Scorpions

I was organizing the garage at the Blessman house the other day (it's where they keep all their eyeglass inventory) and I uncovered a scorpion. He wasn't that big but still...not something you run across in Iowa. My two roommates tell me they are endangered and you can't kill them. I had a hard time just getting close enough to take a picture, let alone kill it. It was brown and gray rather than the big black ones I've seen in exhibits.

This was only one of many creatures I found while cleaning (including big hairy spiders and a dead mouse).

A clean and organized garage!

Orphanage

One of the reasons for the work we are doing here is the large number of orphans due to AIDS. The HIV/AIDS 2007 statistics for South Africa are staggering:

• South Africa has the large number of AIDS orphans in the world, approx. 1.4 million children
• 1 in 5 adults is infected with HIV
• 1000 people die of AIDS every day
• 71% of deaths for people 15 - 49 s from AIDS
• Over half of 15 year olds will not live to age 60
• 280,000 children are HIV+

For more info on this problem in South Africa, click here.

We spent a couple of hours one morning at an orphanage in Rustenburg and was definitely a highlight of the trip. I was surprised by how nice the orphanage was - the orphanages I was used to in Liberia were nothing like this one here. I'm not sure if this one is typical of orphanages in South Africa but I'm guessing these childrens' living conditions were better than if they were living with family.

According to one of the caretakers, they have lots of volunteers that frequently come to play with the kids so they were getting plenty of loving interaction. Of course, we had no problems interacting with the kids!

Some orphanage photos:

Kelsey

A cute one! Of course, they were all adorable

Feeding time

Abby

Angela

The backyard

I pretty much held Ottilia the entire time I was there! She had only been at the orphanage for 6 days.

Yoliswa

I am currently working with a ministry called Blessman Ministries which is based in Urbandale, IA. Dr. Jim and Beth Blessman founded this medical ministry in 2001 and they have recently built a house on a game farm in South Africa which is where I'm currently living.

This trip we are doing eye clinics in the schools, providing eyeglasses to children in need. In addition we are doing AIDS/HIV teaching as well as teaching about Jesus. BMI is also currently working on a project to build housing for orphans using low-cost prefab housing units called an Abod. A team is coming this July to build the first set of these houses. If you're interested in this trip, check out this link for more information. You will be staying on the farm where I am currently living (although not in the Blessman's home) and traveling to the worksite each day.

BMI is starting to expand into other southern African countries by providing food to starving children. Currently they are working to get food to Madagascar and are looking to expand into other countries as well. God is definitely on the move with BMI!

One of the reasons I like this ministry and the work we are doing is that we are here to connect with children. Many times in medical ministries, we work long days to treat as many people as possible for their medical ailments (and there's nothing wrong with that) but you don't get to connect with people much. BMI's philosophy is that you spend as much time with a child as you can and just pour love and encouragement into them. And as an aside, they get glasses if they need them.

So during our first day of eye clinics I met a 17 year old girl named Yoliswa. I knew after talking with her that she may have been the very reason I came on the trip (a divine appointment as one of my teammates called it). I started off getting to know her a little, talking about eye glasses and miscellaneous things about school, etc. And as I built trust I started asking her more personal things about her home life and I found out that she is an amazingly gifted young woman living in circumstances we would never have back home.

Her mother was murdered in 2006 and her father died of AIDS last year. She has no siblings and none of her family would take her in. She has been living by herself (I'm not sure where) with no means of support. She gets one meal a day at school thankfully but on days where there is no school, she doesn't eat. Sometimes she says a friend will bring her some food but many days she has none.

When I asked her what the hardest thing was about her life, she said it was being alone at night. She was scared in the dark and often didn't sleep. I think about her every night as I go to sleep wondering if she's scared.

The amazing thing about this girl is her determination. God has given her many creative gifts - she sings, she writes poetry, she draws and she wants to be an accountant (hmmm, not sure how all those go together but she thinks they do:). When I asked her what she does in the night when she's scared, she pulled out a notebook full of writings. And she read to me some of her poetry. I couldn't believe it...I thought she had copied it out of a book, it was that good. I told her I thought she would be a famous writer someday and that I would tell people I knew her when she was a young girl!

