Hollerin, Holy, and Hectic

I’m stuck! I finished my traveling journal on Tuesday—which was a life-changing day but I’ll get back to that part—and I haven’t been able to write since.  I feel so intimidated to start my new journal and continue on, as if I’m not good enough for it.  It’s becoming almost unbearable, so I’ll have to break it in and start writing immediately!  But back to Tuesday: because of this day, I will never look at life in the same way: 

A) My D-Group has out standing girls who are willing to be vulnerable and go deep with God and probably be my good friends for life

B) At D-Group after sharing our life stories we prayed for ourselves out loud—one of the harder things I’ve ever done—you try it

C) An incredible conversation with Shaun encouraged me to take up my cross and follow Christ everyday and be willing to suffer in His name at any price, even the small ones

D) After 1 am tears and parting hugs at D Group, the prayer chapel beckoned me into its Holy presence. 

E) I finished my journal praying for everything that had happened, wrote into thy hands I commit my spirit, and died to myself, to sin, and to things of this world to live a life for Christ and seek him alone, taking every thought captive, keeping only the ones that honor him.

F) I chose to listen to God’s nudge, woke up Leslie, and in accountability told another human being about my new revelations and commitments

G) I skipped across the lawn at 4am, feeling the joy rise from every bone in my body in a capacity I had never known before.

As for the rest of the week, it’s been a battle to keep the spiritual high and my commitment alive.  It’s truly been hectic with everything from #1 boys choir in the world to sightings of a world cup stadium, coffee overload, and zip lining through the jungle canopy like Tarzan/Jane/George of the Jungle. 

A stunning performance by the Drakensburg Boys Choir, who range from age 7-14 left me wondering how it’s possible.  They came out in perfect suits, singing traditional opera, transitioning into “Crazy little thing called love” and Michael Jackson, and then changing completely to traditional Zulu—sheepskins, drums, stomping, and all.  In my absolute favorite moment the lights went dark and each boy started clicking randomly, sounding like the animals in a forest.  Soon a hush came and a light patter began, followed by drizzle, hard rain, and booming thunder! It sounded so real, with flashes of lightening accentuating the effect.  Their voices were heavenly and their manners perfected! I so enjoyed them!

Today may have been one of the greater Saturdays of my life. Rather than squandering the day in slumber, we rose early to reach our canopy tours awaiting adventure.  In the pioneer group, I was #3 of 10 to zip fearlessly through the trees while admiring a marvelous open view of grassland, lakes, and majesty.  Apparently my body is completely out of control and I never learned how to brake with my hand until the very last (#8) line.  I would fly wildly through the air at unstoppable speeds, crashing into the safety break at the end, once even flipping over, slamming the rope, and falling backwards down the slide (I slightly damaged my arm and burned my hand by incorrect breaking technique).  I had no fear and leaped off the platforms, preparing myself for the nearing bungee date (AHHHH).  To end the perfectly African day, we played nertz and sang along to the Lion King. I have never enjoyed the Lion King so much as I did watching it in Africa, knowing that every one of those animals are within 20 minutes proximity. 

Most delicious meals of the week: sandwich #1 bacon, avocado and feta, and sandwich #2 grilled ham, cheese, and tomato.  

Miracles Abound 2/22

Another Monday means the start of our 5^th week here: our time is rapidly fleeing exponentially!  Although I’m stuck listening to group seminars in biology, I can blog happily knowing I only have 2 weeks of school left! Within the last week, I have been enjoying seeing each personality here truly shine and watching individuals take leadership roles, encouraging the rest of us.  We are slowly becoming a close-knit community, venturing out in trust, shared desires, and bonding in fun.  The chapel committee challenged us to give up our comforts for Christ, not serving out of our own good, but to glorify God’s purposes.  In that we challenged ourselves to partake in different Lent, thinking about Christ whenever we begin to miss things at home.

