Rachel's Adventures in Africa: A day of two halves

Today started off pretty badly - I heard 2 very sad pieces of news in quick succession. My friend Laura in the UK is pregnant with twins who are due in about 4 weeks time. They've known since the beginning that one of the babies may be poorly, but today she has been admitted to hospital as the doctors are very concerned about the baby's health. They are deciding whether they need to deliver the twins this week. It's obviously a huge worry for Graham and Laura as the doctors are unable to tell what's actually wrong with the baby or how serious it is.

After Laura text to let me know, I found out that a good friend here lost her mum yesterday. Anna's mum has had a long battle against a brain tumour and at times God has brought significant healing to her. But in the early hours yesterday Anna's mum passed away in the hospital. It's so hard to know how to be a comfort to someone in this situation. I visited Anna at work this morning and managed to hug her and pray with her. There's little more I can do, and Anna is Basotho so I don't even fully understand what happens now. Her dad, who works away, has come home to sort out the funeral. There are a lot of traditions associated with death in the Basotho culture, and I am still quite ignorant of them. As with all cultures, some are harmless traditions and some are not so harmless. The grieving process is influenced by culture, but we can all take comfort in knowing that Anna's mum knew Jesus and so is now with Him in glory.

So this morning my day was feeling quite overshadowed by these sad situations. I was struggling to lift my eyes above the here and now. But then I went to Mapheo.

This term we are looking at 'God's Plan for Us'. The idea is to show the children that God has good plans for each of us. We're also teaching them about different kinds of jobs so that they can begin to grasp an idea of what they could do for a living in the future. So last week we looked at being a builder and between us built a brick wall. But I'll blog about that another time. Right now I want to tell you about today.

There's a lovely lady in our church called Jeanette who owns a restaurant in Clarens called Valley Cats. Jeanette saves all her bashed up cakes in her freezer for us and periodically the kids at Mapheo get to feast on them for their snack. So she's well loved! Today Jeanette had the whole of Mapheo to her restaurant to teach them about the different jobs you can do.

It's hard to describe just how big a deal this was. First of all it meant getting to go in a car up to town as it's too far for them to walk in the time available. That's a massive treat all by itself. Then it also meant being in town, again a massive treat. Top that off with getting to go to a restaurant - a first for the kids - and you begin to understand how exciting it all was.

Word had obviously got out about our trip as when we got to Mapheo at 3pm, an hour before it starts, there were already quite a number of very excited kids waiting. As we prayed together, this number grew and grew, and the kids became uber hyper outside. Which was probably a good thing as it's FREEZING today so all the excitement kept them warm although also inevitably led to a few tears.

We got the kids through registration and the rules and then started ferrying them up to town in the cars. They waited playing games on the village green until we were all there, then formed a 'snake' to walk to the restaurant.

Jeanette was all ready for them so after listening to a story about a cake baker, she chatted about what you need to run a restaurant and all the different jobs you can do.

Then came the really exciting bit. Jeanette had prepared it so that the kids could be her customers! She had set out long tables outside and all the kids sat down. Then she gave each one a special menu:

Polony roll - 5c
Scone and jam - 5c
Milo and marshmellow - 5c

She gave every child a little packet that had 20c in it - enough to pay for one of everything on the menu and leave a tip. So as the waiters handed them plates with the food on they were able to pay for it. Needless to say the kids absolutely loved it! They got to be real customers and enjoy good food. They also got to take their menus home along with a little packet of homemade sweets from Jeanette.

The kids were so well behaved, and had an amazing time. It was a privilege to be a part of such a wonderful experience. And it totally made my week and probably my month :-)