Homestay

“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me,I was sick and you looked after me.”
Matthew 25: 35-36
There are no better words to describe my “coloured” homestay. We pulled up to the Strandfontein Methodist Church in our huge bus with 35 people looking for a place to stay for a week. There were about 20 families there waiting to take complete strangers into their home, feed them, and take care of them. We went in and Rodney, our country partner, started reading off names and sending people off with their new families, it was exciting waiting to be called, and even more exciting when I was paired with Melissa for the week.
My “parents” happened to only be 8 years older than Melissa and I but it still felt like family life again. We had two sisters, a nine-year old, Caitlin and a two month old Morgan. Caitlin would drag us outside to play with her friends, and there were a lot and introduce us as her Canadian sisters. Melissa definitely said it best when she said we’d never been so popular in our lives. Being back in a home and sharing a room with only one other person was definitely a bit shocking (imagine putting something down and it still being in the same place two hours later! It’s a new concept!) but it felt so good. At a time when I miss my family so incredibly much it was awesome, and so God sent to have the 20 or so families take complete strangers in and make us feel like we’re at home again.
At the end of the week, saying goodbye to our families was January 13th at the Winnipeg airport all over again. The only difference was that even though these new people are family, the chances of seeing them again are pretty small. I’ll never forget my week with my second parents and my two sisters. It felt like home again, and for God to give these people the hearts and spirits to make it ‘home’ is truly amazing.

Tonya Rempel