FInally updating!!!!!!!!!

My room here in SA


Tumi and i being cool out for lunch in Centurian

amy and I in the back of a Taxi
October 11, sunday

I worked today. it was my first time working a sunday morning shift. and it was fun! so much busyier
because of getting food ready and kids ready for church and then keeping them clean! haha. but having
them in church is fun and the little one i had fell asleep on me during worship so of course i was in heaven.
as usual. lol. ummm i'm cooking up a storm now in the babies home now and i'm feeling my old skills back, from
when i lived at home and cooked for this many peoplel. its surprising the pressure i feel considering the
palates that i'm cooking for. but i'm enjoying the challenge!

after work i defrosted the freezer. thrilling i know but actually i haven't ever done that before and it had
gotten so bad that it wasn't closing. lol. so challenge extended, accepted and conquered. it may have involved
me and Amy wheeling it outside so that i could throw boiling water on it for half an hour. worked like a charm!

i missed a call this morning from my parents and when i got the message i cried a bit. i hadn't heard my dad's
voice since i left and it was SOOOOOO good to here! but i was so bummed that i missed the call. but tonight i got another
call and this time i was ready!!! i got to talk to my Mom AND Dad and it was so so so good. i came back and was just
beaming happy. I can't describe how happy i am here. and healthy. its Gods love and provision in my life just coming
through so faithfully. but hearing from home, canada, was brilliant.

Happy thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!

October 12th, Monday

still not online. its a little annoying and very very very freeing at the same time. depending on your perspective. . .
i've chosen to used this time of internet silence as a great opportunity to realize that NO i DONT have to be online every
single day. i can live without facebook. and i get lots of reading done instead. lol.

Today i worked the afternoon shift. i'm getting better and better at work, getting the routine and getting the kids to know me.
now, when i show up for shift i get a running attack and my name hollered at top voice. especially by one little fellow who
just has me wrapped around his pinky finger andi think he knows it. i can't help iT! i''m trying very hard to not show favorites
but ohhhhh this little man!! i just love him. he gets in trouble more than anyone else and he has a twinkle in his eye and every time
he see's me, he runs screaming my name. even when i'm not working, if he see's me on the property he runs to the fence and yells
my name till i come over and say hi. i make sure that i say hi to all the kids equally but i notice him. lol. actually his little
monkey face and gleaming eyes and trouble making attitude reminds me of one of my own little brothers. today he cracked the glass
on the back door of the babies home..... fromm like top to bottom its cracked now, like 7 ft of glass. *sigh* but seriously who
puts glass in a babies home! its practically not his fault. lol

The weather here has started storms. tonite there was an amazing storm. you can look around you as the lightning striks and see it
streaking across the sky in one area and knifing down to the ground at the same time in another area of the sky. there is a lot
of sky here. it expands in every direction!! and the thunder is just awesome and beautiful. and when the rain comes down, its sudden
and the drops are fat! it started raining at one point while i was working and most of the kids ran screaming inside, except one
little stinker, who ignored my commands to come in, and instead took the opportunity to bounce on the trampoline getting soaking wet
and making all the other kids totally jealous as they watched her inside the house. when she finally daned to grace us with her presence
i locked her in the 'naughty bathroom' but she seem pretty unrepentant over all...... cant say i blame her, if i hadn't been working
i think bouncing in the rain drops would have been my choice aswell.

i went to another life group tonight. this one was closer to home because i had to work till 730. it was nice to meet new people again
and fellowship. we had a good discussion about the sunday service. we are doing a series at church for the next eight weeks that
i think is going to be pretty amazing. its a video serious that we are taping from another church in the area. very cool concept
that urban life church has come up with, instead of getting someone in to preach and teach, videoing them and bringing them in that
way. very cool. and the series looks like its gonna be very good,

its looking like i will miss this sunday's tho, i think i shall be catching a lift to another church nearby. Brad and
Chanee are picking me up and taking me to a church plant thats nearby. it will be sooooo goooood to get off the property and hang out
with new people! :) AND!!!!!! also i will be heading to durban on the 23rd to go visit Andrew and Mel, mark D's brother and sis in law!!!!
I'M SO EXICTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! andrew helped me book the flight today as i don't have internet!!!!!!!!!!!!! whoooot!!! i'm
going to DURBAN!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahaha... yesssss..... very very very excited about that! and i have three days off so i'm leaving early
on a friday morning and i'm not coming back til monday. so its gonna be a nice little vacation! plus Niell contacted me two nights
ago and i will hopefully touch base with home aswell and we'll go do some fun stuff!

