Many meals of pap, nights of leaky ceilings, and 500 giraffes later....

Meet my new sister and nephew : )

....and welcome to my house for the week.

Last week I spent six days and five nights with a family in the community of Mbonisweni. My family was made up of a father (I never really officially met him), a mother (Susan), their 21 year old daughter (Sandile), and her three year old son (Ryan). I was expecting an extremely challenging week of very tiring days, many confusing moments, and even many needed times of learning patience. While I did have some of that, more than any other feeling, I left with the overwhelming sense that I had a new sister who, although she was from an entirely different culture and way of living, was very much just like me…

It would be hard for me to write about everything that happened throughout the entire week so I am just going to just put up many pictures and list some of the random things that stuck out from my stay:

• My night of making 500 orange beaded giraffes from 7:00 PM until 2:00 the next afternoon at the Church consisting of: random sleeping on mattresses on the ground, having it rain so hard we were unable to hear each other and then having to move every table because streams of water were pouring through the roof, and doing all this while watching one of the guys pretty much propose to Kacy

After staying at the Church all night....not tired at all of course

...now imagine 500 of these

• Learning to become an African women:

o Fetching water and pushing the wheelbarrow back as my skirt falls off, making dinners of pap, pap, and more pap, eating chicken feet from a stand on the side of the road, watching “Generations”- the South African soap opera that the entire country stops to watch, walking 30 minutes each way to get potatoes from the stand off the road, learning to dance as an African by watching the same music videos over and over and over again, and learning to bathe African style with simply a tub of hot water…

My kitchen- notice our "stove" and lack of many things found in our kitchens

Our sink- similar to the tubs used for bathing

Our typical meal of chicken, beans, pap, and cabbage

Our walk to fetch water- the green tub off in the distance is where the water is

My bathroom- where many times I would be going to the bathroom while hearing and seeing through the door children right outside

• Playing with all the neighbors in the yard until it simply gets too dark to see anything and then everyone taking a quick break to eat dinner before they all came back to watch “Generations” in Sandile’s bedroom

The view from our backyard : )

• Being confused alot like...going to what we thought was a Church service Saturday morning only to be there for two hours and they say we are stopping for a break before we come back for the second session…..what?? Oh wait this is normal in Africa….

• Sitting in our room for hours because we simply had no idea what was going on and what we were supposed to be doing…

• Laying in bed at night with Marcella and Sandile while eating yogurt, playing new games, watching soaps, and talking about life J

I went into my community stay with a stereotype in my mind about “African life.” And I realized at the end of the week that yes, we live differently and don’t do things the same but àlife is lifeß. My new sister Sandile had the same fears, desires, and dreams in a big picture way that I do. She was an only child who was lonely a lot of times and who wanted a friend, or as she got this past week, two sisters to listen to her and share with her. The week was nothing like I expected but God made it even better than my own expectations.

My new sisters : )

*This morning we are leaving for our community stays- we will be staying in pairs in a child-headed household from now (Tuesday) until Sunday. If you could just keep us in your prayers for the week : )

March 11, 2010

Yesterday was the first day of the feeding program at Mboisweni! We fed about 80 children and it was a really awesome and fun day J We waited for about an hour and a half for any kids to even show up-with our entire base at the Church. But when they started to come we swarmed them and showed them some fun! We had face paint, water balloons, and a sweet mural that we had the kids put their hand prints on. There might have been just as many of us with paint on our faces as kids and there might have been more water thrown between us than the kids but hey we had fun J Today we went to Dwaleni like usual. And…we had enough food for most of the kids to have seconds!! The past couple of weeks we have run out of food and it is heartbreaking to watch those children walk away hungry. So we were praying hard that there would be enough food this week and there was! Yay J

March 14, 2010

This week….I don’t really even know how to explain it. It was emotional, challenging, and basically rocked everything my life has been built on. It was identity week. After the masks, we also made outlines of our bodies and wrote on the outside all the lies and names that have been said to us that dictate who we have become. Then on the inside we wrote things that our family here told us- things that they see in us that we might not see. We hung our bodies up on the wall in our classroom- seen by our entire family here. In the middle of our bodies we drew a heart. And all week our heart was left empty. Thursday morning- supposed to be our last morning- we talked about how God loves and delights to give new names to his children. So we were told to go outside and ask God what name He wanted to give us. We were to ask Him what He looks at us and sees.

Then…the hot seat came. After hearing our new names we all came inside to our chairs in a circle with a pile of pillows in the middle. We were told that one by one we were to kneel in the circle, “reach out our hands,” and share our new name. There is a story of a man in need of healing who comes to Jesus and asks to be healed. But while he asks, he extends his hand to show his need and vulnerability. So we had to go one-by-one and reach out our hands. We were exposed and stripped from all the masks that we hide behind. And we sat vulnerable in the middle of the circle as we poured out our hearts and then listened to God through our family in the room. Soon our supposed to be one morning of the hot seat become three long mornings of tears and joy.

