TLC

I’ll be honest; the thing that I’ve been looking forward to, more than anything else this semester, is taking care of black babies. Last semester, Simon, my small group leader, was full of stories about his time in South Africa last year working at TLC. The Love of Christ Ministries is an orphanage outside of Jo’burg that takes care of babies and children and hearing Simon’s stories made our small group excited to throw ourselves into this ministry and the week did indeed involve a certain jump of faith.

The seven of us; Lauren, Jen, Gabriel, Ben, Joanne, Meagan and myself, were able to help out in a number of ways. TLC has approximately 27 volunteers, from all over the world, who work so hard to give the children the love that they need, so to help out we did jobs that the volunteers often cannot find the time to do, like scrubbing floors and organizing shelves. We were also able to spend a lot of quality time with the children. Some of us preferred the babies in the nursery while others hung out in the main house with the older kids. Of course we each developed our favourites and just loved getting to spend time playing with them.

I’ve learned that a part of being on Outtatown seems to be experiencing unexpected adventures and this week was no different; lightening storms, children in wigs invading our house, filthy clothes, and accidentally donating our breakfast food… I also tried to play my violin for the babies and I’m pretty sure that they liked it until they all started crying, although, in my opinion, their crying was completely unrelated to my playing.

One thing that we found really difficult was the sad reality that these beautiful children had no parents or family to go home to. We were the ones leaving at the end of the week, not them. TLC had it’s share of challenges, but we left knowing that the love and care shown at the orphanage was the best that could be given to these children and despite being exhausted and covered in baby spit-up, we all felt very much a part of the TLC family; even if it had been for only a few days.

Written by: Michelle Ball