It sounds pretty crazy, huh? For the past couple of months I’ve had to explain to people that I wasn’t going to the “National Geographic Africa” picture they had in their minds. I must confess however that it would seem I had my own misconceptions about Africa. The first one I’ve noticed so far regards the weather. Oh my goodness, I had no idea it got cold like this in Africa. Most of the shirts, wait no, all of the shirts I brought are short-sleeved. Normally that would be sufficient, but it is still the end of winter here. So, after a few days here in Jbay, myself and many of my teammates had to go buy some warmer clothes. Then we were told we’d be going away for the weekend to a place called “The Bush” that is actually located in the bush. We were told we’d be camping, no showers, no electricity, possibly tents, and even colder temps. (And we thought we were roughin’ it at training camp!!)
We left UCSA (our living quarters in Jbay) around 2pm Friday and drove an hour and a half out of civilization, down dirty, bumpy, roads, and into a valley surrounded by large mountains. It was a cold, cold, cold weekend. It was a wet weekend. (It even hailed and poured one day as we ran back to shelter.) The elements made me incredibly sick and I spent the whole weekend in fairly poor health. That said, you have never seen the sky on a sunny day until you’ve seen the African sky. You have never seen hills until you’ve seen African hills. You have never seen a valley until you’ve seen an African valley. You have never seen a campfire until you’ve seen one in the African night. You have never seen flowers until you’ve seen African flowers. You have never seen wildlife until you’ve seen a family of baboons on the side of the road as you drive by. You’ve never truly seen and appreciated God in His creation until you’ve been to the African bush!
Despite how sick I felt the whole weekend, I was able to look around at everything I saw and simply be blown away by how good God is and how small I am. My God has a glorious imagination! My God paints with a heavenly brush and each stroke is a masterpiece.When I look around at the beauty of world we live in, even the beauty of my mountains at home, I wonder how anyone can see such creation and not believe. I wish that I was able to take more pictures during our trip to the bush. Unfortunately, I had taken my memory card out of my camera (I’m trying to keep the two separate in case my camera is stolen.) and was unaware until we returned that it was with me all along. I was however able to take a few, though they speak nothing off the world I saw this weekend.
Tomorrow, we will start ministry. Over the weekend, we were each given a list of 9 ministries and after we prayed extensively about them, were to number them in most to least preferred. Our leaders now have our lists and will be praying over them before they divide us into our ministries. They will attempt to give us one of our top three. I am excited and know that God will use me wherever He places me. Tomorrow and the rest of this week I believe, we will just be jumping into ministry and won’t each have our own official ministry until next week.
FYI: I’m posting three blogs on the same day because I was unable to post them before we left Jbay for the weekend. We have access to the internet if we go into town but there are some variables. One, internet time must be paid for (however an hour a week for “blog time” is covered through our funds) and two, we are not allowed to go into town by ourselves so if the group you’re going with isn’t going to one of the internet cafes-then neither are you. So, please bare with me. I will post one blog a week, as required. Now that we’ll be getting into more of a routine it will be a little easier. As for family and friends, I’ll respond to your e-mails as soon as I can. I love, miss, and appreciate you all! Please continue to pray for myself and my team!
