It's about time! - Shauna's Side of the Story

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Hey, it's Shauna writing to update you on our lives here in South Africa. Scott should be back next time with his sense of humour and tear inducing stories, though. I've proven that Scott should be in charge of the blogging duties, since it's taken me over a month to finish this entry.

I'm sorry it's so lengthy, we've had so many great experiences here so it's difficult to choose just a few to share with you all! We only have four months left before our year is up so we are trying to take every opportunity that comes our way and to enjoy every minute that's left!

Little Lwazi

First things first, I wanted to update you on our miracle Lwazi, (the little boy from our last blog who was run over by a car). The week after the accident, Scott got a chance to fill the bakkie (truck) with staff from the Seed of Hope to visit him in the hospital. Lwazi was conscious and was able to talk with Gloria, and tried very hard to convince her to take him home with them despite being in serious shape in the ICU. He was so lonely as he was in the adult ICU ward with no other kids or toys to play with and with nothing to do but feel sick, lonely and scared all day. Scott said he had tubes coming out of every spot possible, and there was a huge gash down his middle from surgery. They had removed his spleen and did surgery on his intestines. From what Scott saw at the accident, he couldn't believe that Lwazi survived the car ride to the hospital that day, so he was totally amazed to see him doing so well! He has since come home from the hospital after recovering from his surgery, and is safe and sound at home in Bhekulwandle. He isn't back at school yet, but he is recovering very quickly and will hopefully be back to 100%!s(MISSING)oon. Thank you for your prayers and for caring about a little boy across the world!

A Really Big Family in a Really Small House

Scott mentioned in the last blog that I had my own story from the same afternoon as Lwazi's accident. Karen and I were out visiting a family in a nearby township that had 9 kids, all under 7 years old, living in one little house. One of those kids was a 2 month old, and three of them were 2 years old. There was a Gogo (grandma) living there with 3 of her adult kids (one still a teenager) and all of the grandkids. The Gogo's daughter is HIV positive and Karen had helped her to get tested for HIV and then get her onto ARV's (HIV treatment). About four years ago the Gogo's adult daughter had been working at a gas station in Durban to support the family, and on her way home one day she was raped by a man who infected her with HIV and made her pregnant with twins. The twins are now 4 years old and she is now too sick to work and to buy food. She had been faithfully taking her ARV's but she was very sick because of taking them without eating.

It was an overwhelming visit, words can't describe it. We brought some food staples for the family and some formula for the kids but it felt like a feeble attempt at helping them. As we drove home I kept trying to imagine what it would be like to be in the situation, and even with being there in the house holding the baby and talking to the Gogo, I couldn't begin to comprehend what it would be like. The worst of it is, there is story after story like this in the townships. On the drive home from visiting them we were almost to the Seed of Hope and noticed a small crowd on the side of the street. There was Scott comforting Lwazi who was laying on the street after being hit by a car. Like we said, it was a really heavy afternoon!

The good news about the family is that Wellington and his boys (from the last blog) have been visiting the family and trying to make sure they are able to regularly get food from their feeding program.

A Day in Our Life...

I remember in my grade seven Language Arts class how we often had to do creative writing assignments. I regularly pulled out the "A Day in the Life of a (insert random subject here)," much to the annoyance of my teacher, I'm sure! "A Day in the Life of a Pencil", "A Day in the Life of My Shoe", you get the idea. I figured since you've gotten all the touching stories from Scott but really have no idea what our daily lives are like, I would present you with a segment of "A Day in the Life of Scott and Shauna in South Africa" to give you a bit of a glimpse.

So, as Scott mentioned, we live in Amanzimtoti and the Seed of Hope is outside of that in the rural area of Bhekulandle. Most of our lives are spent in Amanzimtoti and we have anything we could ever need here (except Reese Peanut Butter Cups and Twizzlers, that is). From Monday to Friday we go to the Seed of Hope at 10am (cushy, I know) to start the morning with staff devotions. This is an amazing time of Zulu singing, praying, and a short devotion from one of the staff or volunteers. Then we get into the day, which for Scott means A LOT of driving around picking up food, delivering people, etc. etc. He also stays busy helping George with maintenance work, fixing leaking everythings everywhere, updating Seed of Hope documents, and many other odd jobs. A few weeks ago he spent a few days fixing a fence at a staff member's house so the neighborhood roaming goats and cows can't come in and eat the veggies in her garden. Back in Canada, the biggest problem we have is a dog or cat coming into our yard, can you imagine goats and cows wandering through!

I have been doing some administration and support stuff for the kids programs. Some of the kids are sponsored by Nazarene Compassionate Ministries so that we can have funding to feed all the kids in the programs (averaging 150 in all). That means we need to have the kids' info updated for the sponsors and send correspondence from the kids to the sponsors a few times during the year. Also, what started out as "Scott and Shauna teaching English to the After School Class on Tuesdays" very quickly turned into Shauna teaching English to the After School Class. Scott somehow managed to convince me that it would be better that way. So, Tuesday afternoons I teach the older kids (13 - 15 years old) and a South African volunteer, Surita teaches the younger ones (10 - 13 years old). Our day ends at 4 pm (again, cushy) and we head back out of Bhekulwandle into Amanzimtoti again.

