A South African Chronicle: Rain and Abseiling

It's a rainy Monday here in George, and while we students are a little bummed to be cooped up inside, the whole town in rejoicing. The garden route area has been experiencing the worst drought in the 130 years since they started recording rain fall. The town of George gets its water from a reservoir in the hills above the city. As of Saturday, the water level had dropped to 18% of its regular capacity. If the dam level drops to 16%, the city has to stop pumping water, and everyone's on their own to buy bottled water or dig wells or find water wherever they can. The implications for the cities poorest residents is catastrophic, since many of the families in the townships cannot even afford basic necessities. But God is answering prayers here as we speak because its been raining straight for almost 24 hours. It's not enough to refill the dam yet, but its enough to tie the city over for a little while longer.

This past week has been pretty eventful for the Life Academy students. Our resident director, Mitch, left for a two week visit to see his family in Durban, so we're on our own in many ways. We have a pretty regular schedule that we follow, involving our discipleship and personal development classes in the mornings and several volunteer services in the afternoons, and it's been neat to bond as a group as we figure out our way around George. Normally Mondays are quite full. We spend the day with LIFE Community Services, working in the soup kitchen preparing meals for hundreds of underprivileged school children in the townships, helping to watch over and play with kids at one of the 10 or so outreach centers, and leading after-school activities to help keep kids and teens off the streets and out of gangs.

Today, however, we're a bit stranded. This past Friday, our Volkswagen Van (aka the Combi) simply wouldn't start. We towed it to the shop, and the diagnosis was grim: “We have no idea what's wrong with it.” We're meeting as a group with the ministry director Jono to work out a game plan to help us get to our service ministry commitments this next week, and we're praying God will open a door and provide OAM with the physical transportation it needs to be able to serve the community.

Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support, and we are so blessed by all the encouraging letters and emails.

I'll leave you with a few photos from this past weekends adventure activity: abseiling!