Reality Check - by Kevin

It felt like we hit a wall this week.  Both Rachel and I had a difficult week coming to terms with our new world.  It felt as if the excitement and adrenaline have faded and it has left us tired and vulnerable.
I would like to share some of the areas that we have been trying to adjust to and would welcome your prayers.  The first is safety and security.
This was not really a concern in Ellensburg, we rarely locked our doors.  Here in Worcester, if you are not proactive you will most likely be robbed.  Every house has metal bars on the windows and a metal gate that surrounds the house (razor wire is optional).  

Padlocks are used to secure the points of entry, so now we have quite a collection of them.  We have one for the driveway, one for the garage, one for the front gate, back gate, and the front metal door.  Then 4 bolt/latch locks for the wooden front door.  It feels like it takes 10 minutes to get in or out of the house.  Our neighbor told me this house was robbed last year.  A man took advantage of an open gate, dashed in the house, grabbed a wallet and phone and ran.  I think they call this a "smash and grab".  

        (this is a re-enactment of a "smash and grab" with Timmy playing the part of a guard dog)

Every house has alarm systems and you are given a fob with a panic button, which activates an armed response by the security company.  

Everyone told us we "must" get a dog.  Dogs provide another layer of protection.  Timmy does bark, but I think if he tried to bite someone his dentures would fall out (he is 84, in dog years).

                     (I'm not sure which is older, our dog or the sign.)

Our house is in a good neighborhood, but our street has a steady flow of people going past as it leads to a bridge that crosses the railway lines.  Some of these folks are poor and hungry and are some looking for a soft target.

Most people keep their blinds closed to prevent people from "casing" their valuables.  We like keeping them open to let in the light, but then need to be mindful to conceal computers and anything of value.  

Secondly we are having to face the issue of living intimately with the reality of poverty.  The unemployment rate in South Africa last year was around 25%.  But the burden of poverty is not shared equally.  The unemployment rate for blacks was 40% and only 8% for whites.
On Thursdays we put out our trash bins, and then swarms of people move through the neighborhood looking through your trash for something of value or just something to eat.  It is extremely hard to watch.  One man came up to me and asked for food because he was hungry.  He been looking for work, but found nothing here and was headed back to Cape Town.  I went inside to make him a lunch, came out and there were 3 more people wanting food (good news travels fast).  One of them had a sore tooth, so being a nurse I wanted a look.  He had so many bad teeth it was hard to tell which one was causing the pain.  His gums were red and swollen so I instructed him to go to the hospital today to have the infected tooth removed.  I went back inside for more lunches and a handful of Tylenol (paracetamol).  
The gap between rich and poor is so severe here.  It feels stressful and heart breaking.  We are rich and I have to learn how to live with that.  We have to trust God to know when and how to respond to the question of poverty, and the faces right outside our fence.

Please keep us in your prayers as we start our new jobs tomorrow (Sept 14).  We have learned so much in the past 6 weeks, it feels like our brains are struggling to take on this new task.  We also have mold issues in 3 rooms and we are waiting for the landlord to fix it as promised. 

Thank you for your prayers and support.
The Yangi 

More photos of our house

...and here are the rest of the photos of our house.  
This one is of Ashani's room, which is actually a walk-in closet, with its own tiny sink:

And of course the bathrooms.  They are both very small but functional.  This one houses the washing machine and laundry baskets, and there is a bath tub hiding behind them too:

And this one has a shower: 

Here are some pictures of the outside of the house.  This one is taken from the back yard.  The upper-level windows you can see are in the corridor which has a very high ceiling:

Clothes line (very exciting):

You can see the back door in this one - it leads into the kitchen:

The side of the house:

And the front:

There is some mould in several of the rooms, and also a lot of maintenance and upkeep projects, painting, re-tiling, etc etc that should have been done before we moved in and weren't...  We are thankful that the house is functional as it is, but we are also planning to liaise with the estate agent and landlord to see if there's a way we can be provided with the materials to fix those things ourselves.  But that can wait.  At the moment we're just happy to have our own space.