We had a staff retreat for the Seed of Hope staff this weekend, it was a great time of getting to know each other better, resting, and learning. There are many challenges to mixing cultures, languages and personalities in a staff and it felt like the retreat was a huge step forward to coming together as a team! We've really appreciated the opportunity to get to know the Zulu staff at the Seed of Hope. We were given such a warm welcome into their community from the beginning and we have learned so much from them about life, and surviving life's challenges with faith and courage!

Live Out Loud

Our latest project at the Centre is a youth leadership program that Scott and I have developed, and run for the kids from the Bhekulwandle High School. The program runs on Fridays at 3:30 to 5 pm, from mid-July until the end of November. We're really excited about it, especially after seeing the kids' dedication to learning and improving themselves over the last few weeks. So far we've covered teamwork, communication, and goal setting. The next few weeks we'll be covering career and personality testing, resume writing, and bringing in some people to talk to them about bank loans and scholarships. From there we will be moving on to community involvement where they will choose a project to do something for their community together as a group. After much deliberation we finally decided on naming the program "Live Out Loud - Change Yourself. Change Your World." Our hope is to be able to inspire the kids to make some goals, work towards them and learn how to make a difference in their community by using their skills and talents. So far so good!

Weeknight Fun

Monday evening prayer night is at Heather Liebenberg's house with some of the other staff. Heather originally started the Seed of Hope with her late husband Derek. The usual crowd includes, Scott K who does the book keeping, Karen who has been at the Seed of Hope since the beginning, Carl Waldron who is the CEO of the Seed of Hope, Michelle Waldron his wife, and anyone else who wants to join us. On Wednesday evenings we go to our Life Group which is a great group of friends from our church. Thursday is date night for us, which is something we tried to do at home but couldn't seem to find a day free for more than one day every few months! Here it's pretty much every Thursday, which says something about the improved pace of our life here compared to at home!

Venturing Out

Our weekends have been filled with hanging out with friends from the Seed of Hope staff and friends from church. We've had a chance to do a lot of day trips with the Waldrons, Heather and Caleb, Karen, and Scott K. We've gone kayaking in the ocean, went away for a weekend with three other couples from church, attended many theme parties (apparently the thing to do for any party in South Africa), and so much more. Carl and Michelle and their three kids have adopted us into their family and have become amazing friends. They were a huge support and the reason we adjusted to life so easily when we first arrived! We have really enjoyed working with Scott K and Karen also. We know they are true friends because they put up with Scott and I nattering to each other in the first few months when we were trying to get used to working together.

Really Venturing Out

We've had the chance to do some traveling around South Africa too, which has been amazing! In April we visited the Drakensburg mountains, where we went on a 4x4 tour up into the mountains and over the border to a little known country completely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho. We also went on a five hour hike that seemed like it might last a lot longer, but we eventually found our way back in one piece. In June we went to the Hluhlue and Umfulozi Game Park with Scott's best friend Brad and his wife Lela from Australia. We now have hours of video footage and many, many pictures of giraffes, zebras, elephants, rhinos,etc., and we're not so sure what to do with all of it. Just a couple of weeks ago we went to Cape Town for a week with Scott K and my sister Robyn, who came for month long visit here. We hiked up Table Mountain, visited Robben Island, drove through the amazingly beautiful wine lands, and saw penguins, whales, and some really big birds. The last big trip that we are hoping to make is to Victoria Falls, but with it being on the border of Zimbabwe we're not sure how politically stable it will be, but we will wait and see happen. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

Too Much Togetherness Time

We've also had a chance to get involved in some other projects around the area. We realized that in order to stay sane and for the preservation of our marriage we needed to find some time away from each other during the week. The 24 hours a day, sleeping together, eating together, working together, playing together, and trying to share one computer was getting a bit much after 4 months. A friend from church, who is involved in many of the agencies around here, offered to visit a few agencies to see what I could help out with during my spare time at the Seed of Hope. She took me to a program called "I Care" that takes in boys that are living on the streets of Durban. They have about 20 boys between 11 - 18 who had left their homes because of abuse, neglect, poverty, etc. and who were surviving on the streets. After my experiences in Calgary working with people living on the streets I am amazed that these young boys are able to survive. There are so many kids, especially boys living on the streets here in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town where they are exposed to sexual abuse and violence.

I Care has outreach workers who get to know the boys and then offer them the chance to get off the streets. The boys then go into a three month rehab program because many of them are addicted to glue, alcohol and other drugs. Then they bring them to Amanzimtoti to two houses that house about 10 boys each, with Zulu house parents who care for them. From Monday to Friday the boys are driven to the I Care school. They have two teachers in each class and the boys each have an "office" where they work at their own pace with a homeschooling program. They each work through Social Studies, Math, English, Word Building and Science and when they finish a booklet they do a test and then move on to the next level. They also have computer class once a week and learn lifesaving skills and take swimming lessons from a lifeguard at the beach.

