It Only Gets Better From Here

So I haven't been very good at blogging....or journaling for that matter. But I thought I'd catch ya'll up on what has been going on here. Last weekend was a girl's sleepover at Lynn's house(one of our leaders who lives off base). The night started with a puzzle and games. Then on to food; fajitas, which spoke right to my Texan heart, and chocolate chip cookies. All girls know that a girls night is not complete without cookies...they just set the mood for the whole night. After dinner was pedicures and mud masks. The masks made our faces hard and tight, maybe the way botox feels. So we all had good laughs about not being able to smile. Our pedicures somehow turned into party toes! Yes I know I'm 23 but it was girls night and it was fun, besides party toes are so much better than regular toes. Finally it was time for relaxation with a movie, however some of us didn't join in on the movie and had a very interesting girl talk instead. Of course the conversation led to boys, like any good girl talk, and I learned lots of new things about my new sisters and even myself. :) Overall it was a wonderful night. All the girls slept upstairs but Kelly and I had a bedroom to ourselves. It was weird not being in the same room as everyone after 5 weeks of sharing a room with 9 girls, but the quiet was nice; even if we did stay up til 1 in the morning giggling and talking.

This past week was wonderful! We had a powerful man of God come and speak to us, his name is Wilson Goeda. Our topic was Reconciliation and Forgiveness and there was definitely a movement in our team. After this week I feel like we are so much closer together and I love my new Africa Family. How blessed am I? I have 9 new sisters and 5 new brothers! Plus all our wonderful staff who pours into us week after week. On Wednesday night for community night, Wilson held a Celebration of the Nations. Each nation here had to come up with an act or presentation for the other nations to tell about their country. Along with the Swiss team that is here on outreach we had 5 different countries.....America, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, and South Africa. It was a blast watching all the other performances! Then afterwards we had a dance party! And Rebekah taught us the thriller dance, so watch out, I have Michael Jackson moves now.

So every Thursday we go to Dwaleni, one of the communities. I have talked about it before and it is my absolute favorite community outreach that we do. However, the past 2 weeks have been hard and I don't know if it's my favorite anymore. Don't get me wrong I love the children, I love playing with them, getting to know them and just giving and receiving so much love. But for the past two weeks I have helped serve the food, because it's a feeding program for the orphans. Dwaleni has by far the most children at their feeding program, over a hundred hungry children. So both weeks that I have helped serve food we have run out. The food gets less and less and somehow the line of children gets longer and longer. They just keep coming and coming and the food is not enough. It's one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever had to witness in my life. To walk out and tell these children in line who probably haven't had a meal since the feeding program from the day before that there is no food for them today, is the absolute worst feeling in the world. To see them standing there with no food watching all the other children eat is heart wrenching. That's not how it should be.....no child should go unfed, it's just not fair. I don't know if I can witness that another week.

Well lastly, this coming week is outreach prep week! Time to get ready for Zambia and Jo-berg! Yes it is a little early but this is the only week they could fit it in. And I'm excited about it. Our outreach leaders, Haley, Derek and Stanley, will be in charge this week. We will learn everything we need to know about both of this places and even dramas and skits to perform while we are there. It will be good team building time also. When getting ready for outreach I am reminded of something Wilson said this past week......"We are not bringing Jesus to Zambia/Jo-berg, he is already there. We are just revealing him to the people, to make him known where he already exists." And that's what I want to do, to be his tool for Zambia/Jo-berg, may he use me as he wishes!

If Jesus Were An Orphan.....

Would you feed him?


Would you clothe him?


Would you give him shelter?


Would you love him?

Just a thought.



