October is always my favorite time of year!! My birthday is the 24th, my favorite season is fall, and my fave holiday is halloween!!! I just have always loved this month soooo much with hay rides, fall festivals, pumpkin flavored everything, trick or treating, haunted houses, etc. I always look forward to it every year, but this year looks a little different. First off, in Lesotho, it’s spring (just southern hemisphere things). So it doesn’t look much like fall here at all! And second, obviously they don’t celebrate halloween in much places besides the States, and especially not here. In fact, we really aren’t even supposed to mention halloween here because of how scared people are of the holiday because here, it’s real. Yes, they have real witches and people who get possessed, and it’s actually a scary thing. So we don’t want to mess with that spiritually, so we haven’t been able to do anything spooky like watch scary movies because we just don’t want to put that type of spirits in our minds or in our living space. At first this made me sad, but then I realized again why I was here and it was selfish for me to want that if it could be offensive to the place that i’m in.
But hey, at least my birthday isn’t offensive!!! The night before I chopped my hair off about 6 inches so she has a bob now!!!! The 24th started off as a normal day, went to ministry, got to call my parents (love you guys!!), was about to have lunch when i was told to wait in our room. So i waitedddd and then Lissie gave me a purple sparkly crown to wear as she led me into the kitchen. Everyone including our host family was in there ready to sing Happy Birthday to me!!! The table was full of balloons, presents like food and candy, and a giant chocolate cake with a rose on top!! It was so sweet and the best birthday party I’ve ever had!!! I got lost of lollipops, sweet chili and bbq chips (a delicacy here), watercolored notes from my teammates, and a super special necklace made by our host’s son, Jaime. He made a cross out of giraffe bone for my birthday, and it’s probably the best gift I’ve ever received!! I know I’ve probably said this, but Jaime and Jon are like the brothers I’ve never had!!! I love them and I don’t want to think about leaving my home in a week. 🙁
But I’m so truly lucky to be having my birthday here in Lesotho. Not many people can say that one (except maybe if they’re Basotho people). Yesterday, Abi said that she knew this was going to be one of her favorite places on the race and it’s only month 2, and that honestly couldn’t be more true!! This is truly a second home to me, and I’m so happy that I have an awesome family of teammates to be here with me!! Sometimes, since it does feel like home, I forgot how awesome it is here and the fact that I’m able to tell people about Jesus here is amazing. Please keep praying for my team and team Eliora!! We have 1 week of ministry left, so we want to make it count!! Also pray for safe travels as we are going to be leaving for Johannesburg next week and then flying out of there to India!!
Much love!!
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Also, if you look at the top of this page you can see my fundraising bar! It is not quite full, and it has to be full by the new year! So if 100 of you donated $40, I would be completely funded!! I know that God will provide because I know I’m supposed to be here on the field, but it’s super hard to fundraise from here!! So if you want to support me, you can donate right on my blog or please keep praying for donations for me. Thank you so much, and thank you so much to the people who have been supporting me from over a year ago!!! 🙂
