After enjoying breakfast at our Christian Retreat Center, we began our morning and afternoon by visiting the charity Acres of Love. The mission of this charity is to give orphaned South African children a ‘Forever Home’ where they can grow up, go to school and become part of a family. Acres of Love currently runs 18 houses throughout South Africa that are home to 5-10 boys or girls per house, including children who have special needs and many that are HIV positive. This charity provides each child with top of the line medical care such as Anti-Retroviral medication, as well as speech and occupational therapy. Unlike other orphanage systems each house is run by a permanent ‘House Mother’, not a rotating staff, and more importantly the children are always welcome at their ‘Forever Home’ no matter what their age (many other homes kick kids out once they turn 18). Acres of Love is a tremendous organization and definitely one of our favorite charities we visited, so we urge you to learn more about them at their website- www.acresoflove.org.
We finished our afternoon today by visiting the Apartheid Museum, which was a great way to sum up our experiences about what we learned while here in South Africa. The museum took about two hours to walk through and started by taking us through colonization of South Africa by European settlers, factors that started apartheid, struggles under apartheid, and of course the beginning of a democratic Republic of South Africa. In sum this museum, much like our trip, showed us the good, the bad, and of course, the uniqueness of this country which will always hold a special place in our hearts.
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