The other thing amazing about her is that she is disciplined in her studies. She described her day to me and she goes home every day after school and studies and does her homework because she wants to go to college. What 17 year old would do that if they didn't have supervision?? She has no money and no one supporting her but she still believes she will go to college. She also volunteers 3 days a week at her church working in the children's ministry.

I spent an hour with Yoliswa, just pouring encouragement and love into her. Affirming her dreams and her gifts and assuring her God really had a plan for her life. I think it's probably the best, most amazing conversation I've ever had and I'll never forget it. I've been praying for her everyday and ask that you would also pray for her.

Here's a picture of Yoliswa and me:












On a completely different note, here is a photo taken by Kelsey Blessman of a little boy looking at a picture of Jesus (little cards we handed out at one of the schools). No reason for showing it other than I think it's a great photo!












Last thoughts for this post. I know I keep saying how great it is to live on a game farm but I have to say it again. Yesterday when I was out for a walk, I ran across a herd of Sables. I knew I would find them because I was walking to where they are fed (the farm has a breeding program for them) and they all lined up to look at me. But today, they were in the front yard of the neighbor's house, just grazing. Pretty cool.

And also yesterday I was sitting on the deck studying for a physiology exam and heard rustling in the trees. I looked up and the house was surrounded by monkeys! They were in the trees and running down the road. Eventually they ended up in the backyard by the hottub.

Life is rough here in South Africa!

Game drives

One of the exciting parts of this trip is the game drives (safaris) we've gone on. I'm currently living on a game farm in Limpopo province just south of Mokepane called Shikwaru Game Lodge. The game lodge profits support a ministry called Reaching A Generation which is dedicated to changing the lives of children in Southern Africa (http://rag.org.za/home.asp).

One of the advantages of living on a game farm is that I can go out anytime on a game drive or a walk to see the animals. It's pretty cool to be out walking and see a giraffe or a baboon. This farm doesn't have lions or rhinos so I don't have to worry about being attacked. However, there is a leopard that isn't supposed to be here but everyone assures me that it won't attack me!

One night last week, the team went on a game drive at Entabeni which has the predator type animals. It was really, really cool to see elephants, lions, rhinos, zebras, etc. up close and kinda scary.

Here are some photos of the drive at Entabeni:

Abby, Caleb, Bob and me in the drive vehicle.












The beautiful landscape of South Africa on the game drive. I was surprised at the mountains. I've always pictured flat terrain but the area I am in is surrounded by mountains.













View from the front seat. We had two guides - Godfrey who sat out front as a spotter and Simon the driver. Note the rifle...just in case...












The rest of our team in the other vehicle. You can tell it was pretty cold since it is the Fall season here.












Zebras















We watched a herd of 10 elephants for about 30 minutes as they made their way through the bush right by our vehicle. It was pretty exciting...I have it on video.



More elephants
















We watched as a lion/baby rhino drama unfolded right in front of our car. First we saw the mother, father and baby rhino. Then we saw 2 lionesses stalking the baby. At one point the dad rhino was holding the two lionesses at bay but then one of them snuck around the side of him. Eventually a third lioness showed up and two male lions. The dad rhino and one of the lionesses got into a little tussle as he protected the baby. Eventually the rhinos ran into the bush and the lions followed. Not sure if the little one survived but it was amazing to watch just a couple feet from our vehicle.

Dad rhino is holding off one lioness as the other one snuck around him. The momma and baby rhino are off to the left but not in the photo.














Dad goes after the other lioness who is trying to get the baby

















Two more lions show up

















Shows how close we were to the action (this is another team).












My camera died during the lion episode so most of these photos are courtesy of Kelsey Blessman.

Eye clinics

I finally have some time to sit down and write about what we have been doing here in South Africa. A lot has happened in the last week so this will either be a really long post or I'll have to write part of it later. On April 19, a group of 10 of us from Lutheran Church of Hope and 1 from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church left Des Moines for Johannesburg, South Africa. After a 2 hour flight to Atlanta, an 8 hour layover, a 19 hour flight (with a 2 1/2 hour stop in Dakar, Senegal), we made it safely to Joburg. We were met by a team from Blessman Ministries (BMI), the organization we are partnering with (more on them later but check out their website at http://www.blessmanministries.org/).

