hey everyone! i hope all is well back home in good old indiana. i arrived in jeffrey's bay late saturday night... finally. we woke up at 5 am saturday morning and left johannesburg area for a thirteen hour drive down here. we arrived at the house and ate a delicious dinner that our leaders made us & then we unpacked EVERYTHING... it was a late night. sunday morning we woke up and went to ithemba... the colored church in the township. it was a really awesome experience. we came home and had lunch & had the afternoon off. sunday night we went to Deo Doxa to the young adult service. it was an amazing service. worship was awesome... it was songs that i would sing back home. i love the worship in africa but i really needed the worship we had sunday night at church. chris via, my leader, gave the message. that too was pretty stinkin sweet. sunday night we were told that we would get monday morning off and that we didnt have to be ready until noon... so we all stayed up late watching a movie. well monday morning at seven am the students from the bible college @ Deo Doxa woke us up running around our house screaming that we had five minutes to get dressed and outside. oh quick fyi... our team doesnt get ready in five minutes. so ten minutes later we were outside and as ready as you can be half awake. the students took us down to the beach where our leaders were and we had breakfast on the beach. we talked for a little while and then we were broke up into groups for a "scavenger hunt". we had about 50 or so tasks that we had to do in a four hour time period. we walked all over town and into the townships going to see ministries and seeing people that would be involved with our ministries. one of our tasks was to go in the ocean waste deep, the whole group... and take a picture. so... i had my first experience going into the indian ocean, with jeans and a t shirt on. it wasn't too cold though. not warm, but not cold. after the scavenger hunt we came back to the house for lunch and then i went with four others and chris to the j bay primary school where we taught a seventh grade bible class. it was pretty cool. i would like to do more but i need to learn how to teach. after that we walked downtown to the shops and such. a bunch of the girls on my team decided to get their noses pierced... however, i had mine pierced a few years ago. i no longer do, but i didnt want it pierced again. so i got something else i've wanted to get for awhile. a tattoo :) . i got a small black cross on the side, but on the top of my right foot. it didnt hurt at all and it looks super cool. nothing else much happened last night, we had dinner and relaxed. this morning we split up into our three groups again and went to some of the ministry sights to get a feel for things. my group went to homes to do ministry with an amazing lady named matilda. we visted a few people with hiv, tb, and just other sicknesses or people who were in accidents. we prayed over them, talked, and read them scripture. one lady we went and bought groceries for and took them to her. it was a pretty cool day but i dont know if that will be one of my internships. probably not, however, it did give me good ideas for other ones. we came home and had lunch and watched a video that chris and christina made about the ministries and stuff. ( ps: bree i saw you in lots of pictures. it made me tear up.) then i pretty much passed out because i was really tired. but it was a short nap. me and some of the girls went to the internet cafe... only to have the internet go off. so we did a little shopping. or walking around basically. that leaves me to where i am now... back at the house. jeffrey's bay is so beautiful and amazing. our house is big and even better then i thought it would be. there are nineteen of us living in the house, and my other two leaders, chris and christina, have their own house across town. just to let you get a feel for where i am... i can see the ocean from my house. and i have palm trees in my front yard. i know a lot of people in the states do too... but i dont. i traded cornfields for the ocean and palm trees. pretty cool if you ask me. j bay is beautiful. downtown there are lots of shops and cafes and of course the ocean. there is the white part... which is kinda like by downtown ish. and then if you walk west a little bit it goes into the townships. the colored and black communties where the poverty is extremely bad. j bay is a town that is rich and dirt poor. its really neat though because the rich people need jesus as much as the poor do. i love it here. i love my team and i love my leaders. well, thats about all i've got for now because i need to go do some quiet time & eat dinner before too long... porkchops. mmm. i got a south african cell phone... and i have an indiana number that gets forwarded to it. its really confusing how it works but basically here's how it works... you call the number and its free for you. its just like calling a cell phone in indiana. if you want to catch up or if anyone needs anything, give me a call... friends and supporters... the number is (574)-807-0575.
for those of you that pray for me... please keep my health in your prayers. two weeks ago i had a stomach flu and a stomach virus. i had to go to the clinic and everything but i got over it. however, for about the past week i have had a fever and my throat has been swollen and i have an extremely bad cough. as well as pretty much no voice. i feel ok, its just really frustrating to deal with. so please pray that i can get back to normal health.
i hope everyone is doing great! ill try and update more... and ill be able to because i have regular internet access. i am working on getting a website to put all of my pictures up. so when i get that up and going i will post the website address on here. god bless!