I haven't been very good at putting up pictures because of the internet here...sorry. Some of my group and leaders have been able to put up some on their blogs so I will post the links on mine off to the side so that if you want to look at some pictures you can : ) Have a great day!

January 25, 2010

Yesterday was a day of community- and it was a really great day J We went to Church in the morning at a Church that some of our group members from here go to. I sat in a row expecting some of my group to follow, but before I knew it some of the children from the Church came and sat down filling the row I was in. So I spent the Church service singing and dancing with the kids next to me J Then last night we started a new weekly event of Sunday community dinners. It is our one night that everyone living on the base and even those working with the base come for dinner. We also are able to invite people from the community to come eat with us. We played games and worshipped with music and just spent time together. It was really an amazing time. We have been focusing on letting it soak in that God is in everything- not just the activities that we deem “religious.” So our leaders emphasized that playing silly games with each other is spending time with God with each other too. Then we spent the rest of the night in the pavilion playing card games, board games, playing music and singing, and talking with each other in the candlelight (we lost electricity because of a storm). It was a pretty sweet night J

Then today we officially started DTS! We had our first real class and it is going to be a great week J This week is about worldviews and how we can work with different cultures while having such a different mindset from our own perspectives. Our speaker this week is going to be really great. Then as were heading out to do our first community outreach at the orphan centers….we had our first encounter with the South African rainy season. We ended up driving for 10 minutes in a torrential downpour with massive thunder and lightning and the turning around and coming back to the base. So the afternoon was spent reading and resting with once again no electricity haha.

January 27, 2010

It has been a good first week of official DTS so far. We started with a lot of electricity- less nights and thunderstorms but because of that we spent a lot of bonding time too watching movies on laptops and playing cards in the dark J Our classes this week have been really awesome, and thought provoking. We have been talking a lot about having a Biblical worldview, and what that means. We keep looking at a picture that we have called the “fruit tree” which basically shows that the actions and consequences in our lives all come from the beliefs and values that we hold. So if we want to change our own actions or even a society around us, we must first look to the beliefs and values. The three main worldviews that we have been looking at have been the Secular, Animistic, and Biblical. Through them we have been going through how each would interpret issues like truth and reality and also daily regular activities. Last night and this morning, we spent a lot of time talking about truth and how it is known through God. Since it is known through God, we have been talking about how important it is that we have a correct vision of who God is. As A.W. Tozer said, “The most important thing about a person is what they think when they think about God.” It has been a extremely interesting week, with the most hitting me being how to bring both the physical and spiritual together, without over emphasizing each. But really what that has come to mean to me is seeing the very important truth that God is in everything, so that means that this world is 100% both physical and spiritual at the same time.

Besides that, the week has been pretty chill- a lot of moving bricks…yay J and spending more time with everyone. Basically, we have been living the African way haha. Last night a bunch of us got to eat mangos with simply our bare hands which was quite an adventure that ended up with a lot of flossing afterwards.