Goodbyes, Apartheid and G.A.S.

Our family was away most of the last week because we took Grace and Terp to Koranna Game Lodge and met up with some of our friends who are living in South Africa. We had a lot of fun and relaxation time while we were there. We wanted to give Terp and Grace a couple days to have some down time to process all they have experienced over the past 6 months before hopping on a plane and returning to America. Terp and I made a fun little video about hunting and making a homemade bow, which amazingly, was able to shoot an arrow!!!!! Not enough force behind it to kill an animal, but it was impressive anyway (not that I would ever actually kill an animal).
We drove to Jo-berg on Wednesday to drop Terp and Grace off at the airport and Faith summed it up best when she said, "No one should have to say good-bye to 3 of their best friends on the same day." (Elaina is her friend who lives about 8 hours away in South Africa and we had to say buy to them before we drove to Jo-berg). Despite the sadness of saying good-bye to people we love, we were able to have some quality time together as a family for the rest of that night and the next day. I wanted to take the kids on a field trip to Soweto to learn more about apartheid, but we could not afford the tours (I had no idea anything in Africa cost that much, bummer). We settled for the Apartheid museum which was very informative but also very sad to see pictures and see first hand videos of the horror people faced in those years. Each of my kids wrote a paper about it and I was impressed with the things they picked up on while at the museum.
After that we decided to end the day with something a little lighter and took the kids to a place where they could feed giraffes and it was great. They had one of the biggest giraffes I have ever seen (and yes I have seen quite a few since coming to Africa) and unfortunately for Mercy, he confused her finger for a piece of food and squished it a little. After a few moments of tears, she forgave the giraffe, and Bryan told her she was in a rare club called G.A.S., giraffe attack survivors. We all has a very good laugh at that and continued with our day :)
I enjoyed our family time very much as it is a rare thing when we have a few days to ourselves so although our hearts we sad to say our goodbyes, God gave us a little present of family time so we could make a few more memories as well as have a few teachable moments through learning about the history of South Africa.