LEEU GAMKA...

I can officially say that I spoke more Afrikaans during my three days in Leeu Gamka last week than I have in the 14 months I've lived in South Africa prior to that. It was nice to play with the kids and they were quite impressed with my level of Afrikaans. The adults, however, were not interested in playing with Barbie dolls and taking wheelbarrow rides, which meant that most of our conversations were in English.
The training was quite different than expected. We planned to have youth from age 12-19. They told us anywhere from 50-300 teens, so we planned accordingly. A few days before we arrived in this poor community of about 3000 people, there was a huge division. The church (who was responsible for starting up the AIDS initiative in the community), school teachers, and recently established health board butted heads at full speed. The school refused to advertise and inform the students about the trainings and the health board made it known that they did not want us there. We went anyway and trust that through the trials (lightning strike, power outings, double bookings, language barriers, youth retreat which took the youth 1000 km away, etc...), God was at work.
We ended up changing our program on the final training day because the youth were all away on a retreat in Johannesburg. We had a kids' day filled with songs, games, juice, sandwiches, soccer, netball, the kids' Jesus film, balloons and wheelbarrow rides.