God has blown me away yet again with his Beauty and
Majesty. This month we are in Coffee
Bay, South Africa. Coffee Bay is a
village about an hour and a half from the nearest city. There is mountain after mountain decorated
with little green, cream, and pink huts that back up directly to the Indian
Ocean. The coastline is covered in sand,
rocks, and cliffs. It’s absolutely
breathtaking. And there are no big
buildings or many cars that can distract you from the beauty of it all. And the best part of it is that we are
camping this month! I can see and hear
the ocean from my tent. It’s absolutely
the best way to fall asleep every night and wake up every morning. Oh and don’t even get me started on the most
beautiful, clear starry sky we get to gaze upon every night. I am soaking in every minute of getting to
just be in God’s creation. I get to
watch the sunrise while running alongside the ocean and over hills. I get to soak in the sun in the middle of the
day. And I get to gaze at the billions
of stars that decorate the sky at night.
Most of the time it doesn’t even feel like this is real life.
A group of us got
together last Saturday and decided to go for a 3 hour hike to the “Hole in the
Wall�. It’s basically this huge
rock/mountain like structure in the ocean that has this big hole in the middle
of it. The hike one way takes 3 hours
and runs along this tiny trail that winds around the mountains that line the
coastline. So basically there are 5 of
us are walking in a straight line along this narrow path, trying not to misstep
and go crashing into the ocean below.
Through it all we stopped and just took in the beauty of God’s creation
and had a few photo opps. It was not an
easy hike by any means, lots and lots of ups and downs over mountains. I only fell all the way down 2 times, but I
did trip and turn my ankle a whole lot of times. We made it to the hole in the wall, exhausted
and starving. We enjoyed a snack, stared
at the hole for a while then decided it was time to head home since it would
take 3 more hours. We started to walk
back along the road instead of the coastal trail and after about 2 hours we
were wondering how we were going to make it back. We were either going to die from starvation,
dehydration (yes we ran out of water), dogs (we only got surrounded once), or
hypothermia (the sun was setting so it was getting quite chilly pretty
quickly). Finally our sweet Jesus came
through and provided us a truck to ride in the back of for the rest of the way
home. We were SO grateful!! So yes I guess you could say I unofficially
hitch hiked in South Africa. I never
thought I’d do that. But after 5 long
hours of hiking, we were so happy to be home and have some delicious supper. Every step was worth it. Just getting out and wandering along the
mountainside of South Africa was so energizing for my spirit. Through it all we dubbed ourselves “Adventure
Club�, and it was quite an adventure! I
can’t wait for our next one.