The amazing part is that the boys do the whole program in English! They learn English really quickly once they come to the school because they are immersed in it. Thankfully they are also free to speak Zulu at the houses and with each other. When I went to visit the program I found out that one of the teachers was going away to England for two months. They needed someone to cover her classes for Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. So I went between The Seed of Hope and I Care for those two months, which was a fantastic and also a pretty exhausting experience! I loved working with the boys and getting to know them. They are so excited to interact, but there was always a lot of drama because they aren't used to consistency, a regular schedule and discipline. It took a lot of patience and work to come up with new ways to keep them engaged in the work and not to give up. It was a great learning experience, those boys will always hold a special place in my heart!

Beautiful Babies

Another opportunity that Scott found out about is the "Haven of Love," a baby house in Amanzimtoti. They house up to six babies at a time, and they are usually between 1 day old and 5 months old. They are babies that are up for adoption, (most of them are adopted internationally) because their mothers are in a situation that they are unable to keep them. The Haven of Love works with the "Pregnancy Care Centre" where pregnant women can go when they are in crisis about what to do about their pregnancy. The counselors help them know about their options and support them with their decision about the pregnancy. If the woman decides she cannot care for the baby and chooses adoption, she can stay at the Pregnancy Care Centre for the remainder of the pregnancy. She is supported in living a healthy lifestyle, they are taught life skills, and offered counseling and support after the baby is born. There are a few months after the baby is born where the mother can change her mind about putting the baby up for adoption, so the Haven of Love is a safe place where the baby is cared for until they can be adopted.

There are different house mothers that work at the Haven of Love taking care of the babies. As volunteers we get to go and help out with baths, bottles, etc. We're also there to give the babies lots of body contact and love that's so important to their development. It's such an amazing time to go and hold the babies! We always go away feeling calm and peaceful. I'm not sure how the house mothers do it, sometimes they are rocking a baby seat with each foot, holding a baby in each arm with still two more to tend to. Scott's been a bit of a novelty for the ladies who run the Haven of Love because it's pretty unusual for a guy to volunteer. It's very sweet to see him with the babies, (but don't get any ideas)!

Rec and Relaxation

As for recreation and exercise, Scott has convinced me to try playing Squash. It went very well despite both of our expectations that I would get frustrated and give up on the first go round. I have to say that Scott is very encouraging and doesn't get frustrated, and that has everything to do with my "success" as a squash player. We both sweat a lot and get a chance to trash talk each other a bit so it's a good time! I am also doing a spinning class two times a week at the local squash courts and Scott is playing touch rugby once a week. Both he and Carl have been learning the rules together as they go, and trying to fight against wanting to play according to the rules in football. It's all been really good for staying in shape and trying to burn those extra calories from all the socializing we've been doing.

Well, that's our lives for now. I hope you all made it through my novel in one piece!

Thank you so much for your support and interest in our adventure here in South Africa! We really appreciate your emails, comments, and prayers!!

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Photos

Scott and Shauna
At the bottom of Howick Falls

Bhekulwandle
Some houses in the Bhekulwandle area. (Thanks to Kerry Wiens for the photo).

Shauna and Thandile
Shauna and Thadile at the Seed of Hope. Orphaned, Thandile and her two younger sisters are being raised by their older sister who is in High School.

Picking up Food
Half way through our bi-weekly shopping trip for the Seed of Hope kids feeding program.

Grand Gardener
Gogo (a volunteer at the Center) and her mud house. She built it herself 20 years ago, but mud houses don't stand up forever. Her windows are boarded up because people keep breaking in and stealing her stuff.

Shauna Teaching English
Shauna teaching the After School class at the Center

Seed of Hope Staff Retreat
The staff of the Seed of Hope acting a little crazy at the end of our staff retreat.

Live Out Loud
Students in the Live Out Loud program at the Center

The Big Kahuna and His Family
Carl and Michelle Waldron, with their kids Marae, Nate and Elise.

Around the World Party
Our friend, Paul's 30th Birthday party where each couple dressed as a different country. Shauna and I were Kenya. Jason and Sarah were Austria, and Paul and Wendy were Egypt.

Into Lesotho
At the top of the Drakensberg Mountains at the border crossing into the Kingdom of Lesotho.

I Care School
Shauna and the boys at the I Care School

Learning to be a Lifesaver
The boys from "I Care" learning First Aid and Lifesaving skills from a Lifeguard on the beach.

Haven of Love
Shauna holding a newborn baby girl at the Haven of Love Baby House

Cape Town Trip
Shauna, Scott, Robyn and Scott K at Betty's Bay during our week off in Cape Town.

Climbing Table Mountain
A group of us climbing up Table Mountain in Cape Town.

Comments

[David Klassen]

Thanks!
I just finished reading through all of your entries...thanks so much for taking the time to share some of your experiences! I have been deeply blessed reading your blog. I pray that God would continue to work in and through you during the rest of your time.