Following chapel, we were blessed by the most amazing story of God’s hand working that we are likely to ever hear.  The founder of African Enterprise in 1964, who initiated the conference center our campus is on, spoke to us today.  He witnessed the whole apartheid era into its destruction and rejuvenation of South Africa.  The destruction of apartheid, which means “apartness”, began in the late 1980s when the Church ran into theological turmoil.  They had been preaching that the God created different races for a purpose and found support for separate development in the Bible.  When a huge revival type conference was held for pastors of all denominations, Heyns, one of the Dutch Reform Church leaders called for an exegetical study of what the Bible says about race.  They discovered apartheid was a sin, taking away the government’s religious legitimacy to continue the movement. (picture = my chalet)

In 1992 after the outrageous political decision to release Nelson Mandela and unban liberation movements, African Enterprise worked hard to shower the country in prayer.  Marches were happening daily, people were being killed, and political activity was at its highest.  Realizing the need for God to work miracles in South Africa, AE organized a 24-7 two-year prayer.  People called in to sign up for 1 hour, 1 week, or any time they could pray from all over: churches, prison cells, little old ladies, people overseas, and anyone else who wanted to pray for the state of the nation.  Mike says that if you win the heavenly battle than He will bless you with a win on the ground as well.  He has amazing stories about how he took initiative to enable politicians from opposite spectrums to talk to each other through dialogue weekends spent in the bush.  In hearing each other’s stories and what brought each party to where they stand they were able to become friends and work together even if then didn’t agree on every point.  By the time elections drew near in 1994, people were going crazy and everyone thought that South Africa would go up in flames with the amount of explosions.  Much prayer, negotiations, and God moments worked together to create a political miracle.  The three political parties came together and declared to the people to take their place for the elections.  The four days leading up to the election were entirely crime free: the only time in history.  Everyone in the nation knew it had been a complete God moment and began to realize the power of prayer with miracles.

Time Flies

Each day here seems to last forever, but the weeks are passing too quickly! Yet another biology field trip blew my mind with the beauty of God’s creation.  In our exploration of the Umgeni River wetlands we counted insects like water scorpions and crabs to see how polluted the water is.  After the practical side, we half floated, half tromped down the river like real explorers to a beautiful waterfall.  The hills were perfectly green contrasted to the deep blue sky in the marvelous valley.  A little later that day Kailey and I had our first roommate clash.  We came to the realization that we are absolutely 100% complete opposites in every way.  She is a morning person while I love night.  She hates pink, the color I wear nearly everyday.  She has her whole wedding planned without being engaged, I am engaged without any wedding plans.  She likes to have a few close friends and be separate from the group; I thrive in group settings and love interacting with many people.  I like to be invited, while she invites herself.  Its wild, but we have decided that if we ever need to understand the other person we simply think the opposite of how we normally would. 

Friday proved to be a relaxing day without class, full of artistic flair and sporadic naps.  The cooks spoiled us with chicken enchiladas and guacamole! Absolutely delectable! After a game of mow (a game with no set rules), we had a huge bonfire.  Somehow we started playing the trust game: everyone had to make a confession before falling in trust into the arms below the wall.  The best confession was Stacy’s “My mom really does got it goin on.”  Roasting marshmallows and singing together with the guitar ended the starless night perfectly. 

Today’s hike provided excellent fun even if the cave paintings weren’t as amazing as imagined.  We saw baboons and a chameleon which we took home as our pet.  We played in the river in the beautiful Drakensburg Mountains and enjoyed spending time with each other.  

Love Day

Love is an action and not a feeling, an unselfish act that builds another up in encouragement.  I thought Valentines day would make me terribly sad with missing my fiancé; not being able to even give Jacob a hug or a small present to express our love.  Instead I was completely blown away by how far Jacob’s love for me reaches.  Even the thousands of miles didn’t stop him from delivering flowers and chocolate to my doorstep.  Somehow he researched a local florist and had the most beautiful red roses sent with a thoughtful note! I am so in love with this man of my dreams who surprises me beyond belief and know that I certainly don’t deserve him.  And Jacob even joined me for our delectable dinner of chicken alfredo and garlic bread in the Jabulani hut.  Well kind of.  We drew secret valentines to get a small present and card for and ironically I drew Jacob, the guy here who shares my fiance’s name.  We even drew twice and both times I picked him: Rachel and Jacob are simply meant to be together.  We all dressed up for our fancy dinner and enjoyed watching a movie together afterwards! (The picture below is a reenactment of me burning Sarah's hair off with my curling iron) A perfect day of love!

