After 45 hours of travel, we made it to South Africa! Juggling excitement, thankfulness, nervousness, and complete exhaustion, I can honestly say worth the wait.
We arrived at our ministry site, Impact Africa, at 6 am. After touring the beautiful compound, meeting our hosts, and eating some delicious oatmeal you better believe the majority of us napped. Fighting jetlag will be a struggle for sure! But hey at least I’m in the same time zone as my parents and family back in Greece! :p First time in a while!
Honestly not much to report yet as the first day was a rest day and an informational. Something I am going to share is my goals for this upcoming year. These goals are meant to push me out of my comfort zone and help me to thrive at life. ;P
- Patience. If you know me, you know I am not great with patience. If you don’t know me that well, now you know I’m not great with being patient. It is something I am hoping to work on this next year while on the Race. Having things out of my control I believe will really test that.
- Present. I want nothing more but to be fully present in whatever I am doing these next 11 months. I know for myself, as I know I’m not the only one, I struggle with constantly being on my phone whenever I’m bored. But guess what… this ministry site I’m on… NO WIFI! Praise be! Yes, this will be difficult, and some days it might just suck that I can’t communicate with all you guys. But this is going to push me to be present wherever I am at! It’s going to steer me towards making better relationships and enjoying the little things like admiring these bright South African stars instead of looking at a small bright screen.
- Selah. This is a new word I was taught. This word means to be still, to pause and be silent. Many of you know that I cannot sit in silence. It makes me uncomfy and I always feel like I need to fill that silence. My goal for this year is to pause and be silent with the Lord. Whether that is 5 minutes to 1 hour (woah) I am excited to see how this selah will impact my daily life as well as deepen my relationship with my Abba.
- Blogging. I believe I have already apologized about my blogging “skills”. I am not going to be the best blogger you have ever seen but I will try my absolute best to be honest with you all about how I’m feeling and how God is working in my life and in the lives of those around me at least once a week.
- Read. I am not much of a reader. Therefore, a goal of mine is to read at least one book each month on the race. At the moment I have started reading Bob Goff’s “Everybody, Always”. I’m sure many of you have heard of it! I’m excited to see what this book is going to teach me about loving everyone, even when you don’t feel like it.
A little update: This month I will be sleeping in a bed. I will have warm showers, a toilet of which I can flush the toilet paper in, meals provided for me daily, and a washing machine. Thank you Jesus. J (this update is mostly for my mama and yiayia. They tend to worry about me sometimes ;))
