Most of the moments and memories are “had to been there” moments, but they are moments I never want to forget. The funny times, the weird times, the small moments, the in betweens, I want to look back and be able to think back to such a wonderful time as now. This a blog for you because I want you guys to know the small and simple, but significant moments that don’t get written about… but it’s also for me, so here we go.
- One night, a few of us went walking to McDonalds (it’s about a 5 minute walk from our house), and where we stay has an electric gate that gets locked, and sometimes we would return home too late and it’d be closed. Well, this night was one of those, and it led us having to ARMY CRAWL under the gate, and it was something interesting, let me just say. During us trying to crawl under, one of the girls was a little nervous, because well, it was a tight squeeze and it was just a weird situation, and the Alumni Team Leader for the boy’s team, Jesse says to my ATL, Maggie, “Think skinny thoughts!” It was so funny, and a moment I won’t forget. It’s only okay because Jesse was the one who said it, and if you know Jesse, you know what I mean when I say that.
- Our first month here, our ministry hosts surprised us with an local adventure day to the watering hole. It’s this beautiful area, that holds a fond place in my heart because of the fun and sweet (but also painful, lol) memories. There was a 45 foot cliff there, a “do it yourself” zip line, and a waterfall. I jumped right on the idea of jumping off the cliff, because you know, adrenaline junkie, and while jumping off that cliff and landing in that ice cold water, a sis was not okay. I landed funky, and I was in PAIN…. but most importantly, I am pumped I did it. Secondly, I tried doing the zip line, and lost grip and straight busted into the water, and it was as soon as got on so I was a-ways up still, and basically, it was not much fun. I back busted for sure. And lastly, the genuinely exciting activity…. waterfall sliding. My teammate Hannah is a little dare devil, and thought of sliding down a waterfall that we had no idea about, but she went for it, and then we all went for it, and that one, I did it a few times.
- One night, when we were having all squad worship, one of our guys, Alex led us outside onto this brick circle right outside our house, and there we just spontaneously sang and dance, and praised and rejoiced getting to be in the Lord’s presence surrounded by strangers that were beginning to feel like family.
- Remember UCSA? The camp we got the opportunity to be camp counselors at? One of the nights there, my team walked to a local restaurant called Brewhaha, and it was just a really sweet night I don’t want to forget. It was a night we were finally feeling a sense of true bonding and sisterhood. We discussed silly things that led to only more silly moments that led to so much laughter. It was also so sweet because UCSA was a very hard ministry for us, and that night, it was a time of refreshment, and just joy.
- Now, this one will get ya…. our ministry hosts had us do an “Amazing Race” throughout Jeffrey’s Bay, and the whole day was INTERESTING, but this one in particular is something I want to remember always…. there is a small waterpark here, that has a water slide, and one of our challenges was to slide down it 100 TIMES. And, it was TIRING. But, fun, as heck. Adrenaline, excitement, energy, freedom was what it entailed.
- One of my Sabbaths was spent with my teammate, Sarah, and our squadmate, Mason. This is one of those really simple moments I was talking about. Us three literally just sat at one of our dining tables for like 3 or so hours, while Sarah tried helping Mason write his blog, and it was FUNNY. It was just a good time, simple moment but a good one. There was a lot of laughter and watching Sarah and Mason interact because of their different personalities just made it all the better. IYKYK.
- When Sarah almost pulled her pants down in front of Zach because she didn’t realize he was in the kitchen…..
- NOW, this is a good one, I tell ya. This was a time that I would have never expected to happen, but because Jesus LOVES ME, He made it happen. There’s this thing the World Race does if there are two squads that are near each other at time of debrief, and it’s called an Awakening where we run the whole thing and it lasts about 2 or 3 days. We run sessions, and do the hospitality, and what not. And we just happened to be near a squad. It was the squad in eSwatini…. that one of my best friends from home is on, Gracelyn. SHOUT OUT TO YOU, SISTER. It was sweet getting to see her and hear how different life is, seeing each other with our new families, in a new season of life. Who would have thought I would see my gal pal from Lubbock in Pretoria, South Africa?
- Debrief time— our hostel we stayed at for our Month One debrief had a pool, and I jumped in it. Fully clothed. Baggy jeans and a baggy shirt went in the pool with me, and it was a happy moment. A few minutes later, Mason, Will, and I all decided to jump in again, and they were clothed too. And I jumped in again, but only because Mason tackled me in, and Will chickened out.
- Still during month one debrief, we got the fun opportunity to go to a movie theatre (say what!), and The Joker had just come out, so a few of us decided to go… bought our tickets, and went and sat in the theatre for 45 minutes waiting for it to begin, because every 5 minutes they would come and say, “Just 5 more minutes, there’s technical difficulties”, but hey the positive of it was we had really good conversation while waiting for the movie to never start!
- During one of the nights at debrief, we had a lip sync battle which was a whole ball of fun and laughter. For my team, we dressed up as the boys and impersonated them, and did things like draw tattoos (@ Hannah), wear similar clothes, sang “Tennessee Whiskey” because that’s a song they would frequently sing, and so much more. It was a good time.
- The most beautiful worship night that we got to be apart of with Beats and Books. Tons of people from the community came, the other 2 girl teams came, and we sang and danced to Bombelela, and just praised Jesus. We even got to be apart of the singing group with our sweet kids, while the rest of them played piano, violin, the drum, and the trumpet. It was refreshing, and it was freeing.