i'm starting to pick up some disturbing accents now. i say 'shame' WAy more than i did when i left. i also have noticed that i say 'come' a
lot more. i ask questions with a high pitch on the end of the sentence, and i exclaim 'shuuah!!' when something interesting happens. i also say
aswell instead of as well. it all just comes flying out of my mouth before i even think it. eishhhh. :)

still feeling in top form for the most part despite a lack of sleep, a plethera of snotty noses and the fact that a day doesn't go by that
some child doesn't cough in my face. continued prayer for that is appreciated muchly. and i give God all the glory for it. :)

good night from beautiful africa!!!!

October 13th. tuesday

still not online. we've all payed our money to be put back online but we are waiting for the connection to happen. DIA i keep getting told but....
lol... its a bit aggravating!

today was my 'day off'. i put that in brackets because.... the day started off great with me doing what i planned to do.... laundry....lol
it takes me a long time to do laundry here because first you have to wait for a machine to be free, and then the water takes a while to fill
the machine so the washing cycle takes like over an hour, and then you have to hang it all on the line. and wait. lol. so... the process takes a
lot longer than it did in Canada but dang! my clothes smell amazing!!!!!!!!! that fresh outdoorsy smell. the best is when you've just hung
all your stuff up and it rains. you can't tell here when its gonna rain. it could look like it all day, but then it just doesn't. and then
'on the other hand it could be sunny and fine and two minutes later its pouring down. lol

anyways, as i was saying, before i got distracted expounding on laundry, i started my laundry and then went down to the church office to give
my flight itinerary to the woman in charge of us volunteers. so that i can get a ride to the airport and hopefully a pickup again on the way back. lol
i got to chatting with her and mentioned that if there was ever anything that i could do to help out in the office or whatever, let me know. and no sooner
i said it then i was being pulled to the babies home excitedly and asked if i like scrapbooking.... ummmmm does a fish like water?? ;) so basically, all the
babies when they get adopted out of the home, they try to send them with a scrapbook of thier time there, so that in the future, when they look back
they can see where they started from. so... i'm now in charge of that little area. one of our littliest babies is being adopted right now and will be
gone in two weeks, so i have the task of making her album. so off the sshops i went and bought like r300 of scrapbooking stuff... hehe. and then when i came back i was
in the babies home taking pictures of her and people holding her. i went there twice today to get shots with her and all her caregivers and volunteers.
and i will be back in there tomorrow getting more shots. i'm so very excited to be able to do this, its such a cool task!!!

so that was pretty much my whole morning. i had lunch with a friend here and then coffee later with another girl i've met through church. and then Taylor and Amy
and I borrowed a car and when out for a while. we made it to the internet cafe that i was at before, but i didn't feel like spending a lot of money
so i just did a quick 20 minute check of my banking and email. only cost me R10 which is like... 1.40$ then amy and i did some window shoping
while taylor got his hours worth on the computers. we dragged Tayor jewlery shopping and randomly found this amazing little place that mines there
own stones and stuff. and one of the shopkeepers was very interested to know what an american, english, and canadian were doing hanging out
together. so we told him about Botshabelo and he was very excited and asked if we would be interested in sponsers. and so now we are going to have a
meeting with him and the company might start helping financially. ....isn't that a cool shopping trip! :)

I went to SALt again tonight and it was sweet times, not just because the preach was interesting but because i'm starting to get to know people and
that just makes life better and better.

ummm lets see what else. health is still awesome. ive gotten lazy now and stopped boiling the water even and now i just drink it out of the tap. i was worried
that i might get a funny tummy but day three and i'm right as rain. so... yeah... africa really agrees with my system. :)

Thanks to all who have been sending me little sms messages and such. its very encouraging. i'm so happy here and content and God is sustaining me
but it so very encouraging when my phone goes off and i get a little message from home. Love you all lots. thanks for reading!!!!