We are home!

We moved into our house on Tuesday!  It feels really, really good to be here.  
My favourite thing about this house is that it has these amazing features called "rooms".  The way they work is this:  If one family member would like some time away from another family member, they can actually walk into another "room" and get this thing called "personal space".  It also means that when the boys need to do their homework, Ashani does not have to leave the premises.  It's absolutely brilliant.
Some of the other things I really appreciate having again are counter-tops, sinks, a draining-board, and toilet-roll dispensers (which enable Ashani to pee unaided, as there is very little risk that the entire roll will end up in the toilet).

I took a bunch of pictures of the inside of the house this morning. 
This first one is of the view from outside our front door, looking across the street at the neighbour's house, which is just in front of the railway line:

Here are some of our kitchen.  It has lots of natural light and plenty of space, and a WORKING FIREPLACE!!  Really nice for these chilly mornings.

As in many houses in South Africa, our kitchen has no sink.  The sink is in a scullery off the kitchen, where the maid would traditionally wash the dishes out of sight:

Timmy had been an outside dog, but he has adjusted extremely fast to being let inside for much of the day.  He was starting to make himself quite at home on our beds, until we got him one of his own in the kitchen: 

The living room has lovely big windows so lots of natural light, and another working fireplace!  As you can see we are sitting on the floor so far.  

The bedrooms are down the hall.  This one is Zaden's:

And Daniel's - we plan on putting a double bed in here eventually.  Both boys' rooms have built-in closets which is really handy:

Here is our bedroom:

I have apparently reached my limit of posting photos - I will try to post again tomorrow with photos of Ashani's room, bathrooms, and outside space.

We have been fortunate to be able to find nearly everything we needed second-hand - including the dishwasher, fridge, oven, curtains, and all the furniture!  

It's definitely starting to feel like home.  The kids are really enjoying having their own space, and home-cooked meals (well - frozen pizza, anyway!).  

Next week we will start work in the Transport department.  We're looking forward to getting stuck in to work at the YWAM base and becoming more familiar with the people and different ministries.

Finding our Feet

When we arrived in Worcester, lots of people told us how difficult it is to find houses for rent here.  Others said that we might find something, but only if we were willing to drive further out of town.  It appears that God has heard our cries.  :D

It has not been easy for us living on the base - our quarters are cramped and it's cold at the moment, so it's not always possible for the kids to play outside.  It has been GOOD for us to experience this - we are living in luxury compared to most of the world!  But we are very, very thankful to have received the news that we can move into a rental house on September 1st!  

When we went to the Estate Agent's during our first week here, there was only ONE 3-bedroom house within our budget that was available to rent (in a town of 120,000).  So we went to see it, decided we liked it, and that's the one we're moving to.  It's 10-15 minutes walk from the base (although not really safe to walk alone), and 2 minutes walk from the local shop.  

It's on a dead-end street, except for pedestrian traffic coming from the bridge that crosses the railway lines.  This is facing the other direction, towards town: 

 We will be turning the house into a 4-bedroom - just don't tell Ashani that her room is actually our walk-in closet...  All the kids are very excited to have their own space without sibling interference!

We all went to see the house again the other day, and mentioned to the lovely older couple who are moving out, that we are thinking about getting a dog.  (We have been strongly advised to get a dog, for security reasons.)  The lady said that they will be bringing 4 of their 5 dogs with them to the retirement home, but there's just no room there for the 5th dog, a 12-year-old Jack Russell named Timmy.  They were going to have him put down, as they didn't know what else to do with him and he's quite old already.  So of course we met him, and he's very sweet and surprisingly sprightly for an old guy.  He loved the kids and they loved him, and the rest is history:

  Thanks to all who have been praying for a house (and dog!) for us - we are very excited to move!  Having our own space as a family and being able to cook our own food will be huge factors in enabling us to stay here long-term.  Over the next few weeks we will be looking for furniture, appliances, curtains etc.  This might take some time as these things are harder to find than in the US, and more expensive (even second-hand!).

