Oswalds Bring Servant Mindset to South Africa

Meet David and Ramona Oswald, a wonderful “retired” couple from north Georgia using their golden years to invest into the lives of kids.

This is David’s second trip to South Africa and Ramona’s first. David traveled the world during his previous career and is an all around handyman who has been helping ER and our partners. Ramona assists him and helps at the Fish Hoek Dream Center.

“David and Ramona embody servant-hearted leadership and model what it means to make a short-term investment with a lasting impact,” said Africa Region Administrative Coordinator Anke Ferreira.

“They serve wherever we have a need, including working on Peace of God Farm, assisting our partner ministry Living Hope, building and painting projects in Ocean View, and serving at the Dream Center where Ramona reads with the younger children.

“Their willingness to serve with such flexibility and humility has been a blessing to us and to those they encounter. We are deeply grateful for the time they invested in South Africa.”

Special thanks to former Ecuador missionary Ty Stakes who runs the 7 Silos foundation for connecting the Oswalds with ER!

Do you know someone (you?) who would enjoy serving cross-culturally in South Africa, Ecuador or the Philippines? Experience ER.

Scroll below to see the experiences of more ER short-term volunteers.

Dream with South African Kids as a Short-Term Volunteer

ER has openings for short-term volunteers at our Fish Hoek (Cape Town) Dream Center after-school program. If you love working with kids and would enjoy a cross-cultural experience in beautiful South Africa, then this opportunity is for you.

Participants must be at least 18 years old and have a updated passport. This opportunity involves instructing kids from local settlements who are in need of homework help and extracurricular activities.

Short-Term Volunteers Do More than Schoolwork

Volunteers will join our staff at one of our two Dream Center campuses. We now serve more than 40 kids. A big part of what we do every day is helping the kids understand and complete their specific school work assignments. But we also work on reading comprehension, life skills, nutrition and spiritual development.

In addition to working with the kids, participants will be able to enjoy local sightseeing opportunities to beaches, mountains and wild game parks. South Africa is known worldwide for its beauty.

Typically, volunteers commit to three months or more and raise their own funds. ER provides on-boarding/onsite support. You will be provided with an ER account in order to raise funds to cover costs.

Interested, or know someone who might be a perfect fit? Contact us at mobilization@extremeresponse.org.Or visit our mobilization page.

Gapper Thrives in South Africa

ER volunteer Shelby Watson discovered the benefits of taking a “gap year” between high school and college to volunteer to help kids and experience adventure at the same time.

“I found out about the Global Gap Year Fellowship (GGYF) program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The description was more than intriguing: a year of service abroad before going to college, ” Shelby shared.

“This was my chance to get away from the everyday classroom-based learning environment and experience life in a new way. I knew I had to apply.”

Shelby signed up with ER in South Africa. Read more here.

David’s Story: From Dump Duty to Company President

By Tim Fausch, ER Communications

“‘The secret to living is giving’. That concept has really impacted my heart.” – David Brackett

While in his early twenties, David Brackett traveled thousands of miles to change the diapers of infants and work in the Quito Dump Daycare. Diaper duty wasn’t highlighted in his short-term volunteer job description, but David went to Ecuador willing to serve others – even if it meant tackling some stinky challenges.

David had heard about ER from his cousin Jay and decided he wanted to experience life as a short-term volunteer. He came for two summers in 2004 and 2005, for about a month each time.

He stayed with Jose and Teresa Jimenez, who continue to serve the families of recyclers through ER’s Quito Dump Program. They are highly regarded for their compassion and expertise in counseling, mentoring, nourishment and training women and men in life skills.

“I went to Quito to get out of my comfort zone and serve at the Dump Daycare (renamed the Child Development Center). I mostly cared for the kids at the daycare. I got to help build things that were needed at the daycare and help with other projects at ER.

“I also got to participate in a couple projects that helped impoverished Quito families. I went wherever ER needed me. It was a mountain top experience and Jose and Teresa treated me just like family,” he added.

During his time in Quito, David was working as the Student Coordinator at Semester in Spain, an international school, where he worked for five years. He had summers off, which allowed him to travel to Quito for his volunteer stints.

After his time in Spain ended, David returned home to Portland, Oregon, fluent in Spanish. He had to figure out what to do with his life. He realized his experience with language and culture was in great demand.

“I loved interpreting, connecting people of different cultures. I saw there was a huge opportunity in the U.S. for these skills. I started working full time as an interpreter.

“Over time, I realized there was a better way to provide language services. Many of the interpreters were being treated poorly. I had a vision for how a company could succeed and treat employees well.”

So in 2010, with the help of his family and friends, David launched Linguava and started knocking on doors.

“We grew a little each month. It took a lot of recruiting to find the right people. I had to do a lot of networking. We encountered plenty of growing pains, but today we offer interpreting services in 150 languages.

“My game plan going in was and still remains to put people first and create above and beyond experiences for all stakeholders. I knew we would be a full service agency – meaning provide in-person, telephonic, and video relay interpretation and document translation. Each segment has its own certifications and requirements.”

Today Linguava is thriving and enjoys a positive culture among the staff. This success led David, Linguava’s president, to contemplate what to do next.

“I remembered the quote from Tony Robbins, ‘The secret to living is giving’. That concept has really impacted my heart.

