Month 5

Where I was?

As a whole squad we traveled from Ecuador to Cape Town, South Africa where we spent a few days. Then we spent most of our time in a surf town called Jeffery’s Bay. It’s where the infamous Supertubes surf competition is!

My sleeping accommodations:

The first couple days we stayed at a hostel called Zebra Crossing. Then we stayed at a school that was on summer break (in December!!) called GLA. The house that we stayed in is called the Missions House and it has a beautiful story for the woman that looks after it as it is dedicated to her son and his wife. 

The ministries:

We originally were supposed to have an ATL month where we basically ask the lord what to do from day to day in the area we are in. However, when we got there the school GLA needed some work to be done. The whole squad switched around and I got a new team! That I am now leading as Team Lead, WHAT!! My team painted a bathroom, a wall, a flat, some ATL (Ask The Lord) days, and gardened a little. 

For ATL I personally felt God ask me to pray for the shop owners and was so encouraged by each of these working diligently in a tourist destination during the waves of COVID. I had owners on three different occasions take me to the back to pray for them as they felt God’s love break into tears. I encourage you to pray for your small business owners! 

The school is another great ministry that only allows teachers passionate about God and teaching to work there. The staff are so Holy Spirit filled that below their office is a PRAYER ROOM! They would sponsor a child from “the community,” when another would pay to go to the school. You can look up this great school on their website. https://www.gla-jbay.org/         

People I met:

• Wendy!! A spunky and amazingly strong woman of prayer is the mom of the Missions House. She has an amazing story of starting to work with GLA. The house that we stayed in is dedicated to her late son and wife.  

• Anita oversaw us as Missionaries for GLA and was so incredibly sweet! 

• Tina is an American that was a part of World Race until she went to work fulltime in Nepal. When COVID hit she went to South Africa to help with GLA. Now she works with a grief counseling ministry.  

• Pierre was one of the cab drivers that we all remember because every time we drove with him, he would talk about his ex-wife problems.

• I met a girl at one of our favorite coffee shops, First Light and had a good conversation about the purpose of life. Her name was Jessica. 

• Issacson’s are a family from Chile that felt called to “the community,” the refugee kids mostly from Zimbabwe. They were staying on campus with many of the missionary families during the holidays to put their houses on AirBnB as a fundraiser. We had the same kitchen and it was so much fun to get to know them and their kids.  

• A girl we met in the Cape Town Hostel went with us to wine tasting, hiking, and riding the gondola, Shari.     

Adventures:

• Watering Hole (cliff diving)

• Surfing, AND STANDING UP!!

• Wine tasting in Cape Town

• Sunrise hike to Lion’s head and than Table Top Gandala  

• Shark Cage Diving 

Travel: How and what type of transportation

What a wild time!! The night we left Ecuador we didn’t know till that afternoon we all could go due to waiting for our COVID test from previously being in quarantine. After the CRAZY celebration that we could, we immediately packed and cleaned that amazing house. We drove to the Quito Airport in the party bus we came in on and left on a flight back to the States for the first time in 4 months. Landed in Atlanta that sunday for some cold Chick-fil-a from Maddie (Carl’s friend), to head to New York! Spent a long layover playing a big size twister in an old airport now hotel, talked a lot with Mike and Char (our coaches that flew in from Colorado to give us our stuff we sent to them for the debrief they didn’t go to because of COVID). I got an awesome patagonia fanny pack then promptly lost it on our next flight to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam we finally got to Cape Town, South Africa where we stayed a few days. After around 5 days we made it to our destination of Jeffery’s Bay, South Africa.     

New Experiences:

• Beach Worship on the Indian Ocean

• Cape Town bus station was a wild experience of elbows and pushing with big packs!

• Christmas abroad for the first time!

• Running in a community 5k

• Surfing in the Indian Ocean for the first time

• Standing up on the surfboard!

• PRAYER ROOMS in the GLA school and First Light coffee shop

• Watched my first swim competition of my friends Noons and Steph in the Marina Mile

• Paying over $6 dollars for laundry to be done.

• Being in a drought that when we showered we had to in a bucket then pour that into a big garbage can to be used to flush the toilet. 

Food:

• McDonald’s Apple Pie in an Oreo McFlurry

• Homemade Gingerbread houses made by Wendy

• A churro thing with chocolate sauce inside

• The rest of the month we cooked for ourselves 

What I enjoyed the most:

Even though it was a weird time in general for all of us being away from our families during the holidays and changing teams we really spent time to make it special for each other. I love that school and think the mission is amazing! I love all of the prayer rooms that were in the school and among the town. I want one so bad wherever I end up!       

Memories, ASK me about them!: some of them might be funny!

• I could NEVER get the name of the coffee shop we liked called First Light. Very unlike me I called it a different name: Fresh Milk. And my team relentlessly teased me about it to the point of making it my rap name! UNKIND!

•  Claudia lost her phone while we were trying to leave Cape Town and was pinging it where she, Claire Berry, and Lubbock grabbed it from a man who was trying to steal it!

• NEW TEAM: Team ROOTED. Also became a Team Lead. 

• Claire Bauer’s phone was stolen while in the debacle of the bus station

• We said good-by to Lubbock and Kayla as our first Squad Leads and welcomed our new: Noons and Jacks.

• Had Chick-fil-A in the Atlanta airport on a sunday at 5am(Carl made me add this)

• Christmas Memories:

• We watched almost everybody’s favorite Christmas movie in an actual living room with a T.V and couches. SO MANY MOVIES!

• Carl and Dana stole our socks (some not clean!) to put candy and a gift in them for our stockings!!

• Secret Santa gift exchange

• Communion 

• Sang 12 days of Christmas to Noons and S.K with dances and brought them treats in shifts since they were quaratening in the room opposite of the party. 

• Drank hot chocolate while watching the Polar Express on Christmas night.

• Noons stole the church’s Christmas tree for their quarantine room!

• Decorated burnt sugar Christmas cookies. 

• Play guess that Christmas character and also draw on top of your head game. 

• New Years:

• Worship and communion 

• Gingerbread house competition 

• Asked everyone their resolutions and what they enjoyed the most of 2021.

• Raining coming through the walls of the Missions House!

• Victory church played our squad song “I Thank God,” and we danced like we always do. Probably one of my top memories of the race!

• Carl on a ladder across the stalls of the bathroom that I got to paint yellow!

• While praying for one shop owner where I bought my cute shorts, she said that she has a shop like she does because of World Racers praying over her and her shop like we did. 

How to pray for where I was and the ministries I worked in:

• GLA is trying to expand their school and fundraising for it. Also for these amazing teachers to receive fresh energy. For their prophecy to impact their community and create world leaders. 

• J-Bay: For “the community,” of mostly Zimbabwe and Zambia refugees to find provision with Jesus. For the leaders to have wisdom of how to best handle that situation. Also for tourism so the business could thrive again. 

• GLA to be able to reach most of the outskirts and more kids in the community. 

• For Wendy to be given godly strength and joy while grieving the loss of her son and serving missionaries in a house dedicated to him.

• Pray for the coffee shop First Light to continue to have a business with a Christian model to reach their town. They have a prayer room, with every coffee they give encouragement, and have a program where customers could buy a coffee for the homeless on the street.

• Pray for the Issacson’s family and their Beats and Books ministry to be provided for and that they could visit their home in Chile.    

Also make sure to watch my friend Dana Salesman videos!!