This is showing the back part of the same squatter camp; the front is about twice that width. Interestingly, if any of you have seen the movie District 9, that movie was actually filmed in this squatter camp.
This is a dump area in a squatter camp called Kya Sands. Trash is piled up in all the squatter camps that Alyssa visited, resulting in them not smelling too great. It was common to see dead (and living) rats all around them!
While they were doing one of the kids programs in Kya Sands, Alyssa shot this picture. At first she didn't realize what the man was carrying, until it started making a lot of unnecessary noise.
Half way through the South Africa part of the trip, the group got to visit a place called "The Lion Park." They were driven through five different exhibits of lions, then an exhibit of wild dogs, hyenas, cheetahs and other animals. Alyssa was anxious to get to the enclosure with "baby" lions! That's what South African's call cubs, but in all actuality some of these lions were almost Alyssa's size. This one shown was one of the very mean ones that bit her hand, and scratched her wrist, which she is still sporting marks from.
This lion a lot friendlier, she said that when she leaned down to take a picture with it, and it got up and sat in her lap!
After the lion park, they got back into ministry. This is in the squatter camp Msawawa; it was one of the smaller communities, but the kids were ecstatic to participate in the kids program called Jabalani kids. Jabalani in Zulu means happy. In the squatter camps, Alyssa and her team did shack-to-shack ministry, which is where they'd go around and talk to people, tell them about Jesus, and get to help in practical ways. With Jabalani kids, the missionaries did skits, told Bible stories and led worship for the kids. From the pictures and videos view, it looks like the team and the missionaries loved their time together!
Each color of the South African flag means something, but in each lesson they had a biblical meaning for the colors.
These are the toilets throughout every squatter camp, they're basically port-a-potties, but if you can believe it, are actually a lot worse.
While there Alyssa "got" to eat a mopani worm! Go figure, since she is one of my children very afraid of bugs! They're very similar to an American caterpillar, is what they they told her.
After shack-to-shack ministry was over, the team moved into Muslim ministry. Alyssa sadly couldn't take any pictures during it because it'd be considered rude. But there's a mall called the Oriental Plaza, which hosts a lot of middle eastern Muslim shop owners. The picture below is actually of one of the largest mosques in the southern hemisphere. After Muslim ministry, they went to this Turkish mosque that was absolutely beautiful (and cost $280,000,000 dollars to build).
At the very end of the trip they got to visit another safari, which had tons of wild animals. They also had a "Bush Braii" similar to a barbeque, except they ate things like Kudu, which is a large deer like animal. Only in Africa would they show you the animals, then feed you the same specie!
This picture is showing the end of their trip when they landed back in American soil. We are proud of the work she helped with in Africa.
