Reality check:
I live in Africa
I sleep on a pool raft
My job is to teach teenagers about Jesus
It’s 90 degrees 24/7 and
Christmas is 5 days away
Never in a million years did I think this would be my reality, but I’m thankful for a God who likes to keep things interesting.
The past 3 weeks my team and I have been serving at a Youth Center where we get to hang out with about 30 of the coolest kids in the country. Since day one they have captured our hearts, and it has been a pleasure to be able to teach them truth, answer the hard questions, and just love on them. They teach me volleyball, and in return I teach them about Jesus. I can already tell this is going to be a hard goodbye when it comes time to move to Cambodia.
Last Friday was our last day working with them until after the holidays are over. There were lots of hugs, and we even had a talent show with poetry, singing, and dancing. On top of leaving this ministry for 2 weeks, Abbie, my youngest sister, had a birthday this past Saturday. This is the first time I have missed any of my sisters birthdays, and It was hard. I took a taxi into town so I could get wifi and facetime her, and realized that it was one of the first times I had a conversation with her in over 4 months. My little sister went half way through her 7th grade year and I wasn’t there to be a part of it. Also Dec. 18th marked the half way point on the race. 4 and a half months of blood, sweat, tears, and bringing kingdom to four different countries. It is bitter sweet knowing the race is half way over. Half way till I get to see my family again, half way till I can feel AC for the first time, but also half way till I have to say goodbye to the lifestyle God has called me to for this year.
Being on the race does something to ya that is hard to explain. It gives you the time to be thankful for the littlest things you wouldn’t think about at home, like frozen cups of Hot chocolate while you’re sweating out half your body weight. It also gives you the space to be an emotional wreck every now and then too. For example, when you and a teammate find yourself taking a selfie with a Christmas tree in the mall, while bawling like a baby.
Despite our crazy lifestyle and rollercoaster of emotions, this month has been one of my favorites. There is no tough situation that can not been redeemed, and I have been overwhelmed with a spirit of peace in every circumstance that has come our way.
Current update:
These next two weeks my team has been serving at an orphanage in Maseru that houses 18 kids. They love to sing and dance and teach us about how they do life in Lesotho.
A girl on my team, Miriam, is blending in better than the rest of us. She has been strapping babies to her back and practices carrying a bucket on her head since day one. (pretty sure she’ll be back in Africa after the race 😉 )
Our ministry host gave us all new names in Sesotho, so that is what we go by at ministry, and even sometimes around the house. Mine is Palesa, which translates to flower in English.
The other day some Filipino’s that are friends with our host, invited us to their Christmas party, and my team totally dominated in Karaoke. It was the first Christmasy thing we’ve done so far, besides listening to the Pentatonix Christmas album on repeat
Sheep and cows pass through our back yard on a daily basis
The boys on our squad live in the mountains far away, and they are being all manly and killing/cooking their own sheep for Christmas dinner, so if you have any ideas of ways my team could top that, be sure to leave it in the comments
Please continue to pray for our ministries, that God would open the eyes of the people that we come in contact with and continue to reveal truth to them. Also we have LOTS of people on the squad that are sick, and it’s not too fun when you live in the middle of nowhere, and for our team to continue to grow closer to each other and to God during the 5 weeks that we have left here in Africa
P.S. sorry I don’t post a lot of pictures, honestly if you just picture 7 girls who don’t wear makeup, bucket shower maybe once a week, and look like we get dressed in the dark (because we do) than that’s pretty much us, day in and day out 🙂
