The greatest gift that one can grant another being is one that is purely intangible. I sat in church once, and the preacher said, “The real measure of your wealth is how much you would be worth if you lost all your money”, the certainty of that statement resonated only upon the end of my community service hours at Al Noor (meaning a place of light) Orphanage Center.

This part of my journey on SAWIP left me with a few questions, does servant leadership have to be delicately placed into a box to be defined? Or does it encompass certain facets that root selfless service unto others? Time is the most precious commodity that one can have, lose, or give. Servant leadership is one of the many components that SAWIP entails in its mores, if one should say, that add value to “SAWIPers”.

My community service journey began with a decision to not only change communities, but to also change positions, in terms of where I serve from and that was the transition from serving from a portfolio, and serving as a servant purely without a title. Al Noor Orphanage Center, is a center that was brought to light to me by Thuli (fellow SAWIPer). The orphanage is not just another house turned “social-services-centre” but it is indeed a home for 24 children ages six to sixteen, and catering for both boys and girls who all have a story to tell.

It is said that smiles open doors faster than keys do, and the reality of that materialised each day I spent the collective hours with the kids, that are now my friends. When we raise our sleeves as leaders, we raise the very spirit of the people who we are serving with a selfless heart and an assertive mind. When I helped those kids with their home work, they made sure that I let them lead their minds into venturing into finding the solutions to the questions in their books, and not for me to give them all the answers.

Somehow they knew that they had it in them, they just needed a catalyst of some sort to give them the nudge, without giving them the upper hand to the finish line. When we played games, at times with other volunteers and even with my fellow SAWIP colleagues, they wanted me to participate and not always facilitate. I felt as though their greatest desire was not to be treated like numbers in the social service system, however, as children of a family like setting that does not take grid of the social ideals that society expects of a family.

I took it upon myself to share in their load, be it cleaning the boys’ rooms, because the “ladies” conference center was always neat, to washing dishes, and all other choirs that needed to be attended to. Far too often I felt like a duck in the water, always dipping my self into something new every time I came there, it was keeping my head in the waters that was the challenge. One minute I am in the kitchen the next minute, I am on the little soccer pitch shouting, “off-side, corner kick!!”, and realising how much it means to teach those amazing kids about team work. One of the greatest treasures I discovered is how much they needed someone to listen to their dreams.

I took the greatest pleasure in excavating each ones dream, and what a discovery I made. One of the boys that I asked what he wants to become one day, responded in a manner that saw the ground bellow me fall into a deep space of introspective thought. The boy is only twelve, and this was his response when I asked about his dreams, “When I grow up I want to be a lawyer”, and when I asked why, he continued to say, “…because I want to help social workers help children like me to have a better life, and live in better homes in my country.”

That very day, Mpumi and Mangaka were present, and I think as distinctive law students they too felt the weight that response carried. At such a young age he owned his dream, he saw his purpose, and drew South Africa’s vision into his own heart, as he used the word “my” It left me wondering whether or not I am doing enough to aid in this country’s vision for a better future.

I served Al Noor to the best of my abilities to achieve my set goals, which drew me out of my comfort zone and propelled me into a zone with emigrating to. The reward in self has never lasted, but has always been outweighed by that of selflessness.

To give of one’s time, genuinely deposits more to both served community, and servant, but more so the servant (assumed name, servant leader). It is thus true to me that the infamous axiom, “to live like a king, one must work like a slave” has become a component of my definition of what servant leadership is to me personally.

The one true thing I take way from this individual community service project, thanks to the Al Noor family, is summed up J. Brotherton’s words, “My richness consists not in the extent of my possessions; but in the fewness of my wants.”