3 Months Done and Dusted.

Nelson Mandela once said, 

“"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find ways in which you yourself have altered."“

Today I shall be stepping on a plane and tomorrow I will be back home. I am not home yet, but I can already tell that I have been altered by my trip to South Africa.

Physically I am returning different. 

I am returning 5kgs lighter. I am returning with a horrible tongue infection (my tongue is covered in a thick yellow and white puss coating. Its really gross). I am returning with what I think is a broken toe. I am returning with more things in my suitcase and less money in my pocket. 

But I think the biggest change has been mental. 

Here in South Africa, I have seen just how broken the world is. I have been caring for kids who have been abandoned by there parents. Left in a field, flushed down a toilet, abandoned in a hospital. Often because these babies have been conceived as a result of a rape. Babies, who even before the age of 1 have experienced abuse I didn't think was even possible. Toddlers with sever psychological scaring and who are experiencing post traumatic stress.

I have heard about little ones who have lived short painful lives. Babies who have died before there first birthdays. About children who have been refused medical treatment at hospitals because they don't have parents. Or because they have HIV. 

I have met people who have shocking living conditions. Who frequently go hungry at night. Who's loved ones have died from starvation. People who worry about thunder storms, not because its scary, but because the tin/cardboard over there heads wont last another storm. 

I have sat with a women as she has labored for 5 hours, knowing that at the end of the labour she would have to give up the baby. Not because she wanted to but because she was unable to take care of it. Because she was living so much in poverty that she couldn't care for the baby. Because she wanted the little one to have a better life, and not be starving each night.

I have seen things here and my heart breaks for the horrible state of the world. The way sin has taken over and corrupted the world.

Before I came to TLC I was praying that I would be able to raise money to help them keep doing the great work they where doing. But when I got here, even though TLC does an amazing job with the kids, I came to realise that the kids needed a family. A mum and dad to call there own.

So I started praying for families for the kids. That each child here would be adopted. But I came to realise that when one child left another child came. And that there where many children yet to come. And that forever families didn't fix the trauma and abuse which had happened to the children before they came. Or the poverty that many of there biological parents are in. Or the horrible sins which are going on around them. They needed more. We all need more.

I have come to realise that there is no way I can fix the problems in this world. No one can. Sin is so potent. 

I have started praying for Jesus to return. At first I was a bit freaked out praying it. There are so many things I really want to do in this life, why would I pray for something which would end this life. But being here my heart has been breaking for the state of this world. And I have come to realise that there is only one thing which can fix it, and that is Jesus. This world is to far gone. Sin is to embedded. We need a new world. We need our Saviour to come back. 

So I am going to end the last post on my blog with the same last words of the bible.

Come Lord Jesus.