Magwambu

(Read Part 1, Part 2)

While we were in Transkei, we left Port St. John's for about 3 days and Meyer took us to another village about 1&1/2 hours away called Magwambu. He said there is a woman called Mama Christina who was so excited to meet us and said we were going to love her!

The drive to Magwambu was probably the worst drive I have ever been on in my entire life. On top of that, I was feeling ill the day before we left, so nausea + motion sickness = more nausea and Dramamine would just make me sleepy, so I couldn't take that... I just wasn't feeling to well.

As Meyer had said, we all fell in love with Mama Christina! Mama Christina is a great grandmother and she was very fluent in English, which is quite unusual for the region. We went to her house and visited for maybe an hour. She served us milk-tea and butter sandwiches. We also found out she works in the school kitchen. There are about 4 school rooms in the village and each school morning she wakes up at about 5am and goes to the schoolhouse where her and another Mama make rooibos tea, porridge, and bread for about 200 children. They teach the children to pray before every meal and it even has led to the children bringing prayer back into their homes and into their families! 

Mama Christina gave us the keys to the school kitchen where we would stay the next few nights. The children were still on holiday, so many of them were out in other villages. The children that were still in Magwambu went absolutely wild when we arrived. Some of the team went outside to play with them while the rest of the team unloaded our things from the Quantum and carried them all the way to the schoolroom.

The children in Magwambu were significantly more aggressive in attempting to get our attention than the children in Port St. John's were and one-by-one team members slowly started piling into the school room to take a nap. The children would fight the closed (and locked) door or would surround the school room calling at us through the windows and screaming for our attention.

 Suddenly, we went from being surrounded by children to complete silence.

"I guess the children finally gave up..."

Since we had chosen bathroom buddies with whom we would walk to the bathroom with, my buddy needed me. We opened the school room door to find out the the children had locked us in the schoolroom. 

That is why they disappeared.

We found a set of keys in the schoolroom that had about a trillion keys on it, but none of them unlocked the gate. Mama Christina finally came and got us out -- we aren't too sure how the children locked us in in the first place. 

We also noticed that Mama Christina and the other mama do more than just feed the kids. In one corner of the school room, we noticed there 3 cups filled with toothbrushes, 4 pumice stones, and 4 loofahs. They also readied the children for school! 

While in Magwambu, we also had the opportunity to preach at Mama Christina's church. Since it was African time, the service began with 4 people + us and by the end there were probably about 12-13 people.

We did our own version of the "Everything" skit and I elaborated on what the drama was about, sharing my own testimony (since I wasn't allowed to preach). A boy on our team preached on Lazarus and they even asked him to sign the guest-preacher book! We all sang "I Could Sing of Your Love (Forever)" and we did an altar call and prayed for everyone who was there as well. 

We also learned a Xhosa hymn, called "Tarhu Bawo."

Tarhu Bawo, Tarhu Bawo

(Merciful Father, Merciful Father)

Yiba nofefe kuthi

(unknown)

 While we were there, about 4 of us went with Mama Christina around the village, originally to do house visits. We met the most adorable old woman who was born in 1930 (82 years old) and when she saw us, she began to dance and say how much she loves us!
Mama Christina also took us to some other Mamas who were excited to meet us as well - one was 87 years old!

Since it was the holidays, one man in the community decided to host a community braai and he offered one of his cows to be slaughtered. We didn't see them kill the cow, but we did watch them skin it and such.

The community braai was to be held December 30 after church, but the invited us for the private dinner-brie that evening. 

They were so kind and they braai-d us a good piece of meat, a liver, some ribs, and unidentifiable piece of meat that was also good, so we ate. Two-thirds of the team tasted the liver (not me) and it was exciting to have meat from an authentic braai. 

Above, my friend is fanning flies away from raw meat on a bamboo mat.

Sunday morning after church, we loaded all of our things into the Quantum and then went to be with the village as they began the community brie. 

We all gathered in one the mud huts and they Mamas gave us bamboo mats to sit on. We all sat together just waiting to go to Mama Christina's for lunch and some of our team mingled with the Mamas. One Mama tried to serve us homemade beer (which we all declined... 1. DTS rules say students can't have alcohol; 2. It smelled bad; 3. There were flies enjoying it; 4. Meyer had warned us against it, so we were trusting him). 

So as we were chilling in the hut, the hosting Mama asked us if we "eat the insides." Now, normally in the culture, it is offensive to turn down anything offered to you, but we figured since she was asking us, as foreigners, it would not be too rude to decline. 

Just then, one adventurous leader says, loud and clear, "I'll We'll try it!!" The rest of the team froze. 

A little while longer, Mama returned with a plate that filled the hut with a strongest stench of hot, baked cow poop. 

Yes. They were serving us uncleaned cow intestines.

She was so excited to try it.

The rest of the team was less than enthusiastic. I made the decision that I was going to reject the offer - I didn't care if they thought I was rude. I was barely breathing due to the stench. I leaned my face into my friend. She hadn't washed her shirt in 2 weeks. I preferred to breath in her unclean clothes than the braai-d intestines. Everyone grabbed a piece from the plate, except the few of us who managed a way out. I was so close to gagging and/or throwing up. One of our guys went outside and spit it out. It felt like these moments were lasting an eternity. 

 Finally, it was time for us to go to Mama Christina's house for lunch. It was lovely spending more time with her and her great grandchild. She was so sweet, so kind to us. She is another favorite of mine. 

The rest of the evening was spent visiting, enjoying the cool, foggy weather, and even praying for some of the Mamas. Some of them were healed of different things (joint pains), but not ready to accept that Jesus was the one who did it.

But so many seeds were planted that weekend, we have much faith that they were planted into fertile soil and God is watering them!

Some of us with Mama Christina

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

Matthew 9:37-38