As many of you know, it was the prospect of staffing the Foundations in Counseling Ministries school that first drew us to YWAM Worcester.  But we were also aware that that particular school does not run every year.   So we have been thinking and praying about how we can serve in the meantime.  We know that we are in the right place, we're just not sure of the details yet.  

I have been reminded recently that our main focus is not to make a difference, disciple the nations or be world-changers.  Our main purpose is to love and serve God wherever we are, and whatever that looks like.  

At the moment there is a need for someone to manage the Transportation Department on the base:  YWAM Worcester has a fleet of vehicles that are used for many different local ministry projects.  These vehicles have to be scheduled and managed so that they are in the right places at the right times, and also overseen so that they are maintained and used properly.  It's one of those behind-the-scenes jobs that is crucial to the smooth-running of the base.  

We have offered to take on this responsibility until Christmas.  As well as being a great way to serve YWAM Worcester, it will be a good way for us to get to know the different people and ministries, and figure out how things work here.  We will begin our training next week. We plan on both of us working in the mornings, and just one of us in the afternoons when the children are out of school.  It seems like a good fit for us what with my (Rachel's) admin ability and Kevin's knowledge of cars.

I'll finish off with some photos of last weekend's trip:  We visited a crocodile farm, with our Brazilian neighbours.

Functioning

Veggie Tales aficionados like myself will be familiar with the Veggie Tales version of "Give Me Oil in my Lamp".  One of the verses goes "Give me umption in my gumption, help me function function function", and Larry interjects "I'm functioning!"

After today I finally feel that we might actually be functioning.  The first couple of days here at YWAM Worcester were a little rough. Turns out there had been a small miscommunication regarding our arrival, so our room was not ready, and of course we had no electricity on our first evening.  Add to that the logistics of trying to unpack our 5 very full suitcases plus all the hand-luggages into our 2 small rooms, and the realization that eating the cafeteria food was just not going to work for our family, and we had a rather chaotic environment.  

But after 1 trip to a hardware shop for planks (shelving), 3 trips to the mall for, well, everything, and a well-deserved 4th trip to the mall for Kevin and the kids to see the Minions movie so that I could scrub our rooms from top to toe, rearrange furniture, and unpack some more, we are finally in functioning mode.

Here are some pictures of our newly cleaned and organized living quarters:

The above 3 pictures are of the kids bedroom / kitchen / dining room / living area, all combined into a 12ft x 12ft room.  We ate dinner here this evening - cup-a-soups and grilled cheese sandwiches that Kevin whipped up in the communal kitchen. 

And this one is our bedroom.  That beautiful fireplace was hiding behind a chest of drawers so I did some rearranging and gave it a good scrub (sadly it is not a functioning fireplace).  

The kids have already started to make friends.  The base is very family-friendly and there are tons of kids around.  Our next-door neighbors are from Brazil, here on the English Learning School.  So communication is tricky but Daniel is already firm friends with their son Juda.  Here is a picture of them playing together on the soccer field this evening (you can just make out Daniel's red T-shirt):

....and one more of the beautiful view we enjoyed this evening:

It honestly does still feel like camping in many ways.  To get something from the refrigerator, it's like walking out of your house and to the end of your driveway, and back again.  It's the same for the bathroom and nearest sink. Hot showers are not always an option. Everything takes a lot more effort and time.  But we are reminded that we are currently living in more luxurious quarters than most of the world.  And it's good for us to get a taste of what it's like to live here on the base before - hopefully - moving into a small house within the next month or so.  We know we are in the right place, and we are very thankful.

We have arrived!

Here we are folks, it's our new home!!  We arrived in Worcester yesterday evening (having sprinted to make our connection in Johannesburg and JUST made it).  After picking up our vehicle, bought with BIG help from friends in Cape Town, we drove to Worcester on the beautiful N1 highway (right up there with Snoqualmie pass).  

