I can't believe I only have two more weeks at AE. That means I only have three more days at my service site. I only have 6 hours left with the ladies of Esther House. My team and I have just began to make relationships with some of the ladies and I am sa

dden at the fact that we will leave them in just days. I wish I had more time in the day. More time to laugh and cry with them. More time

to understand their story. More time to learn from them and see their strength.

I don't want to go back so fast. Where did my time go? There was so much of it at first but then it just passed me by.

The beauty of this all is I have changed. My eyes have been opened to the pain in this world. Opened to the honest fact that

God is needed everywhere. But God is still working no matter what situation good or bad. He is at work! I know that these ladies have changed me. They have a strength that I've never seen before.

My team and I tried something with the ladies on Thursday. We did an activity called River of Life. The purpose was to draw out our life using lines to indicate our ups and downs and then label them. We were so nervous to see if it would work. I was scared because I drew mine first in front of them. I wasn't sure what to say. Tears started to flow and they came fast. I drew my lowest point in my life, but then I shared the fact about how God redeem me completely. At the end of it all of the women in the house drew their own river of life. I wasn't too sure what they thought of it. Today I was able to talk to one lady and I asked her what she thought of it. She said that she liked it and it was good to do. She wanted to share but was to scared. I asked her if she would want to share with me. It was here that I found out that most of the women who live in Esther House is because of abuse, but its not always abuse from a husband or boyfriend. Sometimes its from sisters, aunties, etc. I was shocked. She told me that she knew she had to get out of there. She did not want her one year old son to be in that kind of environment so she left and thats how she found Esther House.

This is Luthando, my little friend.

I got to hang out with him once a week when I would work at a feeding scheme in the community. His grandmother helped prepare food for about 20 people. I think this last week was the last time I would get to see him :[ But he was so cute. He speaks English and IsiZulu which helped a lot. He would translate some Zulu for us here and there. He has a little sister who so twice as cute! She is shy but when I got to hang around her more and more she was much more spunky. I saw how Thando was such a good brother. His sister was riding her bike and he got behind her and started pushing her on it. It was so cute!!