Dad and Mom's SA Reflections

After spending two weeks here with me in South Africa I asked them to write a short reflection on their time. I hope you appreciate their experience.

Reflections about our South Africa trip

South Africa is another jewel in God’s creation, and we were very pleased to have had an opportunity to visit there and to be able to witness first hand Christians serving God in an open and welcoming environment  We were a bit surprised at how modern and large the cities of Pretoria and Cape Town were.  Cape Town hosts over 4.8 million people and has modern shopping centres, soccer stadiums and office towers. From our perspective everything looked reasonably priced and the malls were full of people--things looked fine on the surface.  Pretoria boasts a new modern train link and new toll highways. In Pretoria we spent a lot of our time at the High Performance Centre (HPC), which is adjacent to the University of Pretoria campus.  The weather was gorgeous and the various sports fields were manicured and green. A large staff ensured that everything was taken care of properly. 

Our trip to the Kruger National park was a highlight not to be easily forgotten.  With Rachel driving, and Shorty being our resident “Zuluologist” explaining South African culture, linguistics and animal voices, we were ready for an adventure. God blessed us on this trip with an overabundance of animal sightings, including a front row seat of two impala males fighting, and a mother hyena feeding her pups by the side of the road. We saw over 40 different animal species including Lion, Buffalo, Rhino, Giraffe, Hippo. and tons (literally!) of elephants--  God is good!!

The AIA team is working hard at the universities and through sports camps.  On a Sunday afternoon we had the opportunity to share a braii (barbeque) with 11 girls from Rachel’s core group of U17 girls and a number of AIA and Campus for Christ missionaries. Despite the odd rain shower and small braii for feeding 25 people, everyone pulled together and a good time was had by all. It was really special to meet many of the people whom Rachel has become close to & interacts with.

One of our favourite activities was to have lunch overlooking the rugby fields at the High Performance Centre. The food was good, but the people encounters were even better.  As we sat and talked and ate with Rachel, a number of the U17 girls would inevitably walk by to say hi to her. We would all get a big hug as they greeted us warmly and then we got a chance to get to know each one a little before they hurried off to study or prepare for training. They came from all over South Africa to follow a common dream of one day playing soccer on the national team or on some professional team in a foreign land

We ended out trip in Cape Town, where we were toured around by Dominic. He considered it his land, and he was so proud to show it off to us. Dom took us under his wing and drove us all around the Cape. We saw beautiful beaches, the area where two oceans meet, penguins, and even walked up Table Mountain together. Life doesn’t get much better than that. When you see the massive views from the top of Table Mountain it’s impossible not to think of our great Creator who made the heavens and the earth, with all its beauty.