Our First Day: Sunday, June 26th

Cassie -

Today was our first 'real' day here in Welkom, South Africa. We started out our day with a much appreciated later wake up time. However, and maybe much to our surprise, the morning also greeted us with 40 degree temperatures. Because of this, I am 100% certain that God has an awesome sense of humor- He created a place now called South Africa a couple hundred miles away from the hottest desert in the world that actually shows a seasonal change in winter, which include temps we Iowans consider COLD.
Fortunately, we all fared well on our trip into church. Our small service was led by Louis O'Tool, a member of another missionary family here in SA. We sang songs and on our first Sunday here, we were also very fortunate to learn many of the children's names that attended church, lived at RHI, or were the Niehoff's neighbors. From the church, Brian Niehoff gave us a tour of Thabong. In Thabong, we went to many various places, but the one's that stuck out the most in our minds were the small children's cemetery, the 'landfill', and the goldmine. The cemetery exhibited hundreds of graves marked by bottles, stuffed animals, or other things of seemingly questionable significance- it was explained that many couldn't afford headstones for their small children, so their graves were marked by things they could remember their children by.
After the tour, we were welcomed back to the Niehoff's by Louis's absolutely phenomenal lunch. When I knew I was going to South Africa, I didn't expect to eat much more than meager meals full of native foods. You can imagine my surprise when I walked into a warm home, greeted by the scent of garlic bread! Spaghetti casserole, salad, garlic bread and a fantastic dessert- peanut butter bars! It was too wonderful to describe accurately using only words.
Following lunch, we lounged in the Niehoff's living room (the six of us plus Brain, Lois, their two children Liam (3) and Lindie (1) and then Matthew Donahue and Taylor Hircock, two more med students living with the Niehoffs). We took advantage of the downtime and got to know each other a little bit better. A game of 'Settlers of Catan' concluded the evening, and some of our competitive sides were exposed (cough cough... Brian... Matthew... cough).
Overall, I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we went to bed with a heart of gratitude for everything we had, excitement for everything we were going to do, and amazement by what we were doing.

                                                                                                                                

The Childrens' Cemetary in Thabong

A typical home in Thabong.

Thabong fruit market