It's About Time

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Hello everyone I know that its about time I write more on my blog...so here goes...

Kruger National Park

This past weekend Julie, Allie, Alexis, and I traveled to South Africa to see what might be the largest game reserve park on the entire continent of Africa. It is almost the size of the state of New Jersey. Before I tell you what animals we saw close up, let me tell you some more details for our trip. We left early morning on Saturday and entered the park around 9am. The idea is that you can drive your own car around the park, but you can be fined if you leave your vehicle except at designated areas. The reason for this is so that you don't get eaten by wild animals of course. Saturday night we stayed in a couple of bungalows (Big circular room with 3 beds and a bathroom inside). These were actually quite nice. So, the plan was to enter the park Saturday morning, stay the night within the park that night, and then return to Swaziland Sunday night. We drove all of it except for a 3 hour morning safari on Sunday. We saw everything we wanted to see except for cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs) and wild dogs. We were almost attacked a couple of times which kept our adrenaline going. The first is when a herd of elephants crossed the street and we were about 10 feet away from this. The largest elephant went last and stood in the middle of the street and growled at us. Then a loner elephant crossed the street and these two got into a fight. Apparently this guy wasn't allowed to join the herd. So, lets just say I was going through escape plans in my mind while all this was going on. Another time these two big birds (3 ft tall with 1 ft long beak) were walking in the road just a few feet away from our car and we kept taunting the one with a plastic bag while our windows were down. Suddenly the bird darted towards my side of the car and I quickly rolled up the window, but let's just say one jab from this bird and my eye would be gone. Then there was the time when we were in the road with 30-40 babboons. Some were rather large. So again one of us was taunting with the plastic bag and the babboon was suddenly standing right next to Julie's window (it was down). I tried to drive forward, but due to my nervousness the car stalled, so before the babboon reached inside the car she was able to roll up her window. She was undoubtedly a little freaked out as were the rest of us. There was also a time when I thought we were going to be charged by a wildebeast, and when I almost hit a huge hippo who came out of nowhere to stand two feet from the side of the road. We also saw giraffes, zebras, water buffaloes, all types of deer, impalas, cross the road right in front of our car. We also saw many other animals including rhinos (mother and child), crocodiles, etc. multiple times. Seeing this all up close was unbelievable!! I took so many pictures and videos which I can't wait to show when I get back.

Typical Week in Swaziland

Each day here is different, but there are some things that certain days consist of that I will mention so that you will have an idea of what my life is like here.

1. Sharing testimonies/speaking in TCMI (ministry students) chapel, youth boys (orphans) cell group, and other various places.

2. Going out and doing community visits (talking with people, praying with people, finding out what some of their needs are, giving them food or gifts or medicine, etc.). Most of these homes do not have electricity, running water, or much food. They may have a chicken and a couple of dogs running around, but that is about it.

3. Doing some math tutoring in the evenings with a few high school students that live on the farm. I enjoy the opportunity that this gives me to get to know some of them.

4. Traveling to the office in town and getting to use the internet, email, and accomplish some long term office projects that I have been assigned.

5. Meeting short term missions teams from all over the world that come and do work on the farm. I have even helped them do some painting and cementing.

6. Kicking a soccer ball around every now and then with some of the kids. Also there is a sand volleyball court here so I have played a little of that.

7. Helping organize a community soccer tournament which was a little over two weeks ago (read more about it below).

8. Helping plan youth/young adult events for Potter's Wheel Church.

9. Setting up sound/powerpoint for the CLC church.

Soccer Tournament/Community Day and Rambling

A little over two weeks ago we had a community day and people were drawn to this because we were going to have a soccer tournament, free lunch, children's games, and door prizes. Hundreds of people came to this and two days before I found out that I had to run the soccer tournament. There were 3 small fields, 3 different age groups (5-10, 11-17, 18+), and around fifty teams, so this was a little overwhelming for me. The good news is that a lot of things had already been organized, but there was still some work to be done. Lets just say that due to a lot of different factors things were a little crazy at times, but in the end it was a blast. I was able to see some crazy skilled soccer players. Just before lunch all of the games were paused for an hour and a team from Northern Ireland did some ministry. They sang, preached, and prayed for people who wanted to accept Christ. There were a lot of cool things that happened. One thing that reminded me of how spoiled I really am was the door prizes that people were excited to win. At the end they called off the names of the winners and they won things such as a bag of apples, a bag of oranges, a box of spinach, etc. Could you imagine what you and I would do if we put our names in for a drawing and that is what we won? Then the very next day after church they held a health education seminar and lunch again was included, and after it was over there was a lady walking around and asking for empty peanut butter jars that had already been used. I found out that these are very useful for storing things...and for someone that can't afford to buy storage jars...they are very useful. A couple of days later I found out that one of the orphan homes that live on the same property where I am staying doesn't even have an inside bathroom...and also they have rats...but they don't complain. The scratching noises that I heard outside my door a couple of nights ago don't really seem like a big deal. On that note I am finished rambling. Thanks for reading (if you did).