Editor’s note: Mocha Club member and volunteer, Annie, is blogging from Capetown, South Africa on the Mocha Club trip from May 28th-June 10th. This is our first official “trip blogger” so please help us spread the word and check back for updates!
The sun came out today.
Yeah, I know it comes out everyday. It’s the sun after all.
But it was different today. It warmed our bodies (and we haven’t been truly warm since sometime last Wednesday). It also warmed our souls.
We started the day by visiting the Learn To Earn center in Khayelitsha. (As many of you know, Learn To Earn is a job creation center that allows unemployed people of this community to gain the skills necessary to become a wage-earning professional, such as a seamstress, craftsman, secretary, etc. Members who signed up under Lady Antebellum or Ernie Halter – this is your project!)
I think it was really cool for us as a team to see Ernie experience his project firsthand for the first time. He gets up on stage every night and talks about Learn To Earn, and finally, there he stood, shaking hands with men who, once jobless, now know how to make cabinets. He got to hug a woman who had no life plan until she learned to sew blouses. Now she’s preparing for a fashion show in December. They thanked him over and over again, but I think their words paled in comparison to their tear-filled eyes, beautiful crafts, and calloused hands.
It was a surreal experience. I was particularly moved by the room of young women learning to use Microsoft Word. The purpose of this class is to teach the girls to be secretaries and administrative assistants. Their assignment, typing sentences over and over again, looked exactly like an assignment I had to complete in typing class my senior year of high school.
I took that class as a joke. Just so I could have an easy period before lunch.
And these girls are taking this class for survival. To pay the bills. To supply their family with winter coats and to put food on the table.
Not because they don’t want to take Chemistry before lunch. Not because they are lazy and looking for the easy way out. But because their livelihood depends on them knowing these skills.
I don’t know. I don’t know how to be okay after that. I don’t know how I can complain about work or assignments or being cold…so maybe I won’t.
Seeing a Mocha Club project firsthand was just amazing. I really loved it. As the director pointed towards a new building that is going up and told us how Learn To Earn has outgrown its building, I thought about you. About how you freely give $7 each month to these people you don’t know. How they turn that $7 into a building. Into a job. Into a room full of people that now have hope.
Anyways, we’re back at the house, after a long afternoon of window installation, tile laying, children’s church, and book editing (more on that later…). We’ve planned out tomorrow – when we go to schools and talk to the kids, then head back to the preschool for more building work, painting, and day 2 of children’s church. We had over 100 kids there today. Which means we will officially have our hands full tomorrow.
No worries, though. We can handle it… especially if the sun keeps shining.
Warmly,
Annie
