The Official Pro and Con list of this month:
Pros
– T Swifts new album (I’ve listened to the new Taylor Swift album too many times to count. I’m surprisingly not embarrassed about it. Everyone else in the house might have other feelings about it when I chose to put on TSwift instead of Christmas music. It just didn’t feel like Christmas this year what with the beach, summer and no family.)
-An amazing host family that has been trying to out serve us this month. They have just welcomed us into their home as their 12 daughters and we had at least five different kinds of meat for Christmas dinner
-Going to a church where you can worship in English in songs that you know mixed with new songs and not only understand the sermon but actually walk away feeling like you learned something to take away.
– Cape Town. If you’re debating going you should go. We had a great time even on a missionary budget on a short weekend. Climbing Table Mountain was harder than I thought but amazing once at the top at some point I’ll overload Facebook with pictures! ( I may have done the overprotective thing and warned boys (men probably my own age) not to kill themselves while the hung over the edge. Did I mention I didn’t know them?)
-We’re at the halfway point, technically we are over halfway done by a handful of days. And after next month we will have only two continents left.
– there is a coffee shop in town with filter coffee (not instant) and WiFi that you can Skype on!!
– The woman from my bank at home that helped me figure out bank things after I had already spent hours trying to sort out (it’s helpful when you don’t lock yourself out of your bank account, also to actually know your security question. Ain’t nobody breaking into my bank account including me!)
-beach down the street
– beaded wire Rhino trophy head
Con
– have you ever had this great CD( Tswift) that requires singing at the top of your lungs or dramatic lip syncing in your empty apartment or in the car? Well imagine how hard it is to not be able to do that for an ENTIRE year!!! Headphones and teammates staring at you is not the same -missing Christmas pajamas and sleepover with the sibs for the first time
-I want to be home. Christmas separate is hard especially when you see everyone talking about being with theirs all over Facebook. Even at church yesterday the pastor wished everyone a Merry Christmas and that everyone would have a great day spent with family. Most of us got something in our eyes around that time
-christmas cookies I didn’t have a chance to mess up the powdered sugar to water ratio this year
-stares when ridiculous dancing to ridiculous Christmas songs because teammates just don’t do it
-missing being ridiculous with my siblings and having a marvelous time doing it and everything that comes with that including sunsets and chick fila and target
-the 8 hour difference between home and South Africa which means the only time that people are really awake at home are not at the times I can be at the coffee shop
-crazy wind that means you can spend few days without getting whipped by the sand
I kept thinking I would have more to write about but this month has been a strange one. Not incredibly bad and we’ve been incredibly blessed but it has been a trying to stay present month.We had little ministry this month. In Jeffery’s Bay most everything ministry related closes at this time of the year. Combination Christmas holiday and Summer vacation. For two weeks we were able to put on a VBS of sorts for the kids who lived in the Townships near us. (Shanty town) The kids were cute and as always working with kids is my favorite. But then God gave us a holiday and we have had a low key past week and a half. It’s beautiful having time to recuperate and have plenty of time to have sleep and try to psych ourselves up for the next half of this trip.
Needless to say again but I miss being “home”.
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