The Best Week of my Holidays: South Africa

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The Best Week of my Holidays

South Africa | OM International

“Oh no!” Trina thought, “The whole week we are going to stay in a township. I’m going to feel so unsafe. I wonder where we’re going to stay and how in the world are we all going to fit into one of these shacks.” She and 13 others on “Team Germany” were driving into Nellmapius to begin their TeenStreet outreach. They soon found out that they would all be sleeping in one small room of a crèche where they would also work during the day.

In the mornings they helped care for children in the crèche, feeding them and showing them Christ’s love. One day Trina noticed a baby who was at the crèche 14 hours every day. She picked up the little girl who immediately burst out crying. She wondered what she had done. Mama Thuli, who ran the crèche explained, “Don’t mind her crying. She doesn’t like females. Her mom left after she was born, and now it’s just her and her dad.”

“After she told me that,” Trina recalls, “that little girl had a special little place in my heart. And everyday when she came I made an effort to get close to her and get her used to females again.” In the morning Trina would feed her and each day the baby would fall asleep in her lap. By the end of the week everyone called her “Trina’s baby.”

“That week was the best week of my holidays!” exclaims Trina. “Getting together with Christian peers just to help and serve, made me feel like I was actually doing something to change someone else’s life. And by doing that, it made me more joyful.”

On the final day of TeenStreet, a challenge was given to make a commitment to missions. Trina is from a second generation missionary family, but she herself had never made a commitment to long-term missionary work. Trina says, “I felt the Lord telling me and urging me that he had a special place for me in long-term missions, so I stood!”