(I have been meaning to post a blog on ministry this month, but internet time has been limited so I have to keep you waiting for the time being- sorry!)
Christmas in Africa is well for one hot. there is no yummy mexican food or turkey and dressing or deviled eggs. there is none of my moms delicious breakfast casserole or my cats :[ all this week we have been talking about how it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all, but today it does! yeah, there has been no build up- no shopping, no Christmas songs (besides the ones Melissa has generously played in our room off her computer :] no Christmas tree- except the one Natalie made us out of construction paper :] no Christmas eve service, no snow (hey, there was ice in Dallas last year!), no stockings or lights or anything here really to remind us of Christmas- my point being, despite not having all the things and traditions my family and I normally have associated with Christmas, Jesus’ birth is still the meaning behind it. Today, we do have God’s love. lots of it and 3 cute adorable kiddos to make me feel like one myself.
Today the kitchen crew surprised us with yummy banana chocolate pancakes! Then we exchanged our gifts with our host family and their kids. I got a play tiger!! a sweet south African jersey and yummy chocolate and beef jerky. Later we’re putting on a play about the birth of Jesus, taking communion and eating a yummy meal. this has been the simplest Christmas season I have ever had, but it has been the most meaningful. why? because its been all about Jesus and not about anything else!!
its about finding joy in HIM.
December has been all about God showing me His joy in the daily tasks. My prayer this Christmas is that you take a step back. relax and find Gods joy. find His sweet love for you. find MORE of Him and less of you. to my family- miss you tons!! love you guys. thanks for always supporting me in all I do. my Dmoney- miss you mas!!!! i loves you and I’m so proud of you for chasing after God in all you do. miss yooou all:
so recently I have had many small daily, but yet joyful moments and in the spirit of giving I wanted to share a few with you…
playing Frisbee on the beach with Kimberly, Peter, Zenika, little Johan and Dirk. Dirk kept skipping Kimberly and thus his punishment was a kiss from her. the sight of seeing her chase him as he ran away from “coodies” made me smile.
watching Marie rescue 3 baby monkeys on 3 different occasions on the side of the road. she told the Africans they could either give her the monkey or go to jail (its illegal to sell monkeys in Malawi)
hearing cute little Dirk call me “hoody” every day because he can’t pronounce woody (last month my name was wendy- so its an improvement).
feeling rich after going to the ATM for team money because Malawi’s biggest bill is equivalent to about 4 US dollars. annnd we wonder why the ATM lines are always so long!
feeling like a kid again spending the whole day fishing in a pond, playing sharks and minnows, diving for rings in the pool and taking underwater pictures :]
taking a nap with one of the sweetest cats ever- Tiger purring in my ear because my teammate Melissa, who doesn’t like cats, brought him to me as a gift 😀 (and by sweetest I mean besides abbey and izzie of course)
going to a remote island of only rocks for the day, feeling like James Bond on the way there, but that being quickly diminished when we realized the boat only went about 5 mph. once there, getting to snorkel and see lots of tiny blue fish and just spending the day talking and relaxing.
Brian (our good friend from Lilongwe) surprising us by spending the weekend with us!! and said to us: “if you ever doubt or wonder if you are impacting someones life while on the race, know that you have mine” 😀 😀 😀
one morning at breakfast, after about 10 minutes into everyone eating, Kimberly notices all the tiny maggots in our fruit on top of our pancakes… oh well. TIA.
the fact that I have a teammate- Kimbo, who too can quote all of Friends and now someone knows what I’m talking about half the time!
going croc and hippo “hunting” a.k.a. “watching”. the journey itself getting there was a story- we paid a village fisherman to take us across the “river” made from the rains that morning in his dinky wooden boat. it had a leak in it so we had to scoop the water out while traveling, later to find out the waters were full of crocodiles. once getting across we did see a baby hippo though! did you know even though hippos are vegetarians, they are on of the deadliest mammals because of their jaw strength. innnteresting.
not having a translator for sunday school and having to improvise and entertain a bunch of kids (in the African heat I might add) who could just stare at you for hours like you are a TV just because you are white. we played jump rope, hop scotch, duck duck goose, cat and mouse, hide and seek, freeze tag, house house, red light green light, tug of war… you get the picture.
waking up under my mosquito net every morning feeling like a princess and also thankful for another night free from the HUGE 8FT hairy spider that seems to love my bed area. ekk.
now loving feedback because it means either a game of scategories, questions, or movie night. but mostly seeing our team grow and love on each other more and more everyday.
getting to demolish and kick down a wall in our coffee shop. it made me feel powerful and mighty :]
while running on the beach one day I ran into a bunch of the kiddos from sunday school, stopped to say hi to them and give them hugs and began running again. I look back seconds later and see them running with me-they lasted the whole way! and while jogging, they began to sing the “Go Bananas” song Blake, Natalie and I had taught them the week before 😀