If Jesus were an orphan when he saw you coming he would run to meet you, with open arms, full speed and smiling the whole way. If Jesus were an orphan he would greet you with a smile and ask you how you were. He would give you a hug and cling to you, never letting you go always keeping you at an arm’s reach. He would tell you numerous times how beautiful you were, and mean it. He wouldn’t care how long it has been since you showered, shaved or washed your hair. He wouldn’t care how much money you have, the clothes you wear, the color of your hair, skin or eyes. He wouldn’t care where you’ve been, what you’ve done or what you’re going to do. Your flaws and failures would mean nothing to him. What happened in the past would not be important to him, only the time you were spending with him would matter. He would just want you to love him and he would love you back even greater. He wouldn’t care how many times you had been there before; just that you are with him now would be all that mattered. He would love every part about you, from your head to your feet. Even the parts you dislike most about yourself he would embrace and make it special. If you turned away from him he would hold on to you, begging you to stay. When you left he would chase after you, running hard, always calling for you to come back. And waiting patiently for the next time so he could run to greet you with open arms all over again.

I know this is a weird metaphor but when we go see the orphans every week this is how they react to us. They run out to greet us, clinging on for dear life. They are so thrilled and they don’t care if it’s our first time to see them or our tenth. They love us just the same and all they want is to love and be loved. They hate to see us go, chase us when we leave and say how they can't wait til the next time. Just like Jesus. So the question is not if Jesus were an orphan; the statement is Jesus IS an orphan. He does all of these things and so much more. He is always waiting for you to show up and spend time with him. He loves it when you do. Nothing you have done before matters to him, you can come as you are. He will love you even more for it, never any less. He loves you unconditionally no matter where you have been or what you have done. And it only gets better everyday!

A Day in Africa (in pictures)

Wake up as soon as the first person does

because there are 10 girls in one small room

(and only one bathroom I might add)

Sit in our beautiful, comfortable classroom for half the day

for lecture

Pile 19 people in an 8 seater van.....
With 4 girls in the back sitting on top of the engine
Get to the end of the driveway and the van breaks down
in the rain!!! (So wait for someone to come get us)

Take a truck now, instead of a van. With 6 people

riding in the back in the rain

Play games, sing songs and feed over 100 orphans
And experience more love than you have ever experienced in your life

Heatwave vs Snowstorm

Privacy.....such a simple word that I never thought could mean so much. Maybe it's the fact that I share a room with 9 other girls, maybe it's the fact that all 10 of us share the same bathroom, maybe it's the fact that our only free time is at night and we can't wonder off alone or maybe it's the fact that no matter where I am on base there is always someone within 10 feet of me. Either way it has started to become frustrating to me. The correct definition for privacy here should be putting in your headphones and ignoring the 20 people around you as best you can. It is overwhelming at times and I find my patience running thin, so I take a deep breath and put my headphones in or just walk away for a little bit. We had a free weekend and some of our leaders were gone house sitting. Some people on my team and the Swiss outreach team that is here went to town and to the mall. So our base was relatively quiet and it was so nice and relaxing.

While everyone over in the states is having a hay day with all the snow, we are over here having a heat wave. For the past three days the temperature has been in the high 90's, yesterday it was 38C which is 100F!! The heat has been taking all our energy away but our pool here helps. There is at least 15 people in the pool every afternoon. But Praise God it rained, or should I say stormed like crazy, last night and today it is much cooler. Hopefully it will continue to get cooler because Summer is almost over and sweating all night as you try to sleep isn't the most comfortable situation to be in. P.S. I am completely jealous about the snow, can't say I have ever seen that much in Texas. Plus my yahoo home page says it snowed in 49 states in one day! That is just unbelievable to me.

Well Happy Valentines Day to everyone! I am not the biggest Valentines Day fan but it has been a good day so far. The guys on our team are so sweet...we woke up this morning to flowers on the table in the pavillion with a note that said:

To all the DTS girls/ladies.
Please Know and Understand that you are precious daughters of Christ.
His Love for you is unconditional and everlasting.
Please take a flower each as a gift from God saying: I LOVE YOU!

How sweet and thoughtful of them. And I am happy to be God's Valentine :) And to top off this lovely Valentines day we have tacos for dinner tonight! My favorite meal here and we get it every Sunday night. Normally it's community night where we have worship and games, however our leaders have a meeting tonight (and they did last week too)so we are gonna have our own worship service tonight. Well I hope everyone has a Happy Valentines Day and don't forget on this day that represents love, God's love for us is uncondtional. He is the greatest Valentine we could have because no matter what we have done or what we will do he loves us the same today, yesterday and tomorrow!

