We spent the last six weeks and the last leg of our trip in Jeffrey’s Bay South Africa! Our ministry was with an after school tutoring and music program called Beats and Books. We helped kids with their homework, taught them new material, and played music with them. We built relationships with the kids and did Bible studies with them every day. This ministry was so sweet and impactful, and it was a sad goodbye.

Jefferies Bay is on the southernmost coast of Africa. We lived about a 10 minute drive from the beach! Our free time looked like lots of surfing, tanning and shell collecting! I also got to do the world‘s highest bungee jump, skydiving, and beach horseback riding! I think this country had some of my most adventurous off days.

The people of South Africa are very welcoming and smiley. It was not hard to make friends! But much of the community is living in poverty. We were able to do some outreach to those communities, doing house visits and serving food. Jeffrey’s Bay also has a large Christian community who do lots of outreach as well. I meant many fellow believers with incredible stories, it was very encouraging. The Lord showed me his faithfulness and grew me in my capacity to love people. I spent lots of sweet intentional time with Him in this season:)

On a typical day in J-Bay, we met at 7 AM to read a Psalm and pray for our day. At 8:30 my team had team time, which is where we do something as a team to spend intentional time together. From 10 AM to 5 PM we would go to ministry. Dinner was around six, and then we we’d have worship every night at seven. The days were long and the schedule was hard to get used to at first, but I soon learned how good it was for me to have a schedule. Especially after being in the Philippines where I didn’t really have much of one.

On our last weekend in South Africa, our whole squad met up near Krueger national Park where we went on a Safari. The Safari was amazing and beautiful, we saw so many interesting animals and our guide taught us a lot about medicinal plants! We stayed at a small lodge called Crazy Dave’s, where lots of World Race teams have visited. The owner, “Crazy Dave”, was indeed crazy! He was also one of the safari guides. They have a wall in the back of their lodge that is covered with 100’s of signatures from all the Racers that have stayed there before!

After our weekend at crazy Dave’s, we took a 10 hour flight to Amsterdam and then a nine hour flight back to Atlanta! We just arrived yesterday, and in two days we will go to Black Mountain, North Carolina for a week of hurricane relief ministry. And then we will come back to Georgia for a week of debrief before heading home on May 13!

It feels so strange to be back in America. The Culture shock of coming back here is much bigger than the culture shock of going to any country. It feels nice to have some familiarity, but everything is so different when you have a much larger perspective on life and the world.