Homestays in Oceanview

Hello! I’m currently typing this from my bed at my homestay (which I will tell you ALL about) and I just realized I only have 15 days left! I can’t believe it! I was walking home today, admiring the incredibly gorgeous sunset and thinking how much I love this place. Only 15 days…I’m trying to soak up every last drop of it.

Anyways, HOMESTAYS! Because there are over 50 of us, they had to divide us into two groups. One group does homestays and the other group is at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) which is absolutely gorgeous. Even though we’re at homestays, we go to BI during the day for class and it’s beautiful! Sitting in the dining room, you look out right over the ocean. It’s a very similar feeling to being at Point Loma, where everywhere you look, you can see the beach. So I’m excited to be there next week.

This week though, I’m doing homestays in a little community called Oceanview. It was appropriately named because from nearly every street, you get an awesome view of the ocean, which has these gorgeous mountains right on the shore. It’s breath-taking. Anyways, I could talk about South Africa’s beauty all day but you all want to hear about other things :) Friday night, we had a big dinner where we all met our host families and there were a bunch of singing and dancing performances while we ate. It was such a fun night! Only our mom was there to meet us for dinner, but we met the rest of the family the next day. The mom is named Esroebayda, but we just call her Bayda. She’s really a lovely woman and her family is great. She has three kids, but only two are here at the house right now. The oldest son, Cleon, is 6 years old and Chloe is 4. They are precious kids and I’ve loved getting to play with them. We got to meet her husband Justin the next day when we visited him at work. The house is simple but nicer than I expected and so comfortable to stay in. It’s actually so nice to stay with a family in an actual home. It brings a certain level of familiarity and comfort I’ve been lacking since we’ve been in Africa.

Saturday, we woke up and went to the nearby mall to visit Justin and get some groceries. Then we came back, had lunch, and went to a “women’s rally” at a nearby park. It was such an awesome event! There is a missionary woman here named Sarah who put it on through the church her husband is a pastor at, and I loved it. They had worship, dancing, a raffle at the end, and a speaker from Hillsong South Africa (which I get to go to next weekend!). The whole service was great and God really used it to open my eyes to more things than I have time to write about :). We stayed at that event for a few hours, came back home and made a quick lunch, and then went to a joint church service for two different churches Saturday night. This service had a guest speaker from Australia and overall, was quite an experience, to say the least. The next day was Sunday, and we visited an Anglican church because Bayda was asked to perform a dance there. I have never been to any sort of mass before, so that was interesting for me to experience. As soon as that service was over, we finally got to attend the church that Bayda and Justin actually go to. It was good, quite charismatic. So in the first two days, we went to four church services put on by four different churches. It was really neat though because I got to experience quite a variety. But it’s always good to worship with believers from all over the world. It’s honestly one of my favorite things to do. Even when it’s a bit uncomfortable, I love knowing that people from every tribe and every tongue are praising God. It’s beautiful.

Sunday afternoon, we met up with six other people from our group who are also doing Oceanview homestays and walked to this adorable little area called Imhoff Farm. It has a restaurant, a little coffee shop, a bakery, a cheese shop, a chocolate store, and a bunch of little stores with jewelry, etc. It was so fun getting to meet up with other APU people and hear how their homestay is, laugh with them, just relax for a bit…it was great. That night, we also got to go around Oceanview with Bayda and meet some of her friends. We ended up going to visit her pastor’s home and, as many South Africans have, he asked Katie and I about our purity rings. We got to have a great conversation with him about purity and the importance of it and the struggles there are for teens in South Africa. It was really enlightening for me, and cool to be able to share my opinions with him.

Monday was our first day of class in Cape Town. We were supposed to go into a township, but it was raining pretty hard so we changed plans. We’ll go to the township on Wednesday and instead on Monday, we went into the heart of Cape Town and visited two museums: one about the forced removals of black South Africans and one was a contemporary art museum. Then we got to go to the Waterfront and eat lunch in the harbor. Seeing all the boats in the gorgeous water with the mountains in the background was so pretty. Then we had a couple hours back at BI to use the Internet, etc. We came back to Oceanview Monday night for dinner and to spend time with our family and do some homework. It’s been fun as we’ve gotten to know our host family better because it’s more comfortable to be together.

Tuesday (today), we came to BI and spent some time with the South African students here. We went to their chapel service this morning, had our own History class, and then did a lunch with all the students. Thankfully, we had some time this afternoon to just relax so I got to go to this ADORABLE little coffee shop down the road that I have feeling I’ll spend a lot of time at next week. :) Good preparation for Seattle. It’s nice to have a few hours to hang out with the other group, relax, and drink delicious hot chocolate.

It’s been interesting since leaving AE. Last Thursday and Friday were the first days since I’ve been gone that I’ve been homesick. I think it’s because of the lack of consistency we’ve had. We did the Zulu experience and safari, went back to AE for a day, traveled to Cape Town, stayed in a hotel for a night, now are doing the homestay, and then go to BI. They’re all INCREDIBLE experiences and I’m so thankful, but the lack of consistency does make me feel a little homesick. I think it’s good though because if I had to go back to America directly from AE, I would have been really sad. So it’s a good transition time, I suppose.

I have been learning so much through this homestay experience. It’s a lot to process and write though, and not something I necessarily want to put all over the Internet :) but it’s been so good. God’s been opening my eyes even more to how much I need to put my treasures in heaven instead of earth, and how blessed I am in this world. It’s been awesome. Sorry for no pictures again…we aren’t allowed to upload pictures while at BI so I’ll have to find an Internet café soon! Thank you all for your love and support in these last few weeks!

With love from South Africa,

Alex