South Africa was exactly that, an intermission right in the middle of my time in Madagascar. Although I was leading a 10-day team from the States it was a nice little breather because a lot of South Africa is like America. First of all the national language is English so everything is in English and pretty much everyone speaks English, well at least a form of it. They also have things there like McDonalds, KFC (which by the way has great ice cream) and you can eat salad and the fruits and a lot of other familiar foods. The first day my friend and I arrived, we went into a rest stop for something to eat and were honestly so overwhelmed. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves and what to pick out, I am almost positive people thought we were a little crazy. As you can guess in Madagascar we really don’t have many options. Also driving on the roads you would think you were in America because they look similar, road signs and all, maybe except for that whole driving on the other side of the road thing. All and all it’s pretty easy to mistake South Africa for America.
You might be thinking, did she do ministry or go on a vacation? Like I said it’s easy to mistake SA for America, until you learn the truth. The truth is South Africa has one of the highest AIDS rates in the World. The truth is you look around you and can still see the evidence and aftermath of apartied. South Africa can be deceiving because as an American you feel pretty comfortable in it. I know for my team it was easy to slip into that and we had to keep reminding them; this is South Africa, this is still Africa. Most of the schools are still not integrated so you have your black South African schools and white South African schools, kind of reminiscent of America pre Civil Rights Movement. We spent our week in the northern part of the country and it was a great time of ministry. The kids were very receptive and seemed to genuinely want to hear what we had to say. The older kids especially seemed in search of hope for their lives. The team had some great stories and I know they walked away truly impacted by this experience. I know my eyes have been opened to this country in a whole new way and will continue to pray that their hearts would be softened to the Lord because they are truly wonderful people.