“What is going to be really fulfilling for me is touching as many lives as possible to give back. I feel like God is blessing me with a lot of resources and I want to use them to help others.

“I’m still figuring out what this means. I’m starting with making a commitment to incorporate charitable contributions into our business model. I shared the vision with my staff that we would help fund ER projects around the world and slowly build our investment.

“One day, we hope to send some of our staff to see these projects that we’ve helped fund.”

Click here to visit the Linquava Website.

Madison Teaches Dream Center Kids To Swim

Madison Drescher is a recent graduate of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, with a Bachelor of Arts, Honors degree in International Development. She is serving as a short-term volunteer with Extreme Response in Fish Hoek, South Africa. Here she shares about a unique opportunity she’s enjoying at ER’s Dream Center.

The Extreme Response Dream Center has helped change the lives of South African children in a variety of creative ways. In addition to providing a safe after-school tutoring and homework help program to children in the Cape Town suburb of Fish Hoek, the Dream Center has taken kids on a safari drive, given music lessons and offered the opportunity to join a running club.

As a volunteer with Extreme Response, I have been blessed to be part of this creative work by teaching 15 Dream Center kids to swim. I first heard about Extreme Response through a family friend and was drawn to the idea of going to South Africa. I had always dreamed of visiting Africa, so when I heard about a possible internship in South Africa, it seemed like the perfect fit for me.

Working at the Extreme Response Dream Center truly has been a life-changing experience. The kids who attend the after-school program have changed my life. They are amazing children, and I feel blessed to be able to work alongside them.

I’m also working at Victory Kids, a pre-school operated by ER partner ATAIM. Victory Kids is located on the same property as the Dream Center. I work at the Dream Center Monday to Friday in the afternoons, and at Victory Kids Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning. I assist the kids with homework, feed them, help deliver daily devotions, and of course play with them.

Back home in Ontario, I am a lifeguard and swimming instructor. I have been teaching for seven years and my experience includes instruction in the Red Cross Swim Kids program. I’ve always had a passion for swimming and educating people on the importance of water safety.

It’s especially important for children to learn how to be safe around the water, and with Fish Hoek situated on a bay, it made perfect sense to introduce swimming to the Dream Center kids. Some of them have never had the opportunity to learn any basic swimming skills, even though they live extremely close to the water.

We’re working on things like front and back glides, front and back floats, front crawls, back crawls, treading water, and much more. Although I’ve only been teaching them for a few weeks, I can already see a huge difference in their skill level. I find great pleasure when I see a child gain comfort in the water.

Being in South Africa is an amazing experience! I am having the time of my life, and I know it will be extremely hard for me to leave here without tears in my eyes. I have made lifelong friends and created relationships I hope will last forever.

I know I will return, and I hope to return and see how much the children at the Dream Center have improved. I can honestly say I am already planning my next adventure here.

Click here to learn more about ER’s South Africa Dream Center.

Short-Term Volunteer Invents ‘The Shoe That Grows’

After graduating from college, Kenton Lee thought he might become a missionary. He wanted to help people, especially kids, and set out on a journey to discover his life course.

Having grown up in the small town of Nampa, Idaho, Kenton, did not have much experience with international travel and different cultures. He was searching for his next steps and found out about Extreme Response’s short-term volunteer program.

Kenton volunteered to serve with ER in Quito, Ecuador in 2007 and lived with a host family for several months. While in Quito, he helped with some short-term teams and served at ER partner Pan de Vida.

Kenton served with ER in Quito in 2007.

“I went to Ecuador fresh out of college,” Kenton shared. “It was a fantastic experience. I had never been in an international city as big as Quito. I saw people from all classes, including lower income people who were struggling for food, clothes and shelter. It was eye-opening. Getting to know these people personally had a big impact on me.

“I felt so supported at ER. It was well-run and had a direct impact on me. ER was doing it right and I knew that I wanted any organization I joined to be similar to ER. I couldn’t ask for a better experience.”

A few weeks after his time with ER ended, Kenton traveled to Kenya to live and serve at an orphanage with 140 kids. A month into his tenure, he had an a defining moment that would lead to inventing The Shoe That Grows.

“We were walking to church one Sunday morning. I’ll never forget this one little girl. She was wearing a white dress. I looked down and couldn’t believe how small her shoes were. The front of her shoes were cut open to let her toes out.

“This really bugged me. It was a very poor village in a poor country. I saw many other kids with shoes that didn’t fit, or no shoes at all.

“So I asked one of the leaders why the kids didn’t have shoes that fit. He said they had received donated shoes a year earlier, but the kids had outgrown them. That was the problem – kids always keep growing.

“That’s when I first thought about developing a shoe that could grow with the kids. I wrote it in my journal that night.”

Kenton spent four months in Kenya before returning to the U.S.

“When I got home, I realized I could not become a missionary. I missed Idaho way too much. But I wanted to help and thought, ‘what can I do from Nampa?’

“I read my journal and found my entry on the shoes. I grabbed some friends and shared what I had seen. We decided to create a structure to get the shoes produced and launched Because International in 2009.

“We spent most of the next five years failing and struggling. We tried to give the idea away. We approached all the shoe companies. Everyone said ‘no’.