Rest

140706

            Today is Sunday. We went to Hatfield Community Church, which is deceptively large and intricate for its name. We were here as guests of Dana, our patient guide and man behind the scenes of much of our trip. Dana went to school in Boston and came to South Africa twelve years prior. Since then, he has more or less fully integrated into the culture, making his insight invaluable. The Hatfield Community Church surely had over a thousand in the building; it was split between black and white evenly.  If you had taken me from the US and put me there with no knowledge of my travel, I really would have had no clue other than the accents that I wasn’t in a US church. Afterward, we as a group had an opportunity to go to an initiation ceremony. The younger brother of one of our co-teachers was at the age where in SA’n tradition they were celebrating his step into manhood. The only difference that had been noted to us over a standard braii is that the meat was harvested onsite via a cow slaughter. When first hearing about this, I was all over it, but the more I thought about it, my FOMA (fear of missing out) subsided. I was dog-tired from a week of working my brain in ways it hasn’t been working in a long time or ever as a teacher. I decided to take my day here at Kilnerton. I spent the afternoon getting to know my team members better and doing some much needed downloading of photos that I had taken on the safari. Later I found myself back at the now oddly homey feeling Seattle’s Best in the Menlyn Mall using the wifi and an outlet to respond to emails, write to supporters and upload blog posts. I am now going to leave to go have dinner with my team in the mall.

Please pray that

We have a great second week of program.

Our many visitors from the Ministry of Education and the US Embassy will see the best of us and get a better understanding of the program.

God bless and all the best, 

Dylan Rollins