What an awesome 2 weeks!! We left for Coffee Bay the 12th of Jan and slept over in PE at Stoffel's cousin, who blessed us so much!! When we arrived at his house we were given an amazing hot meal, we watched a movie on the biggest screen I've ever seen, and then slept on real mattresses with plushy comforters!!:) We got up bright and early the next morning to meet up with the rest of the team and "blikskud" to get to the Transkei and God blessed us so much!!! In the few hours we were standing there we collected R18,000!!! We then travelled about 10hours and arrived in the small town of Coffee Bay at about 22:00 andf then pitched our tents while holding on for dear life so the wind wouldn't blow us right off the hill!:)
We had so much work, little money, and no tools- but once again God provided!!! Throughout the entire 2weeks we could see God working miracles every day and feel His presence so tangibly. We had only 5 working days in which we built a fence around the school, built a jungle gym, fixed a leaking roof and helped wherever needed. It was such a time of stretching and growth for all of us- we were physically busy, emotionally tired, and spiritually constantly fighting. The entire area is unfortunately bound by ancestoral worship, drug abuse, and spiritual bondage. But God has such a heart for these people and wants to save them and show his love to them, it's something we constantly felt God saying- that he has an awesome plan for Coffee Bay and it's people. Please keep them in your prayers and trust with us that God is going to do the miraculous in Coffee Bay.
On saturday we journeyd back from Coffee bay to JBay- the hitchiking way. We received a challenge friday afternoon to get back to Jbay in our journey groups with R100 each(!) and then do some challenges along the way, things like catch a pig, drink amazi, eat chicken feet, visit Mandela's House and more. . .it was great fun! And God is so faithful- just the way He supplied and the way things worked out! We prayed as Explore Africa that God would set devine appointments for us with the people who gave us lifts, and He did!!! We drove with a taxi from Coffee Bay to Mandela's house, then Sibesiso gave us a lift into the next small town where we could buy amazi and a nice man bought all of us a coke! We were standing next to the road drinking our amazi when Steve, an awesome man picked us up, took us to a place we could get chicken feet, bought them for us, payed that they could be cooked and then drove us all the way to EL!!!:) After that Dean picked us up and dropped us off a few km outsude of EL- and here God stretched us. We were stranded in front of this rural village for hours and we were getting a bit scared. We decided to go into the community and were welcomed like long lost children! They let us sit in the shade and filled our water bottles and we then had the opportunity to pray for all of the people- Lord you're so amazing! We headed to the road to try and travel further but nothing happened, it was getting dark pretty fast, and people were walking by checking us out. This is probably where our faith started waning and we started getting on each others nerves- but once again God supplied, and Nelly, two Work Your Way guys, and her little red 1200 Datsun bakkie came along. She dropped us off in the middle of nowhere but God supplied our next lift through the General. He drove us all the way to PE and there we waited for a while under a bridge in the middle of the night on the highway for our next lift, Mark, who took us all the way to JBay. We had the amazing privelage of leading him to Christ right there in front of the school in the parking lot at 1:30 in the morning!!:):):) Father You are good, thank you for teaching us and using us to bring one of your kids back home.
A big thank you to Coffee Bay Christian School for giving us a place to sleep and making sure we were always fed!!! And to tannie Judy for being great fun and loving us immediately!!:)
Also to Stoffel's parents who invited us for a braai, all the people who picked us up, blessed us with things, and those praying while we were "missing". We love you guys and appreciate you so much! You're all in our prayers and we'll keep ypu updated as we go along.
Blessings!:)