The Beauty Salon is Now Open

Welcome to the beauty salon.

On Thursday we have community outreach where we go to a community by our base and help with a feeding program. The children there are sooooo excited to see us that when they see our truck pull up they come running out to us and swarm us. Immediately they want to hold your hand or want a hug or just to walk with you. Most of them are pretty young so they know very little English. Sometimes it's hard to communicate with them but they don't care they just need love and attention. After they ate on Thursday they decided they wanted to braid our hair....not just one of us all of us. Some girls didn't like it but I love when people play with my hair so I let them go for it. It was relaxing until they would start fighting over my hair. haha But we had such a good time just sitting with them, playing games and singing. I can't wait to go back this week.

We have community outreach Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and sometimes Saturdays. Monday is a feeding program in another community that I can't spell. We normally just call it Cabo for short. The children at this feeding program are more shy and reserved then the children in Dwaleni. It takes awhile for them to warm up to us and by the time they do we have to leave. Last Monday while we were waiting on the children to show up we went next door to this lady's house who runs a daycare and we played with all the little toddlers. Again they came running at us when we walked up and just wanted hugs and hugs and love and attention. There is only one lady running the daycare with about 20 children. So I'm sure they don't get the attention they need. Wednesday we went to a bible study for the teenagers in Mbosweni. They don't really talk when we are around and it was kind of tough getting involved. However from now on Wednesdays we are going to this place run by Iris Ministries, called Michael's Childrens Home. (We went there this past Saturday) It is a small base where they take in orphans or abused children. They put them in couples homes so it is more family based and they get lots of love and support. We helped them paint, play with the children, build a playground and help dig holes for a prayer hut. It was wonderful and I can't wait to go again Wednesday. All the people there are so kind and thankful for the work we did for them.

Class hasn't started this week because we don't have a speaker yet. So today we did creative expression and painted. I am beginning to like the creative expression days, even though I'm not that great of an artist. This weeks lesson is the Character and Nature of God. Please be praying this week goes well, because last weeks class didn't go as excitingly as I had hoped. A lot of people on our team were disappointed, but I know God has a lot in store for us so this week can only get better!!!

Just for Fun

So I thought I would just have some fun with this blog and talk about a few little things. Number 1...you will never believe what I found in South Africa?!?! Dr Pepper!!! I mean seriously I was thrilled. I even didn't care that it cost double the price of a Coke. I learned this little secret from some fellow Texans who live on the base. Apparently they can't live without them and knew exactly where to find them, so during small group yesterday we made a special trip just so I could get some. I got 3 to be exact. And I am going to cherish them. So I know everyone has been so worried and excited about all the snake stories. So I have a special one just for ya'll. After church on Sunday we had all sat down to eat lunch. There was some commotion going on with the guys over by some stairs that are by the kitchen.....much to my suprise and luck there was a snake sunbathing on the steps. I went over to see it and just for you I got my camera and took a picture of our little friend.

There he is just for the world to see. I even watched them kill him but no I did not take a picture of that. They cut off his head with a shovel, Thank the Lord. Our leader said he has never seen a snake like this one before so we have no clue what kind it is? But he's gone now so no worries.

And finally for the best story of all. Today we found out where we are going on outreach. So April 12th my team and I will be leaving for Zambia!!! It is bush country, there are no real cities just villages with maybe a shop or two in it. The houses are made from mud and grass bricks and grass roofs. The food probably won't be the best and we may be sleeping in tents. I can honestly say I couldn't be more thrilled about this. I'm ready to experience it in all it's glory. We will be there for 4 weeks and then we are going to Johannesburg for 3 weeks. We will be working with an orphan ministry feeding them and building houses for them. So exciting! In between we may just have time to stop off at Victoria Falls, the biggest waterfall in Africa. That would be amazing. Well it's way past my bed time. I hope everyone is doing great and I love to read your comments so keep them coming!