- We live on the 3rd floor of our cutesie log house, and we have a shelf right by the window, and Sarah’s huge book fell out the window onto the ground.
- Sarah and I had a day when we got back to Jeffrey’s Bay, or let me say an entire weekend, that we call the “emo extended one on one”. At one point, Julia even came down and shared her birthday cake with us, because you know, it was one of those moments.
- One of my squadmates, Morgan, (shoutout to you), introduced us to “Excuse Me Raps”, and we spent a good 30 or minutes coming up with each of them. I would share mine, but maybe let’s save that for another time……
- One night, Shelby and I didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to be out past dark driving with only 2 people, and we got into this cab, and literally debated jumping out of the cab because it was sketch as heck, and it’s actually really hard to explain what was happening and how we felt in that moment. But, hey, we survived. LOL.
- HALLOWEEN NIGHT, or I mean “the last day of October” because we aren’t allowed to celebrate Halloween—— Julia and I baked a whole brownie cake for our team with orange icing, and we ate that boy in seriously 5 minutes. We did not stop to breathe. After the brownie, we ate way too much sugar, and we were acting CRAZY. Sugar highs are for real. We laughed for days, and it even led us to creating a “passcode” for our room, that we made with paper and taped outside on our door, and only we knew, and we had to put it in each time we opened the door, and had to say our name. (Spoiler alert, that lasted a good one night)
- The night Sarah and I were acting like goons. I was actually about to pee my pants (you know how one bathroom for 25 girls goes), and running around in circles, trying to be okay, while Sarah was acting like a surfer dude. Imagine a surfer accent saying, “You don’t have to sacrifice oxen, you just have to love”, and all kinds of odd things, with Grace joining in. I almost peed laughing, LITERALLY.
- Mornings I like to get up fairly early, and it’s typically before most people wake up, and I grabbed my Hydroflask and was starting to run down the stairs, when my lid on it came the heck off, and my LOUD Hydroflask went tumbling down the stairs, clinking and clonking, making every noise you can think of. Pretty sure it woke the entire house up, and later on someone said it sounded like someone died. So there’s that.
- One night, we all started talking about Kanye’s new album, which led us to dancing and singing to random songs that we could LIT to, and we eventually ran to the school that’s next to us, almost set off some alarms, and ran to the upstairs, and just danced for at least 45 minutes, and even made a few music videos.
- Courtlan’s birthday party night, when we went into the school to have a line dancing party, and we set the alarm off THREE times, and the Schmart Security guy came in right before Courtlan was walking in and we were waiting in the dark to surprise her, and two people told him to “SHHHH!”.
- LICE OUTBREAK. Month one came the lice, and the lice stayed with us until just before Cape Town. The first few times, my team hadn’t been hit….. not until the most recent time did my team finally get it. It was a journey, and none of us know how it all began.
- Waitressing for a local radio station’s fundraiser dinner. The whole evening. I can’t even explain.
- While there, and we were washing dishes, Julia accidentally broke a plate, and went and hid it underneath a traffic cone….
- For Julia’s birthday, we took her to Nina’s, this cute restaurant here in JBay, and Shelby is about to ask a waiter a questions, and turns to me and says, “I think we have the same question….” And asks him, “Where do you get your pumpkins?”…. (Another spoiler alert, that was not my question, I was only asking for him to bring me some sauce for my food) I think this is one of those “had to been there” moments.
- That one time I spent $13, also known as my ENTIRE food budget that was suppose to last me 2 days, on a tiny bag of cashews because I had no idea the price. 🙂
- The cool surprise we got by having one of the 11n11 teams come and join us. It was month 11 for them, which means completely opposite ends of the journey. We got to hang out and talk about life and their Race with them for about 2 weeks, and it was just a really cool experience. (They are now home, shoutout to you girls. WISHING YOU ALL, ALL THE BEST.)
- We were on the local Jeffrey’s Bay radio station, and were on AIR. I got to speak on there, and it was so SCARY, but hey, I can now say I’ve been on the South African radio. So!
- When we went to Cape Town, and it happened to be my birthday one of the days, our motto was this… “It’s Karson’s birthday, it doesn’t count” or “It’s Karson’s birthday, do it”. Basically, we were using the birthday excuse to eat and buy whatever, and it was actually a REALLY great excuse that led us to a lot of joy (lol), and basically that motto lasted the rest of Cape Town, so…
- On my birthday, we ended up at this BEAUTIFUL vineyard, that we have no idea how we ended up there. It had food trucks, desserts, cool little booths, the atmosphere was just so much fun.
- One evening, Hannah, Grace, and I were having a dance party in the kitchen, and during my little dance of the “shoot”, my ankle totally gave out, and I slow motion collapsed, and we were cackling because it was WEIRD. Also, feel like I should add…..I saw Hannah wall-twerk for the first time to Gasolina (LOL)
- Wow. This night. We got to dress up for a decade’s dance and our decade was 2000’s. Everyone stole everyone’s clothes, I cut this $3 shirt, and we wore silver eyeliner. It was so fun. For the dance, we danced to the cha cha slide in front of everyone invited to the dinner/dance. We got to see oldie’s dance and it was so GREAT, our age people dance, and little’s dance. FUN.
- This one is during the same night, and this moment I especially do not want to forget. We had a dance party with the Global Challenge missionaries that just returned home from their year, and we literally danced until 2 a.m., and we even learned how to saki (which is SO FUN. It’s comparable to maybe line dancing or two-stepping but its definitely an Afrikaans thing).
