Hey everyone! It’s been a while since my last blog. This blog is going to highlight my first month in South Africa, and all the wild and crazy times I had.
First, here is my Thailand Highlight Video!!! Hope you enjoy!!
My first month in South Africa was very rough. After our 12 hour plane ride from Thailand to Qatar and Qatar to Johannesburg, we stayed in Johannesburg for the night. While staying at our hostel, I started to feel very sick and nauseous. As I hopped on a 20 hour bus ride to Cape Town, my condition worsened, and I stayed up all night on the bus with a high fever. After losing all of my strength, and waiting 6 hours in a bus depot in Cape Town, my team finally got on a bus for Jeffrey’s Bay. This was another night bus ride, and took 10 hours to get to where we would be staying. I was quite surprised when we pulled up to where we would be staying. It turned out to be a very cute flat. The guys had there own room and bed, and so did the girls, and we shared a bathroom.
As soon as we arrived I went to the doctor. When the doctor finally saw me and took my temperature I was at 104°. I was given antibiotics and bedridden for two weeks.
During that time, with what energy I had to spare, our team would explore the cute little downtown that Jeffrey’s Bay has to offer. There are a ton of surf shops, which I know my family would be all over. My go to store now in Jeffrey’s Bay has to be Billabong.
All of the guys also bought surfboards while in Jeffrey’s Bay. Not many people know this, but Jeffrey’s Bay is the number 2 surf spot in the world. This is because the waves crash “hard right”. Also, when in the water, the waves can get up to 12 feet tall!!! Yikes!! My only surfing experience was when I was still sick and had just bought my surfboard. Lucas and Jake peer pressured me into getting in the water with my board, and we swam a little ways out. Now, the wind was extremely strong and was creating 10 foot swells, making it very terrifying. The current was also sucking us out further and further. With the waves getting higher and higher, I was for sure I was going to drown. Since I didn’t know how to use my board yet, I screamed to Lucas to surf in while I tried to paddle in. After struggling for 5 minutes, all of us eventually made it to shore. Sadly, I have not ridden my board since that day.
We have done some other pretty cool things while in Jeffrey’s Bay. One Saturday our ministry contacts friend, Roeloff, took us cliff jumping. There was a pool of water in between these cliffs, and people would jump in. Now, there was a 15 foot cliff you could jump off, and a 50 foot cliff to jump off. We all did the 15 foot cliff no problem, but only a few dared the 50 foot cliff. As I stood up on the edge, I looked over and scared myself silly. It ended up taking me a HALF HOUR to jump off that cliff. But when I did, it felt like I was falling for well over 20 seconds, when in reality it was only like 2 seconds. That was one of my favorite days on the Race so far.
A few days after Christmas our team and the other team living in Jeffrey’s Bay went on a road trip to Cape Town for New Year’s Eve. It was also so the guys could go on a “MANistry” month trip to Lesotho. While in Cape Town, we got to see some absolutely gorgeous sights. There is a penguin beach that my dad and I visited last time in Cape Town that e ended stopping at. We didn’t end up going down to swim with the penguins, just got to look from afar. That same day we drove all around the Cape Point, seeing all of the wildlife and eventually hiking up Table Mountain. The hike up was absolutely breathtaking! We started hiking right after dinner, and ended up having to take the gondola down because it had gotten dark. But the views from the top were astounding. On one side you had the city of Cape Town, sprawled out over the entire landscape, and on the surrounding sides we had other mountains covered in clouds and the sea striking out endlessly chasing after the setting sun. The day after we went shark cage diving. It was here that I learned that I get sea sick. The hard way. Which involved throwing up off the edge and into the wind, blowing all over Lucas. And the worst part was that we didn’t even get to see sharks in the cage. Above water you could see them just fine, but once underwater you couldn’t see them even if they were 2 feet away. Our final adventure was spending New Year’s Eve with our hosts son and his friends on the Boardwalk in Cape Town. It was a cool pier that I had visited before, but watching the fireworks front row was very cool. And 3 hours later I hopped on a bus to Lesotho.
Now, I did have a very crappy two weeks followed by a cool last week. Christmas Day was especially fun, because we had Secret Santa. Jake had me, and decided to get me a bunch of gag gifts. He got me energy chews because I was so tired, a “South Africa Farmers Investors Weekly” magazine, along with Train Simulator 2007 for Windows 7 and Vista, with extra bonus maps (which essentially meant a game about driving trains that I couldn’t play because I had a Mac). But, he did also get me a ball that bounces on water as well as a cool Element hat. I had Hannah for Secret Santa, and I got her a T-shirt that she really wanted, along with a bracelet that donates money to children in need. The Secret Santa was really fun, and helped ease the pain of not being home for Christmas. After church, we went to our hosts restaurant for a Christmas lunch. Now, our host had asked me to cook something. I ended up cooking our family’s Curry Cream Corn for the entire restaurant. After eating an absolutely delicious lunch, our teams went outside and played a game of baseball with an empty 2 liter and a ball of wrapping paper and tape. All in all, Christmas was a very fun and delicious day.
But, through all of this, God was trying to teach me something. He had been re-emphasizing his want for me to rely on him, especially when I was sick for two weeks straight. He had already been working on me with that when I was bitten by a dog in Thailand (whole other story in one of my earlier blogs). But I think one of the most important things God taught me my first month in South Africa was obedience. The one day of ministry that I got to participate in was working on a horse farm. We mainly just fed the horses and cleaned their paddocks. We also had the opportunity to go into a large property across from the farm to grab some of their horses for rides. We walked 20 minutes before we reached the stud of horses. After we had put on the harnesses, we had to lead them back to the farm to be ridden. The horses were very stubborn, and leading them was very difficult. The horse I was leading was always fighting me, and wanting to turn back. But I pushed on, bringing the horse with me. God showed me a vision of myself leading the horse a few days before, and showed me that I was like that horse. He would be trying to lead me to where he wants me to go, and I fight him and try to go back to the herd. But he asks me to trust him, that he will be leading me to greener pastures to lead more than just the ordinary life. This really got to me, and really got me thinking on how I start to let God take charge of more of my life.
Thanks for reading!! I will try and get a blog about Lesotho as soon as I can!!
