Innovation and Impact – Changing Lives
What an incredible day of learning for all of us! We visited two innovative organizations focused on changing lives through skills development and utilization allowing persons to becoming employed and self-sufficient. LearntoEarn believes in a hand up not a hand out and Streetwires believe in people, passion, and pride. Emily Riley, another one of students, writes:
"Today we had a bit of change in routine, and while we missed the kids from Ocean View, most of the students seemed okay with taking a break from the yard work of the past two mornings. We toured two incredible organizations today: LearntoEarn and Streetwires. LearntoEarn is a busy and successful program in which South Africans were trained in areas like graphic design, computer skills, office administration, wood working and sewing. This organization also help find jobs for their students in the community, help some further their education and help some become entrepreneurs. We were all extremely impressed by the efficiency of this organization and the quality of the goods they made."
"We were equally impressed by Streetwires, which we visited later. This organization had a cool shop of gifts and decorations on the upper floor with the majority of studios on the bottom floor being used to make a variety of products from wire."
"In the afternoon we did some touring downtown and tried our hand at bartering in the Green Market Square in Cape Town. After lunch, we had the opportunity to visit St. George's Cathedral, where Desmond Tutu served as the first black Archbishop of South Africa, that allowed blacks and whites to worship together. We then took a walking tour of the park viewing government offices, museums and statues."
"On our way home, we stopped at Chapman's Peak to watch the sunset with the ocean stretching before us. What a beautiful and peaceful way to end our exciting and educational day. It was so great to get to see some of the different organizational, historical and cultural hotspots of Cape Town and to really immerse ourselves in the city. We are beginning to get a better understanding of South Africa, as we try to be both servants and tourists in this amazing city. We appreciate your prayers and support as we get deeper into our African experience."
I want to end by going back to Emily's first point about LearntoEarn. The organization's mission statement is "We seek to develop people especially unemployed people socially, economically, emotionally, and spiritually." Changing and transforming lives is a beautiful thing.
Until next time, thanks for following us on our journey here in South Africa.
Serving and Learning: A Wonderful Thing
Hello, this being our second full day, I thought it would be good to get our students' perspective on our trip for this blog. So today, we start with Kate Harris and she writes:
It's a small world afterall. If I learn nothing else from this trip, I have learned that and to never make assumptions about people or places. It's our second full day in South Africa and I could not be more in love. In the morning, we conducted various landscaping tasks and other tasks at one of Living Hope's new facilities. After a morning of preparing the site externally, we were in for another treat in the afternoon at the Children's Clubs. We spent the afternoon at three Children's Club sites in the Ocean View Community again.
The clubs are an after school program and my favorite part of each day. I knew we would be helping in these clubs, but I assumed that would take on a very different form, a form unimaginable to me. I soon learned, as we all did, that such things are universal. It's just like the kids' club I coordinate in Nashville. Same lessons, same games, and same energy. The children even dress as we do and their affection goes unmatched. These studetns greet us with excitement and many of us have already formed special bonds with them. They teach us Afrikaans, which is their language, and we also learn about their culture's hospitality and values. Most importantly we learn never to make assumptions for those who seem most opposite from us. We are all brothers and sisters and that is one special lesson.
Kate has summarized an important lesson for all of us about making assumptions. South Africa is a wonderful learning environment not only for our students but the Belmont faculty that are here as well. We look forward to sharing more insights about our trip over the coming days.
Until next time.
Meeting Children Wherever We Go
Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa. It was a long flight but we all survived and are glad to be here. This being our first official day, we spent the morning at Living Hope learning about the organization and then visited their faciliites. It is truly amazing how they are transforming lives here and leading people to Jesus.
After visting the sites, we came back to the Team House for lunch. We spent the afternoon at Living Hope's Ocean Way sites. We were divided into three teams, one inside (thank goodness I was one of them) to work with children about 4-10 years old and another group for the 11-14 year olds. This latter group is the one I served in and the focus is an abstinence based prevention program. The other two groups were outside and ended up playing soccer.
Of course, the children here were very good at soccer and made our students (don't tell them I told you) look bad. However, we all learned something today and that was God provides and loves all his children. In our group, our leader Al, asked the students what they were studying then he asked me about the trip and I stated that our students were "learning while serving" and that is a wonderful thing. Seeing these wonderful people loving life and loving God despite their personal situations should make all of us here from Belmont realize that we are truly blessed in every sense of the word. So we are here to be a blessing to our South African brothers and sisters.
Until next time.
Bernard Turner
On the Way to Africa!
Yesterday, seventeen students and four faculty left for the 2009 Belmont in Africa study abroad experience. They should arrive in Cape Town by approximately 4:00 p.m. CST on Monday afternoon. We'll try to give you a daily reporting of their experiences with pictures so you can see a little of what they see. The students will have access to the site as well, so they will be glad to see comments from home.
Each day different students will write about their experiences and about something transformative that happened that day. Travel with them over the next three weeks as they work first in Cape Town, South Africa, and then in Gabarone, Botswana. They'll do some sightseeing, but they will mostly be learning as they serve and work with others. Check in regularly!