We arrived at the YWAM base 30 minutes before a 2.5 hour scheduled rolling blackout.  These occur twice a week here, from 6pm til about 8:30.  The sun sets at 6:30, so unpacking in the dark was... interesting.

Thankfully we have some friendly neighbours who lent us some candles, so Zaden was able to carry on with his origami as usual.

Being winter-time here in South Africa, it is COLD here.  And there is no central heating.   Last night we all slept with our clothes and sweaters on, under duvets and fleece blankets.  Today I (Rachel), in a moment of weakness, bought a fleece pajama-onesie.  (That's an adult-sized baby-gro, for UK folks.)  Zaden told me I looked like a pink bunny with no ears, but I don't care - at least I'm warm. 

Our accommodation consists of 2 adjoining rooms - one for the kids with 3-tier bunkbeds, and one for us with a king-sized bed.  We share the bathroom down the hall with other families, and eat meals cafeteria-style.  We also have the option to buy our own food and cook in the shared kitchen, which is a tempting idea.

Today we spent a gruelling 6 hours at the shopping mall, getting blankets, bedding, towels, plates, food items, shampoo, and the list goes on.  It's kind of funny that here in Worcester there is better shopping than in Ellensburg!!  The kids did very well but were ready to be done:

We will need to go back tomorrow to get a few items we forgot, like cockroach traps and candles.  Yes, this is South Africa which contains many first-world areas, but we have been reminded very clearly since arriving that we are in AFRICA - and that comes with barbed-wire fences around the compound, cockroaches, blackouts, and hot water most of the time.

We have started to meet some people here on the base, and we are looking forward to figuring out what our days will look like.  The children start school on Monday, so that is definitely a prayer-point.  We would love for them to feel "at home" straight away and make friends easily.  Also for Ashani to transition smoothly into her new school and 5-hour school days 5 days a week, which she is not used to.

Another big prayer-point is for accommodation.  We would love to be able to move into a house here in Worcester soon, preferably at the beginning of September.  We have been told that there are very few rentals available here, and they are hard to find.  It may also be harder for us having just arrived here as we do not yet have a bank account or rental references.  We know we serve a big God and we would love a miracle in this area!

Transitions

I would like to thank all those who helped us transform our 5 bedroom house into 5 suitcases.  It was and is a season of letting go of what we have, and what we know, for the unknown.  It has not been easy, but I know it is only the first part of this new journey as we continue to follow Jesus as a family.  

Our enormous yard sale

Today I feel mostly sad and very tired.  But I am also very thankful that we have some time in England with family before flying South for winter in the southern hemisphere.  If we would have flown straight to South Africa from Ellensburg it would have been 20 hours on 2 planes, 9 times zones and 11,300 miles.  God knows I would have been an ugly mess, with bad breath and a short fuse.   

So in his wisdom and mercy he made a good plan for us, and let stop over on this lovely island.  We have so far stayed with Rachel's parents and her aunt, and we are currently staying in the house of some friends.  All have been really good times.  But we find that we are now starting to process some aspects of this huge transition we have undertaken, and it can be tough!

God has asked us to trust him.  To fully receive a gift sometimes you first have to let go of all you're holding onto. With heavy hearts we have said goodbye to Ellensburg, our home, friends and church family.

It is the right thing, even though it hurts. 

From "Beyond the Blue"

And wisdom will honor everyone who will learn
To listen, to love, and to pray and discern
And to do the right thing even when it burns
And to live in the light through treacherous turns
A man is weak, but the spirit yearns
To keep on course from the bow to the stern
And throw overboard every selfish concern
That tries to work for what can’t be earned
Sometimes the only way to return is to go,
Where the winds will take you
And to let go, of all you cannot hold onto
For the hope, beyond the blue

-Josh Garrels  (my new favorite artist- thanks Ryan, just kidding, Rachel B)

Kevin, on behalf of The Yangas Clan

Currrently in the UK