraid to touch us?" we all of course said no. She paused for a bit, and then said "we can tell you all love us, and we love you." it was such a beautiful moment. you have to understand that if a person is open with there circumstance of being HIV positive, they are marginalized in their societies. this is because many of the african people believe that you can contract HIV/AIDS through touching a person who is positive. so the simplest gesture of hugging them speaks worlds into the situation. i really look forward to continue to build those relationships.

as far as the gogos, they are just some of the happiest old women i have ever met. they are teaching me how important joy and laughter are in life.

this is just a brief overview of what we have been doing. if you want more details shoot us a comment or an e-mail and we will be more specific.

oh and we went on a tour of battle sites from south african history mainly during colonial times. it was interesting and very sad.

like i said shoot us a message if you want more details.