And it was really scary.

But it was really good.

We were made for glory and honor but it was stolen in that garden a long time ago. And ever since we have been looking for glory in other places. But there is freedom. And we have experienced that freedom this week.

We learned we can take off the masks and allow God to give us the true glory and acceptance that we deserve.

Living in Disneyland

I am tired.

I am so emotionally tired right now that my body just wants to collapse. This week has been tough so far. Our topic is “identity”- not easy stuff. We have been talking a lot about the masks we put on and the ways we are just living up to the identities that other people have given us. We have seen a vulnerability to us all that we haven’t seen yet. We all made masks and decorated them however we wanted- no directions at all. Yet even though we all said we didn’t think much about how we painted our masks and didn’t paint them to represent us, it was amazing to see how they all really showed the masks that we put on for others. We all were made to sit in the “hot seat” at the front of the room while our speaker asked us question after question about why we painted each thing and how it represents us…very convicting and hard. Today we sat outside in a circle- not having class- because our speaker refused to go any further with us unless we would open up ourselves and share why we are so afraid to speak out in our group. We are a group filled with fears and with walls built very high around us. So after sitting in awkward silence for a long time- we opened up. And it was good J Things aren’t automatically perfect but they are better and they are on the journey even more now to a stronger family. But the questions of who we all are are still here.

So usually I don’t put just one day up at a time but I just felt like asking you all-

Who are you?

What is your true identity- after the mask is taken off and the walls are broken down?

Our speaker has given us the metaphor of Disneyland- we have all the great, exciting, fun, and almost perfect appearance on the outside but on the inside of it all is the cheap, plastic, and hollow truth. What is your Disneyland?

I am struggling right now with these questions…we all have been told lies and “It doesn’t matter if a lie is true- what matters is if we believe it or not.” What lie are you believing right now and building your identity around?

March 2, 2010

This past weekend was amazing J We basically did nothing and owned the entire base because the staff had their own retreat. But sad part of the weekend- the Swiss team left L We were pretty much begging them to stay with us but for some reason they just had to go. The Orlando team came back the day that the Swiss team left and ever since we have been a little anti-social. The base is suddenly a lot louder and more cramped…This week has been outreach prep week- cant say its been the greatest week of my life but its been good. We have learned some more about where we will be going and what we will be doing. I am soo excited to go on outreach!!! It sounds like its going to a very challenging two months but it will be very growing as well. So to prepare we have been doing some research projects on the Zambia and Johannesburg, preparing dramas/skits, and doing team building exercises.

March 6, 2010

This week has been umm…interesting. It was outreach prep and I can say that I did get a small glimpse of what it is going to be like on outreach prep. Its been an emotional week just to say that at least- a lot of extreme emotional roller coaster rides throughout the entire team. Wednesday was our “fun day” and it was not really anything like it was supposed to me but still was great J We planned to go to some sweet spots outside but it was rainy and super foggy all day. But we were able to start off in the morning going to this really sweet waterfall spot and it was amazing! I’ve been missing fun outdoor adventures so it really helped J After we went to this place called the “Pinnacle” which is an incredible spot to look out at see in this amazing canyon but as we were sitting there this HUGE cloud came and swallowed us up. It made us sad at first but then we decided it was pretty sweet to be able to say we ate lunch in a cloud J The rest of the day it was rainy so we weren’t able to go anywhere else we wanted to, but we had some great ice cream and pancakes and then went to the mall for dinner and a movie. The group I was with went to see this South African movie called “Jozzi” about Johannesburg- umm I wish I could describe this movie haha Lets just say there was no real plot, a lot of feather dusters and druggies, and random fake TV show characters that the main character talked to….BUT I am super glad that I saw it. The Africans all loved it and it was really sweet to see their sense of humor and laugh with them at it.

The rest of this week hasn’t been too exciting- classes, practicing dramas/skits, and team bonding with things like movies and campfires. Today had a “car rally”- aka a scavenger hunt using cars. It was a ton of fun to me! We ended up finished first but because we called for more clues than the other teams we ended up actually in last- but hey our goal was to finish first so we won in our minds J It was really a fun day- despite the cranky pants times haha I made up a song that made my car love me just so much- especially when we were losing J It has been a good week but I have been convicted a lot of needing an attitude adjustment- and I think that’s the same for all of us. I think this week has made us realize more of what it means to love each other- especially when we’ve been with each other for a long time now and know the personality flaws and annoyances of each other J But its something God is teaching us through so its good.