Today we visited the last service site: a place where 70 kids who have lost their parents due to AIDS play everyday.  They all live with either grandparents, older siblings, or some other relative who was willing to take them in.  The center has seven mentors who interact with 10 kids each: going to their homes, their school, and asking them questions while they play at the center.  Taking an interest in their lives will enable them to have a new future with a job, medical help, and a God who loves them.  It will be difficult to decide which service site to go to, and I have been praying that God will reveal his will.  At another site I could work at a school, baking, organizing, and teaching P.E. and then a woman’s home in the afternoons, building relationship and sharing life.  And still another great option is Walk in the Light ministries where I would help the gardeners and do home visits in the township. 

Prayer Requests:

• Classes are getting more intense.
• For my decision of which service site God wants me at. 
• My relationship with my roommate, who is my complete opposite.
• That I can build relationships with the AE staff and encourage them as they serve us.
• That God continues to mold my heart toward his will and reveal himself to me.  

A week of field trips

My faithful readers I am so sorry I haven’t written in so long.  Life has been so full of adventures that I want to write about but I’ve had no time to write it all.  Last week was simply amazing.  Our art professor took us on two field trips to different art museums and both times we ate at a coffee shop afterward.  Canaan you’ll like this one: I had a banana bacon sandwich! It was so strange, but so delicious! You should try it.  And at the other place, which was in a fancy hotel teahouse I got lemon tea and cream brulee pie.  The art was also fun: I found an artist that makes her paintings look like scrap booking: art I can identify with! On our biology field trip we had close encounters with giraffes and saw real life discovery channel happenings.  I am growing to appreciate the tiny creatures more and more as our professor points out the grasshoppers, spiders, ants, and other life sustaining animals that all work together as a part of nature. 

On Saturday we went to Durban to a market place and the beach.  At the market we haggled with sellers until they gave us low prices and on a venture into the streets Emma and I were surprised by a fight breaking out just in front of us and several other interesting sights, but a good find in the dress dept.  I loved the beach! The sand was extremely hot, but the water was refreshing.  Sarah, Kohei, and I ventured to play some volleyball with the locals, but we didn’t have socks so our feet couldn’t bear the heat.  We did end up making some friends! Lucky invited us to come back to Durban again and he would bring us our own net and ball: his whole life revolves around beach volleyball.  He is the coordinator for finding the beach volleyball Olympic team and has already been planning for two years.  He is number 19 in South Africa and they play in tournaments every month: we even met the number 6 duo. Watching them play inspired me! I wish I could be watching the winter Olympics right now, but sadly only 1 channel covers it for one hour late at night.  You better be recording iceskating : )  I made another friend at the beach named Tendai.  He works at a factory and is waiting to be an accountant, but he wanted to be a journalist.  He didn’t have the funding to go to school for it, but he writes poems and books in his spare time.  We had this amazing writing connection and I encouraged him to follow his writing heart to see where it takes him.  I am waiting for him to email me one of his poems to see how good he is and maybe help him publish something.  

Weekend of Learning

Whew! That’s my sigh of relief that I can finally slow down for a few moments.  This weekend was a cultural immersion, taking a trip to Durban to visit an Indian community, where everything went wrong and we had no itinerary.  On Friday we left around 2:30 on a trip that was supposed to take about an hour and half, until someone forgot their license, and then we had car problems ( our Prof lost 2 cars in one day) and we got lost, stopping at least 7 times.  We arrived around 7:30-8, about 6 hours later.  While I thrived on the bonding time, some people were extremely irritated and it just started the weekend off to a succession of lateness.  We woke at 4:50 to see the beautiful sunrise over the Indian ocean (pictured) along with several tiny crabs.  We visited an Indian market where I bought water for a man who called me his sister and felt like an outsider: under dressed, extremely white, and a minority for the first time in my life. At least they speak English here.  


We tried to have bunny chow for lunch, but after 2 unsuccessful hours we settled for pb&j so that we could get to the beach.  Oh the beach!! I have never set foot in such warm water; it was even warmer than a bath in some parts.  We wave jumped for over an hour, enjoying the cooler and warmer currents and observing the surfing lifeguard for signs of a shark.  In a sandy soccer game, I shocked my teammates by scoring a point!! So exciting! That night we had a brie (bbq) with our bunny chow (chicken curry inside a bread bowl- Canaan you would love it!)  We had 20 Indian guests who answered our cultural questions and played any game we chose.  We tricked them into star tripping and watched all of them laugh hysterically as their friend fell to the ground after spinning for 30 seconds.  Church on Sunday morning was interesting to say the least.  All the people were so hospitable and friendly- they even made us lunch afterward, and we were soon on our way back to AE.  The uneventful car ride gave way to exclamations at the site of our newly called home.  What a weekend of adventure: discomfort remembered.  

