Hugs and Kisses

This week has been incredible. Thank you for all your prayers regarding Gateway and the work going on there. The past five days at our service site have been immensely rewarding. We are almost finished working on a catalogue we’ve been putting together for them in order to promote the crafts of the people they work with in the townships in and around Pietermaritzburg to a more mainstream market. We have also been able to meet, spend time with, and connect with the different crafters with whom Project Gateway works. It has been an honor to love them, hug them, kiss them, and even work with them.

We went to two groups this past week. The first group we saw was the Gogo (which means Grandma in Zulu) group in Cramond, another township about 45 minutes outside of Pietermaritzburg. This group works mostly with beads and yarn. They crochet a lot of things, so we got together with one of the Gateway fashion school graduates named Sandile (San-dee-lay) and brainstormed some items they might be able to work on making such as a crocheted coffee sleeves, or crocheted headbands. Sandile also came with us to be our translator because even though most of the children here speak English, most people from the older generation do not.

The Gogos meet twice a week in a large concrete room (dubbed the town hall) and work on their crafts. They join together 3 long plastic tables, pull up their little chairs, and sit for hours, about 20 of them, just knitting away—talking, laughing, eating, and drinking tea the whole time. We visited them on Tuesday and Friday this past week. When our group came in on Tuesday we were immediately welcomed with big smiles and long hugs. They stood at the beginning of their meeting and sang a few songs (in Zulu), closing that time with the Lord’s Prayer (in Zulu and English—I imagine the English was for our benefit, due to the fact that almost none of them spoke any at all). It was a beautiful ceremony to be a part of, to say the least.

I spent most of my time just sitting with them, smiling, and laughing (although most of the time I’m pretty sure I was being laughed at). I didn’t mind at all. At one point, I began to sing Akekho Ofana (the only song I knew in Zulu), and slowly but surely the woman across me began to sing along, and then the next woman and the next woman, and before I knew it they were standing up from the table (as they tend to do when they sing) and we had a solid five-minute sing-along going. That may have been a highlight of my life if we’re being honest, haha. The sound of their voices...there’s nothing like it. Anyway, when we left about two hours later they clapped for us, kissed our hands, and asked us when we would return.

We were able to return on Friday, but not for very long because we also went back to Sweetwaters that same day (to see the Cele craft family I told you about already) and helped them for 3 hours as they finished a beadwork order for an event that evening. We had originally planned to go and just hang out for the day, but when we arrived they were all working frantically, so we decided to join in on the fun! (I now know how to bead the stem of one of those crazy head scratcher contraptions…something I've always wanted to learn how to do….Obviously!)

Anyway, thank you again for the prayers and encouragement I’ve received from many of you. This coming week is our final one at service sites and African Enterprise. On Friday, November 18^th, we will be leaving Pietermaritzburg and heading to Cape Town (driving along the coast by bus over a period of about five days) for the final leg of this South African adventure.
Until next time, enjoy the pictures below and be blessed!

“May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

- Heb. 13:20-21