Gingersnaps

Thanks for joining me!

“Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.” — Izaak Walton

I am going to try my hand at blogging while Kurt and I are in South Africa this year. I have never written a blog before, so please bear with me.

“Why are you in South Africa?”, you may ask.  Well it is a story only God could write…

For many years, I would always joke with people saying that when Kurt retires, he will probably “drag” me to some 3rd World country to be in ministry.  Fast forward, here we are in Knysna, South Africa.  It isn’t 3rd World, but it is definately 2nd World.

So how did we get here?  After Kurt retired in January 2014, he began to meet with the University of Virginia to learn about their water purification “system” (local potters make porous pots lined with silver), in Limpopo, South Africa.  After meeting with those involved with this project a couple of times, they recommended he go visit the site in order to understand the site work that needed to be designed.  Since he and I decided I would go with him, we thought we would make a vacation out of the trip down (as it would probably be the ONLY time we would ever come to Africa).

One problem, we knew nothing about Africa.  I certainly did not realize how big the continent is compared to North America.  Africa is bigger than China, India, the contiguous U.S. and most of Europe—combined!  So, how do I begin to plan a trip?  I would tap into my resources or as many would call, FRIENDS.

I happened to know only one couple that had ever been to Africa and their trip was to Kenya, not South Africa.  But as God would have it, this couple had just recently met a man who was born and raised in South Africa, but now lives in Augusta, Georgia.  My friend recommended I email his friend to see if he could help me plan an itinerary.  After several emails back and forth with this man I had never met, Kurt decided that this project with UVA was not a good fit. Wow, disappointment.  This man in Georgia has spent so much of his time helping me plan a vacation and now I needed to tell him we were not going to go.  I felt bad to have wasted his time.

God had other plans!  It was now August or so and instead of my new email friend saying oh well, so sorry for you; he said that he was taking a mission team to Knysna, South Africa at the beginning of November and invited us to come with him.  I promptly said “Thank you” but “No Thank You”, we have already allocated that money to be used for something else… that may or may not have been completely true.

My new friend did not take “no” for an answer.  Instead he told me to talk to Kurt and pray about it.  Ugh, why did he have to bring God into this?  I know that if I pray about it, I may have to say “yes”.  Dilemma, do I tell Kurt we’ve been invited?

Yes, I did.  And after much prayer, we decided to join the team.  Now it is January 2018 and this is my 5th time back to Knysna.  I love the people here and have made many forever friends.

My passion is to work with young girls and single moms.  This involves tutoring  girls in English and Math and continuing to tweak a “Girls Talk” group we launched in 2016.  Like each of us, everyone here has a story.

Please follow along with me, over the next few months, as I introduce you to my friends.  Their stories can be both sad and inspirational.  But through it all, our God remains faithful.    ~Tracy Cooper