But God blessed me so much by ending March with one of the best days of my life. March 31st was our last day at Ethembeni. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to present that day to you, because it was absolutely incredible, so I guess I’ll just go for it. What we had planned to do on the last day was provide a lunch of pizza, chips, soda, and cookies for the people at the Family Center (which I’ll tell you more about later). Three of us in our group spent some time at the mall that morning, to print out some pictures for the staff and to pick up the pizza. For me, it was such a rejuvenating and fun time with Cynthia and Jamie, getting to know them better and realizing how much we have much in common. They are such wonderful, amazing girls and I feel blessed that I have gotten to experience all of this with them.
We got to the Family Center around noon, and set up lunch for everyone. We thought this would be such a valuable thing because 1) the kids rarely have fun days like that. They were all so excited about the pizza, taking seconds and thirds, and just had the biggest smiles on their faces while they waited in line. And 2) the women on staff spend probably about two hours every day making food for 50+ kids, so by us providing lunch, they would get a break from having to cook. So we gave them their food and all the kids sat outside with each other, and we ate with the staff inside. During this time, we presented a gift to the staff. We framed two pictures: one was a group photo of us with all the staff, and the second was a silhouette of an acacia tree with Philippians 4:13 in front of it. We wanted to do the picture of the tree as a reminder of the Tree exercise we did with them the second week, and we put the verse to remind them that even when things are difficult and seem impossible, nothing is impossible for God. As we began to explain this to them, I lost it. I haven’t really cried about anything I’ve seen yet…I’ve felt sort of numb to it all…and it was as though it all hit me in that moment. Jamie was explaining why we chose the verse, and I couldn’t keep it in anymore. I was crying for these people, these kids, this situation…everything. After we explained it, all of the people on staff went around and thanked us. Every single one. Even the older women who normally don’t say anything during our group conversations, they had Zwe translate for them so that they could say what they wanted to. Each word just touched my heart so much. The things that they were thankful for blew my mind. Almost all of them talked about how much of a gift the lunch was today, how they weren’t expecting it at all. They thanked us for holding the kids, because they can’t hold all of them. Multiple people thanked us for being nice to them. Everything they said humbled me more and more.
After they all finished, we all wanted to thank them and I was the first to speak. Looking back, I wish I could have said more. I have so much respect and love for these people but I was so overcome by my emotions, I felt like I could barely get anything out. I was so humbled by these people. They have the most willing and servant hearts, they go to the Family Center every single day…their selfless attitudes overwhelmed me. We all went around and said our thank you’s to them, and by the end of it, every single person in the room was crying. APU students, MFC staff, boys, girls, everyone. The amount of love in that room is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. We asked if we could pray for them, and when we finished, they continued to humble me by asking if they could pray for us. One of the most beautiful parts of that prayer is that some of them were praying in English, and some were praying in Zulu. What an incredible picture of God’s kingdom.
When we finished praying (which brought on a whole new flood of tears), Claire and Zwe said they had given us all Zulu names. This has become one of my favorite things here. I have received three Zulu names now, and this one was Nokuthula, which means “giver of peace.” They went around for all of us and when Zwe got to the last guy, Rob, it took him about two minutes to pull himself together. He was crying so hard and when he finally could talk, he said, “I’m just so thankful you guys came here.” I don’t think I realized how much of an impact we had until that moment. They have thanked us throughout our whole time there, but seeing everyone in tears, all standing with our arms around each other, tears resulting from a sadness about leaving these people who were strangers just a month ago…having Zwe be so overwhelmed by his emotion that he could barely talk…I don’t know. Again, it was just overwhelming. We decided to end our time singing two Zulu songs, which was perfect. I pray that I get to do that again with them in heaven.
We then called all the kids in to the room, and showed them the Lifehouse “Everything” skit (which, if you haven’t seen it before, stop reading this and watch it because it’s so powerful). I started crying again when watching this. I probably cried for 2 hours straight yesterday…my eyes still hurt. When it finished, we put on the Lion King for the little kids and asked the older kids to come into the back room if they had questions. Again, we had about 15 kids come but instead of continuing our conversation about sexual purity, they had so many questions about the video. They asked a lot about sin, some things I had never even thought of. One question was if Satan was truly sorry for what he’s done and asked God for forgiveness, would God forgive him? It was a really great time of trying to give them a picture of God’s love. One of my favorite moments of that day was when a girl, regarding the video, asked how God could forgive us so many times when we keep sinning against Him. I loved getting to explain to her His immense love for all His children and see the look of surprise on her face. So cool. We ended that time with prayer and again, it made me hope that happens in heaven.
We spent some time with the kids, and then the staff called us into the other room. They presented each of us with a beaded pin of their logo (you can see it all some of the pictures), which was welcoming us into their family, and a letter they all signed for each of us individually. I was so thankful for these things because, although I will never forget any of these people, it’s wonderful to have a tangible reminder of the impact they’ve had on me. We spent the last hour and a half taking pictures, giving & receiving hugs, and saying goodbye.
There really are no words to explain how I felt yesterday. It was joy, sadness, humility, gratitude, love…I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the emotions I felt. I think it will take months and months to fully process everything that has happened in that place in this short amount of time. But all I can really say is that I am changed. These people, children and staff alike, have touched my heart and I will never forget them.
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