Participant Blogs

Sarah Rinn

December 28th, 2007

So here is the scoop on Incredible India.  Sorry it has been so long but for safety reasons we couldn’t get on the website at all while in India. 

We arrived in India in early December.  The evening we got in we immediately headed into the heart of Delhi to stay at a “hotel” for the night.  The taxi driver dropped at the end of busy market street a ways down from our hotel... 

Normal 0 Somebody saw it fit to divide us into radnomly selected new teams and let us run around London unchained.   If you’re in your head going “why oh why?” feel free to say it out loud. This was my first reaction too! Our never ending journey to figure out whatever’s going on in our leaders’ heads experienced a set back and we’re back to square one! The London Challenge was different to say the least. Not a good or a bad different, just different…   Each of us was divided into a new team, except for the white...

Transkei... what a privilage! The journey began with a "blikskud" in Port-Elizabeth where 44 students raised R18000 in 3 hours for the TRANSKEI AIDS PROJECT.The North-Bound and Work-your-way teams stayed in Mahosheni just 18km from Coffee Bay. We slept in traditional Xhosa huts (with a chicken named Betty), took "skottel" baths, ate African stamp mielies and played with the local kids... The main projects for the week was to build a rondawel, a stone house as an AIDS clinic, to create a Veggie-tunnel and to dig a "longdrop". If we had to highlight only a few of our best memories...

 

“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day...

 

"It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves

 

you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but

 

REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

3 weeks ago we found out that the Transkei needs some help, so we answered the call. To fund the various projects, we had 3 blikskud sessions in PE - in less than 5 hours, God blessed us with R35 000! So from the word go, we felt the Lord's hand of provision on us, in finances, material and tools. Our first week, we spent in Coffee Bay, serving at Coffee Bay Comprehensive Christian School. We painted classrooms & bathrooms; put in a new door; pulled straight a wooden classroom dubbed "Plankie" & put up a new sink roof over...

Luke 10 testimony - Marco Ras, Hannes Roodt and Reinhardt Foley Location: Guatemala Luke 10:3-4 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. The night before we left on our Luke10 journeys we drew lots to separate the team into our Luke10 groups. We were the first team to be set out and it came down to us being an only guys team. So the next day me , Hannes and Marco left Guatemala City with the idea of heading East...

Today I am halfway through the journey of a lifetime, an adventure with You, Lord, Creator, Lover, Father, Friend.   I remember how You captivated my heart by calling me to an adventure. You invited me "come with Me" and promised that it will be wild, great and full of You. Thinking back on the past four months it was already all of that and more...   Reality struck me for a moment, as I perceived the beauty around me, the palm trees, the Caribbean ocean, the small islands so close that I can see the white beaches and hear...

Africa Africa... Imagine with me for a second, going to school and working really hard to overcome the poverty your family lives in. Working hard in school so that you can do something with your life and finally getting a good job on a plantation. As you stand there washing your clothes maybe thinking about how you finally made it out of the poverty, you see rebels with guns come out of no where and your friends run. They surround you and kidnap you, putting you in a truck. Your life is gone. You have no one and are being...

Were to begin, where to begin...... Our time in Guatemala was spent on a few very different things and so much happened that I can not give a chronological exposition of our time there, but broke it into pieces, from the crazy to me (with me of course the least crazy :P ) Triking Triking, where to begin... The best description that I can give is that you take a bike; grind off the back end; weld a round steel bar to the back with a rod and two small wheels with no traction in it and try to fit...

What a privilege. What a phrase. Not only was this a common phrase used during training, but it's a phrase we, as Explore Africa, will be taking with us into the nations. This is not just a phrase - it's an attitude, a lifestyle rather. Life is all about perspective, and this is ours... What a privilege to be children of God, to be part of His Kingdom and to advance it. What a privilege to travel the world in a God-seeking lifestyle with the desire to serve, love and restore. What a privilege to get to share our journey...