It is FINISHED!

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One week ago today we ran in the Warrior Race. Obviously, since I am writing a blog post about it, we all survived! I should probably start by clarifying who “we” are: Darin and Jonna Fey, Tim and Athena Van Gilder (friends from Eastside Community Church), three TYB volunteers (Gabby, Sam and Shanti) and Nhlanhla Harding, one of Chris’s sons.


We had a great day to run the race. The weather was a bit overcast, but the rain held off until we had finished our race. The people who started late in the afternoon were not so fortunate. There was a bit more running involved than I was prepared for, but I stuck to the middle and back of our team and we all managed to stick more or less together. There were times where I wanted someone to carry me, but my dear husband wasn’t willing and I didn’t want to impose on any of my other teammates.

The obstacles, oh the obstacles. We crawled through mud, ok, I walked over the mud and the other people crawled; we climbed up ropes; we climbed over (or were heaved up and over) tires set over a pool of muddy water; we climbed up and over a 20 foot high wooden ladder type thing; we went up and over a cargo net, crawled through tires filled with pieces of coal; climbed up a slanted wall using a rope to “walk” up the wall (I failed this task, but not for lack of trying); ran up a half-pipe wall and depended on the strength of Tim and Darin to pull us the rest of the way up and over; to finish it off we climbed up the “Tower of Rage” and jumped into a pool of water about 25 feet below. There were 15 obstacles in total, so I am leaving a few out!





Overall, it was a fun experience. We all came away with scrapes and bruises, some banged up ankles and knees, but no serious injuries. My parents were able to watch us at a few of the obstacles and they also kept an eye on Tyson and Jori and Tim and Athena’s two oldest kids. It was a great feeling to be running in our “Tshepo ya Bana” shirts, knowing that we weren’t only putting our bodies through moments of torture for nothing, but that we were taking leave of our senses for the children!




Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, we raised over US $1500! We have already used some of those funds to pay March’s school tuition for Thato, and some new burp clothes for Amo (she goes through a TON of them). Now, burp rags might seem a bit inconsequential, but when finances are tight, there are a lot of small things that get put off until some future time known as “later”, but they are needs that we can now fulfill! So thank you, thank you, thank you!



After crossing the finish line Darin asked me if I was excited to run again in 2015. I might have had fun, but I am not that crazy! However, Darin is. He is already looking forward to a new batch of volunteers to arrive and planning to run again in 2015. So stay tuned!

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