Just wanted to give you all a little update! Our squad ended the month of January with a five day debrief in Livingstone, Zambia. Debrief is a time to relax, refuel, learn from one another, and reflect on what the Lord has been teaching us. Our coaches, Jamie and Julie, flew out from Pennsylvania to be there and made it a really restful time for us. We worshipped together, cast vision for the upcoming month, and had time to seek wisdom from leadership.
Right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop in South Africa. Yep, you read that right! My squad isn’t supposed to be here as our next country was going to be Zimbabwe. Due to the political unrest, Adventures decided it wasn’t safe enough for us to go. The girls have been rerouted to Swaziland and the guys to Lesotho which are countries land-locked by South Africa. Our travel has been pretty crazy so far. At 2pm on Thursday, we took an hour long mini-bus ride from debrief in Livingstone, Zambia to the Zambia/Botswana border. We got off the bus, grabbed our big packs and hopped on a quick five minute ferry to Botswana. Come to find out, the immigration office was a bit of a walk from there. Normally I’m all about a little walk, but 90° with our big packs, backpacks, and bursting at the seams snack bags made this an intimidating adventure. I admit I hired someone to carry my big pack for me and it was the best 2 dollars I’ve ever spent. To say we were all sweaty and smelly when we reached immigration would be an understatement. After our passports were stamped, we got taxis to the bus station where we waited 5 hours for our overnight bus. We boarded the bus and were on the road by 10pm. At 1:15am they woke us up to get off the bus with our passports. We had to get the bottoms of our shoes sanitized and officers checked our passports. This part is kind of a blur to me because it was the middle of the night (and I left my glasses on the bus thinking we weren’t going far- once again I was reminded how blind I am.) Apparently this was just a random check point to make sure people were passing through Botswana legally. At 5:30am we arrived in Francistown, Botswana and switched busses. We had time to pay to go to the bathroom and then brushed our teeth with our water bottles. This bus was for polly pockets… the seats were so cramped. I started out in a window seat in a row of three and kept waking up panicking about the lack of space. Normally I can sleep regardless of circumstances, but this was not the case! Thankfully there was an open aisle seat closer to the front and moving there made a big difference.
A few hours into the bus ride we made it to the Botswana/South Africa border and went through immigration. We got back on the bus and eventually arrived in Pretoria, South Africa. Another bus picked us up and 20 minutes later we arrived at the Adventures in Missions base there that was kind enough to host us for the evening. They had a home cooked meal ready for us and we all took greatly anticipated showers. Praise the Lord for a meal, a shower, and a bed!! The guys left the next morning at about 6am for Lesotho. Our host in Swazi won’t be ready for us until tomorrow (Sunday, Feb 3) so we are spending a fun day in Joburg. We went to a museum this morning and will be going to the mall of Africa this afternoon. We’ll sleep at the AIM base again tonight and then hop on an 8ish hour bus ride to Swazi in the morning. Are you tired just reading this? Me too.
I know I’ll look back on these days and wonder how I did it. Know that your prayers are a big part of the reason I’m able to! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Praising God for health and endurance!
••this blog was written on Feb 2nd, but not posted until today due to limited WiFi. We’ve made it safely to the AIM base in Swaziland! We won’t be getting personal SIM cards in our phones this month due to a law that you must be a full time resident of Swazi to purchase one for your phone. I should still have access to WiFi once a week for a couple of hours! I hope everyone is staying warm in the polar vortex. Sending thoughts of warmth and sunshine your way from our part of the world••
If you’ll answer these questions in the comments it’ll be a day maker for me. How are you? How can I be praying for you? It helps not to feel so far away when I get a little update & can pray more specifically for you 🙂
Love to all!
