Ok, I’m going to TRY and summarize a wonderful mission trip to South Africa! Ready? Here we go!
We left Pierrepont on Monday, May 26th and arrived in Johannesburg on Tuesday. There were 16 of us from here and we joined up with Ronel, who was our fearless leader for the next 15 days! She is a bundle of energy and such an encourager! We went to the Ellel South Africa base in Pretoria called Shere House for a lovely lunch and to settle in for the night. They were so hospitable and welcoming! We went to a place called Farm Inn for a little mini-safari type thing and saw a bunch of BIG cats who thankfully were behind fencing. We were allowed to drive through the herbivores though and that was fun. Wednesday morning, we were prayed over and sent out by the team. After a quick stop at the Parliament buildings in Pretoria and a viewing of a 10 meter tall statue of Nelson Mandela (school kids were there on a field trip and they were dancing around the statue singing…it was very cute! Not at all “shrine-ish” just honoring a national hero. We heard lots of stories about life under apartheid and WOW…such a different South Africa just 20 years ago!) We headed south to an area called Bergville in the Southern Drakensburg Mountains. We stayed at the YWAM (Youth with a Mission) base there for 4 nights. I was a bit giddy to be able to be on a YWAM base again!
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