A real safari! 2/4/10

Wow guys! A week has flown by without any time to write about it! And oh the adventures we’ve had!! I must go back to Thursday’s safari with Sandy (our bio teacher).  We arrived to Tala Game reserve, hoping that we might get to see a few animals, with no idea what was actually in store for us.  Two safari jeeps took us all over the private reserve, revealing kudus, super tall giraffes, zebras, galloping wildebeests, grazing rhinos, swimming hippos, frantic ostrich, pumas (warthogs) and so much other wild life. On the muddy road our jeep tipped slightly sideways when we splashed through a puddle.  The biggest surprise was how magnificently large the rhinos were: they were grazing toward us with their giant tusk and intimidating death stare, even our tour guide semi-panicked.  We had to do an experiment where we named all the vegetation species in a square every 2 meters for 20 meters, mostly surveying grass.  Even though the exercise was tedious, I learned to recognize how beautiful each tiny part of the ecosystem is, down to every plant and loved giving them all wild names like African sunshine, button, teacup, and fuzzy grass.  The most striking thing to me about the day is that everything in nature is made for a purpose, from the giant grazing herbivores to the dung beetle that cleans up everyone’s mess.  Without any part, utter chaos would break out, unable for any part to survive.  That just testifies to how amazing God’s creativity is and how perfectly he designed everything with a purpose, even down to the termites that make good soil.  

Birthday!!!

Tossing in turmoil, I woke from my slumber in a panic.  I dreamed that I had a terrible birthday, with 150 people I didn’t know, I didn’t get any cake, there were rodents running everywhere and I didn’t even feel special.  Happily, when I got out of bed, the day began precisely the opposite.  The hallway outside my door was decorated with balloons and a giant happy birthday poster signed by everyone.  My chalet eagerly greeted me with cheers of happy birthday.  At breakfast the birthday committee had me stand on a chair with a giant birthday hat while everyone sang to me.  I felt especially loved when Reagan prayed for me during chapel, rejoicing in the celebration of the birth of the Father’s daughter.  I miss you family! It’s not the same celebrating without you and your crazy antics.  I missed playing games and eating my favorite foods.  But everyone did a great job of making me feel super special by calling me birthday girl and making a tunnel at tea time to my waiting birthday cake and another singing fest.  We even had a birthday workout after my long day of classes and now I’m waiting to open my present from my dear fiancé when he finally decides to get on Skype.  All in all a good celebration day. 

Swept away in the Spirit 1/31/09

Officially it’s the last day of January and the day before my birthday.  It seems a new surprise awaits everyday: today God amazed us with a lightening show that lit up the entire sky.  Yesterday held lions and birds of prey, the best being the beautiful owls.  I never knew vultures were such bullies; they attacked each other’s necks and got in a mean fight.  One even flew smack into the wall out of hunger.  Sadly I didn’t get to see the lions up close like the others as the mad owner came marching down saying we couldn’t be standing outside the gate, to which we witnessed Reagan’s anger.  In the midst of wild creatures, God caught my attention, particularly exposing the continual cosmic war between truth and lies.  A wise man asked do you really believe what you believe is really real?’  It gets you thinking… At the Pentecostal church the pastor spoke about the reality of spiritual warfare and how we must be preparing our hearts by obeying now so when the hard times come we can handle it.  I am expecting some very hard things to come up that will refine me as this message has been repeated since we got here.  Extremely different from anything I had ever before experienced, this Church seemed to be full of the Spirit with people dancing and singing in the aisles, praising the Lord in creative ways and joining in the prayers.  While I didn’t necessarily join in, I loved watching their joyfulness before our common King.  Several great conversations were initiated by these experiences and I have enjoyed developing true friendships with some of the people here, seeing into their thoughts and desires.  O and father you will be happy… I am officially lice free : )