October 14th, Wednesday

its my three week aniversary of my stay here in africa. weird hey? somehow i feel like i've been here forever and yet at the same time i still
feel very new! lol

today was classic of how lazy i am here. i was late for a meeting!!! in fact i forgot about the meeting entirely and had to be woken up for it....
anyone who knows me well, knows that just never happens!!! i can't believe i've gotten so out of touch that i was late!!! lol it seems like time
here doesn't exist for me. its so strange. i barely check my phone for the time, i don't have many appointments at all and everyone is so much more
relaxed here. i love saying, 'just now' to stuff. 'are you coming' 'just now' i tell people and then i take my sweet time. and no one cares. i truely
heart this place and the mentality most people have! :)

umm other than the meeting, amy and i walked down to the shops later to have a late late late breakfast, in fact it was lunch and killed outselves
laughing because some old guy behind us spent like 30 minutes trying to clear a frog in his throat. im telling you, you know that moment when
something hits you as funny and you just can't help but giggle and then you get to the point where you just can't stop laughing no matter how hard
you try?? TEARS were running down our faces and every time we would get some measure of control... humgghhhh he would try to clear his throat again.
we acutally got to laughing so hard that the staff caught the mood and started to laugh and then got in trouble with the manager. it the strangest thing
here, every where i go to eat the serving staff, if they arn't busy with customers, stand and watch you eat. if you drop you napkin, you barely have time to
bend down to grab it and a new one is at your place. its nice, ish, but at the same time its annoying because they are literally watching you eat. anyways,
we felt bad for getting them in trouble so we wrote them a nice little note explaining why we were laughing and when we left the old guy was still coughing away
gently and the staff were having a fun time NOT laughing. lol i might never be able to go back there again.

working this afternoon was great. i had a special time with one of the kids. this little darling girl, who i love, had gotten her fingers caught in a door and
was quite upset and hurt and so after she calmed down i asked if she could help me preparing dinner and doing dishes ( the kids are VERY strickly forbidden
from being in the kitchen) so it was a treat actually for her to be allowed in there. so in she came and standing on a little chair she rinsed the dishes and then
helped me make a gravy sauce for the dinner. and it was just so very cool because it was likely the very first time she had been in the kitchen and allowed to to that
and she was just shyly beaming by the end of the time in there. and at dinner when we served and i announced that she had made the gravy and all the rest of the kids
were very impressed she just got such a glowing smile on her little face. it was perhaps a small thing, but somehow it felt like a huge moment.

after work, the boys made us dinner and then i chilled out with BJ watching pride and prejudice, the real old good BBC version. ahhhhh... good good good.


October 15th, thursday

We took the kids to the zoo today. it was sweet because we only took the older ones and i was the volunteer working this morning so i got to go with, and how
fun!!! we went to a small small zoo that was established for rescued animals. there were lions and tigers and ... owls and vultures and tortoises and foxes and
badgers and ocelots..... seriously so many exotic animals (to me at least) and it was so fun to take the kids there and watch how excited they were to see all that stuff
as well. so my work day was long because i worked right through my break, but when your at the zoo, who cares!! haha.

I got started on the scrapbook album today that i'm making for the littlest baby that is getting adopted. went for a swim. had a milkshake down at the coffee shop, watched
amy make three pizza's for dinner and totally kicked Tumi's butt at Tekken ( a play station game that i'm actually getting quite good at i think... haha) all and all a great day

and to top it all off i got a phone call from Canada, and got to hear my roomies voice for the first time in three weeks. which is definitly the longest we've gone not talking
since her bible school days, and i'm pretty sure that even then we never went THAT long!!!! so that was very very very sweet.

all in all, another beautiful day in Africa. .... love love loving it here.


October 16

at an internet cafe updating!!! haha... i tell ya....life here......DIA!!!!!!!!!!!