We stayed at a beautiful bed/breakfast just 15 minutes from the airport. We were surprised at the accommodations since we were prepared to sleep on church floors. We had a great evening of pizza and connecting with our new BMI friends. Sunday we drove about 3 hours north to Rustenburg where we would be staying for the week. Again we were surprised by the beautiful hotel we were staying in. We each had our own room and mine was like an apartment with 3 separate rooms. Each night we returned to the hotel with an amazing dinner prepared by the hotel chef.

Note to anyone considering coming on this trip in the future. Our accommodations were very unusual. The school district with which we are working is responsible for accommodations and generally the teams stay in hostel-type dorms and move to a different one each night. So to say the least, we were extremely lucky.

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Wednesday was election day and thus a holiday so no school) we went to a different school each day and set up eye clinics. Because I'm going to be doing 2 additional outreaches, I was able to learn most of the jobs in the clinics over the four days.

Here's how a typical day unfolded: we met in the dining room for devotionals at 6:45, had breakfast, then packed up our stuff for the day and drove about an hour - two hours to a school. We set up a registration table, a counseling area, an area where the kids eyes were scanned by a retinomax, and a glasses distribution area.

First, kids were lined up and pre-screened by looking at the E chart. Anyone with 20/30 vision or better was given a book called the Book of Hope and sent on their way (check out this great ministry called OneHope at http://www.bookofhope.net/). The book has lots of teachings about Jesus aimed at the appropriate grade level.

For those children who had worse than 20/30 vision, their eyes were dilated and then 30 minutes later one of the team viewed their eyes with a retinomax (some kind of machine that tells us what eyeglass prescription they need - it's more complicated than that but I'm not exactly sure yet how it works). A script was printed and the child waited for a counselor.

As a counselor, we did three things: determined which eyeglasses worked best for the child, did a teaching on HIV/AIDS and talked to the kids about how much God loves them. The eyeglass part was pretty easy...we had the child hold up one pair of glasses and then another pair...then they choose which is better.

The AIDS teaching was a little harder in the beginning but we eventually were comfortable with it. Talking about sex, condoms, God's plan for marriage, etc. isn't something most of us do with regularity so it was uncomfortable at first. Many of the kids have been directly affected by AIDS and some of had one or both of their parents die from it. South Africa has one of the highest incidence of AIDS in the entire world.

Talking about Jesus was the easy part...I could probably do that all day! We ended with prayer and sent them to the eyeglass distribution area where they would pick up their eyeglasses. At the distribution center, we would verify the prescription was correct and then adjust the glasses to fit their face. Off they would go with their new glasses!

Eye clinic photos:

Tamara teaching about HIV/AIDS




Susan with a new friend

Teaching children VBS songs while they are waiting to be screened

Beautiful with new glasses

Singing

Rob praying

Terry using the retinomax

Abby praying

Me with my new friends

Kelsey

Caleb checking the eyeglass prescription

Brad working hard at drinking his tea!

I have a lot more to write about but will save that for tomorrow. I have a test in my advanced physiology class so I'll be studying tomorrow rather than working. My Hope team left yesterday and the Blessman team left today. So there are three of us left here living in the Blessman's beautiful home.

More stories to come about safaris, orphanages, and living on a game farm!

Photos

I've finished my first week here in South Africa. We've conducted four days of eye clinics where we've seen hundreds of kids and given out hundreds of pairs of glasses, played with kids at an orphanage, been on a couple game drives (safaris) and spent a lot of time in the car driving from place to place. While I compose a long post with everything that we've done, I'm posting some photos for you.





New eyeglasses!







The orphanage.


Greg playing with the kids at the orphanage.














Baby in her crib at the orphanage. But not for long!







Cute little girl waiting to be seen at the eye clinic.











Entertaining the kids who were waiting to be seen at the eye clinic. Some of our team led them in VBS songs.

One of the schools where we setup the eye clinic.

Baby Ottilia at the orphanage.