Familiar Yet New

           Sawubona (hello), sorry for the long time in between posts. I can hardly believe how the time is flying during my time here; it has been five weeks now though it feels as if I have just arrived. I know I have promised you a post about the food in South Africa and a post about the squatter's camp. I have not forgotten about these but am not yet prepared to write them. They will come though !! For now a little about my last two weeks and my thoughts about always getting to know more. 

          On the weekend I was very happy to be able to visit two friends in Pietermaritzburg, a town forty minutes from Richmond. I had a fun and relaxing time catching up and hanging out with these two and some of their friends. On Saturday we attended the Royal show which is an annual agricultural show. There were many many shops and I picked up a few things to bring home to my family and we stuck around into the evening to listen to the live bands that were featured that night. On Sunday we went to listen to a well-known pastor preach at a soccer stadium. Angus Buchan is a South African farmer whose life was completely changed around when he became a Christian. I’ve heard lots about this man, read two biographies on him, and watched the movie “Faith Like Potatoes,” which is based on his life, more than a few times. If you have never watched the movie I highly suggest you put it on your to do list. It was really powerful to hear this man of God preach to a great number of people, lots of families and friends, many of whom, like us, where comfortable sitting in the sun, on the grass of the soccer field. For me this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I am so grateful to have been able to do. Our sovereign God definitely knew that I needed this sermon to refresh my soul as well.

Last week I spent much of my time at the Crèche filling in for staff and just being an extra hand there. I would head there in the morning and leave sometime after lunch I would head up to the hospice for the afternoon. At the crèche I might teach some mornings, help the other teachers with their teaching, or help make lunch for the fifty something children. One morning this week I was in the kitchen by myself and managed, with some help from the teachers, to make the food by myself. Though my techniques of cooking are different than what the staff are used to we enjoy laughing at these differences and sometimes have fun combining our ways to make the food.

Right now I try to go up to the hospice every day, to take all the patients’ blood pressure and pulse, as the hospice machine is broken. There is also a recently new stroke patient at the hospice who I am working with through physiotherapy to try to regain movement and function to his left limbs. I met this man twice before he had his stroke about three weeks ago, he enjoys telling me stories while I help him with his physiotherapy, and we have already seen improvement in the week and a half he has been at the hospice.

I usually walking to and from the crèche and hospice from home and enjoy it as the weather right now is perfect for it as it is not too hot. From my home it is six blocks one way to the crèche and two blocks the other way to the Hospice. Those paths, especially to the hospice, have become very familiar to me. I walked them four years ago, two years ago, and so now I know them very well. Though this is my third time in the past four years in Richmond, and though things like the paths, the people, and the shops are familiar to me, they are not the same.  Things change over time, which I am glad of, it makes life interesting and challenging. It also leaves me getting to know people, places, and things that I previously have known all over again because they have in a sense become new to me through the changes over the years.

Take relationships for example. I am so happy to have friends here in South Africa who I know before coming here by myself. I am comfortable, at ease, and feel at home with them because I know them and now I find that there is so much more to know about them as two years has created a lot of new things for both of us. I guess in all of our life this is true in relationships. I do this with my family when I talk to them on skype, I am constantly learning new things about their lives and about them. In our relationship with God this is also true. We can know God yet every day we can learn more and more about him. I have never before thought of knowing people or things to be a constant process that goes throughout a lifetime. It’s interesting to think that in the future I will know so much more about things, people, and God just by searching for the new things in every area of life. 

God blessing be with you all.

Laina