AFRICA SUMMARY. (photos, and lots of ’em)

Goodness, I can’t believe Africa is done!

In just a week we head to Asia…
…hopefully to India, but our visas still haven’t been processed so that could be an issue.
Pray for that please!

So, I wanted to wrap up our time on this continent with
some highlights and overdue photos from the past 3 months.
Enjoy!

MOZAMBIQUE.

Mozambique was a crazy place to start on this trip.
Hot, humid, dirty, and wild. Culture shock to the max!
God taught us all a lot about not having expectations.
No running water, bug, rat and mosquito infested living quarters,
malaria outbreaks, witchcraft and spiritual warfare all quickly showed
us what we were getting ourselves into. It was a challenge I’m glad God
lead us in to, and looking back I wouldn’t change it.

I was excited to play with kids, but honestly, I’m not a kid person…I thought.
However, I’ll never forget the joy that I felt when swinging these kids in the air.
Even when my arms got tired,
they pinned me to the ground,
tickled me and pulled my hair,
I couldn’t help but love just being with them.
Maybe I’m the only one that’s played with them all week.

 

These kids are HILARIOUS.
I started out being all nice and sweet to them,
but this guy started mimicking me during church!
He made every move I made, so I started making faces.
We ended up just playing and laughing together.

There’s always a few rat, spider, bat, bug, snake, mouse, monkey or some animal kind of scare in each country….but they aren’t always caught on camera!
Therefore, you should feel honored to be able to witness this photo.
Our albino friend was the size of my outstreched hand and was living in our couch.

 

SWAZILAND.

Life in the Kingdom of Swazi was beautiful.
The mountains. The views. The people. 
Our ministry at Hope House was focused on relationship building and bringing joy to the patients.
Here’s some of the girls from my team with one of their favorite patients, Antionette.
She loved when Morgan would dance while the rest of us sang!

 

On Valentines day, our girls brought nail polish and we painted
the patient’s finger and toe nails.
Morgan and I didn’t have much to draw with except for a sharpie, highlighter
and some pens, but we drew these pictures for a girl who was about our age.
She smiled so big and just kept looking at them and holding them.

One day Morgan, Jason, Josh and I got to off road it in the bush of the Swazi mountains to look for some unsung heroes.
(This photo was taken while we were lost on the top of a mountain.)

We went with one of our contacts, Bob, who took us to the craziest mud huts, care points, mountain homesteads and farms. It was quite a day.
We met this old widow, nearly 99 years old, and her granddaughter.

We also met this cool guy on the street outside a coffee shop we frequented.
He was wearing the coolest stuff and had the coolest woven backpack,
when we asked where he got it from he told us he made it all.
When he offered to show us all his stuff, we couldn’t say no.
He set up his whole sales stand and we baught quite a few woven goodies.
He made all kinds of bags out of recycled stuff.
Mine was made out of old bilboards, orange juice cartons, and the local beer boxes.

Some afternoons we would organize the garages of local missionaries.
These missionaries over saw most of the care points throughout Swaziland.
Their garages were full of food, clothes, medical supplies and books and toys for kids, but it was also home to rats, bugs and dirt.
We would empty the whole garage out, clean out the dead rats, rat poop, sweep the dirt, and re-organize everything into categories.
These were long days! But we made them fun…

Organizing medical supplies….

Here’s our group photo on our last day at the AIM House before leaving our awesome contact, Xolani! (His name is said with one of those crazy ‘clicks’ in the tongue…I’ll have to say it for you when I get back!)

 SOUTH AFRICA.

South Africa is extremely westernized and wealthy.
Our ministry looked different here. 
Like I said in my last blog,I got to work with graphics and
help construct a website layout for Popup Ministries! It was great.
Everyone at Popup was amazing and welcomed us like family!

Here’s a rough draft of the website I helped with.
It will be changed from what it looks like now, but I was stoked to be able to help with the beginning stages!

We also got to do outreach in the city and talk to the students at the University of Pretoria.
It was cool getting new outlooks and asking them questions about God and life.

Joshua and I met some really sweet girls on campus, this is our new friend Noxolo!

It’s not all work, and our weekends off are fun, needed and relaxing.
We love going out to eat and sight seeing. Coffee shops, shopping, food…it’s great.
So far my favorite night was going to watch the Burkina Faso vs. Ghana game at one of the world cup domes. It was so fun!

Out to eat for Alison’s birthday!

The best part about last weekend was attending the launch service of the Pretoria Hillsong church plant. We got to be part of their first steps here in Wonderboom!

Also, I eat a lot of peanut butter and broke this trampoline.

…………….So, yeah…I was listening to my iPod one night, worshipping Jesus,
singing “Beautiful Things” by Gungor at the top of my lungs,
jumping like crazy, and then boom.
My feet hit the ground.
Guess I better lay off that caramel crunch peanut butter…..

My team Grow Freely has become some close.
I love these girls with all my heart. (From left to right, top to bottom)

–Morgan, the most hilarious person I know. I can vent, talk, laugh and be so weird with her. She always laughs and makes weird faces with me.
–Jess M, our spontaneous, beautiful and fun leader who isn’t afraid to talk about the hard stuff. She loves dogs.
–Hannah, a ravishing woman with the gift of prophesy. She knows what it means to hear the spirit.
–ME…having fun cooking some tasty dinner.
–Jess H, full of the wisest advice and words for our team. She always knows what to say and I love listening to her. And…’hilarious’ is an understatement. 
–Christel, not only our team finance person, but one of the most honest, truthful, beautiful women I know. Her boy friend is so lucky to have her! I always know she will ask the hard questions when I need to hear them. 

Tonight I got to plan our team time, so I planned a scavenger hunt.
We ran all over the Popup grounds and the clues lead to a bag of
marshmellows and kit-kat bars, and we had a ‘bonfire’ in the kitchen
and made s’mores. We don’t mess around when it comes to eating.