Day 5 - July 19 - Monday

(Note: all pictures of the church, the people, and the kids mentioned here can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194523&id=630849426&l=fa566c2eb8)

Hurrah for children! Not only did they get me out of gardening (setting up a garden for the church was part of our goal, besides doing VBS - but we split up the team so Mrs. Mays, Dana, Kyle and I are doing VBS and the other four are working the dirt), but they also provided a great deal of entertainment and joy.The morning started out with about ten preschoolers, and by lunchtime we had twenty-two. We told them the story of Joseph and how God chose him (our memory verse is John 15:16a), taught them Duck Duck Goose, blew bubbles outside, and made a failed attempt at teaching them "Jesus Loves Me". After lunch they were gently nudged out to make way for what turned into eighteen first and second graders. We only had about an hour with them, so we just told them the story, gave them the verse, and played Extreme Duck Duck Goose (i.e. the same game, but outside because there were more of them - and the only place to play outside was on a slope). At three they switched out with a small bunch of seven to fourteen year olds that grew to a group of sixty-one by the end of the hour.
Highlights of the day... Watching Kyle play Joseph (he's a theater kid) and acting as Joseph's sheep and later his brothers. Using bubble wands with little kids who had NEVER seen bubbles before - including one little preschooler who kept a completely straight face until a bubble came anywhere near her, at which point she would bounce up and down and hyperventilate with a huge grin until the bubble popped; then it was back to blank. Watching five year old Welile (Way LEE lay) dance to music coming from our combi (the bus we took to and from the church every day) as we were about to leave. Having a really awesome guy named Loch (spelling?) as our translator. Talking to a Swazi woman named Cindi (spelling?) and watching her light up when I told her that that was my mom's name too (and after finding out that my mom was still in America instead of in Swaziland with me, she said that when I went back I could tell Mom that "second Cindi is in Swaziland").
Our gardeners had a good day too - around twenty people from the community came out to help them. This included one man who had fallen partway in front of a bus and had to have his hand amputated. One-handed, he was better with a hoe than many of the people on our team with two good hands!
Reality check moments - At lunchtime, the church fed the children some rice and what seemed to be a sort of cabbage mush. Pete told us that this is the only meal that most of these kids will get in a day; a lot of the preschoolers come to school at the church just for the food. When we drove back from dinner tonight (we actually eat dinner at the Royal Swazi, the sister hotel of the Lugogo Sun, because its dining room is the only one big enough to hold all 350 of us at once), we passed a place where one of the women riding in the combi said that one on-fire-for-Jesus widow lived and sold handicrafts. The hut was about the size of most people's living rooms, and it was made from mud, rocks, sticks, and a couple of panels of corrugated aluminum.
Fun fact of the day - yesterday at Project Canaan I met a woman named Candice Nolan, who instantly told me how much I reminded her of her niece. Throughout our conversations during the day, she kept mentioning how little gestures I made or things I said were exactly like her niece, and how she couldn't wait for her husband Mann to meet me when he flew in later that afternoon! Later that evening, I actually met Mann through Dana, although Candice wasn't around at the time. This morning I ate breakfast with her, and she told me than Mann asked her last night, "Did you see that girl who looks just like your niece?" You know what's ironic? Candice's niece is named Miranda. That's my sister's name. Oh, and Miranda's sisters are named Marie and Bethany - Marie is my middle name, and Bethany is my "little sister"'s name. I love God's amazing sense of humor! :)

Day 4 - July 18th - Sunday

Three big things happened today: church, Project Canaan tour, and team orientation. Church was held on the property of Project Canaan in a little open air straw roof chapel that we dedicated this morning. A lot of different people talked and two groups sang, but the main speaker was a man named Vusie (VOO see). He was twenty two years old when he contracted AIDs from a girl who gave it to him deliberately. This is his eighteenth year of living with it. It's a miracle that he is even alive today! He is married to another HIV positive, and two of their three children are the same. today he thanks God that he got AIDs because through it he learned about forgiveness (by forgiving the girl who gave it to him), acceptance (by gathering with groups of other HIV positive/influenced people, who are generally treated as lepers by society), and hope (through learning about the hope found in Jesus and sharing it with others like him). The tour afterwards was very long and dusty, but very interesting and a lot of fun. Project Canaan was started only a year ago, and as we stood in a huge valley and scanned the horizons surrounding us, we were informed that what we were looking at was only ten percent of their land. In the land rover, it takes an hour and a half to drive from one end of the property to the other. They are planning on constructing a home for volunteers to live in temporarily, a home for abandoned or orphaned babies, and a place for their caretakers to take a break and rest. They're also starting a coffee plot so they can make profit for the land. The most fun part was catching a ride in a safari truck thing - we were going uphill on a slightly steep incline, and there were three "water bars" or dirt speed bumps on it, so the trucks had a really hard time getting up there. We had to stop about a third of the way up and wait for two other trucks to attempt to make it up the hill. After several tries, they eventually had to unload all their passengers and go up to the top, then reload. Our driver was a little more persistent and decided to take a "running start" to get us all up the hill while still in the truck. I was sitting in the second of three bench seats - on the OUTSIDE left of my row - and it was AMAZING! Think Indiana Jones. Lots of bumping, rocking, and tilting... it was almost as good as Thunder Mountain at Disneyland!

(For pictures of everything I mentioned and a little more info on some parts, check out http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194294&id=630849426&l=4a12305dc2)

Team orientation happened back at the hotel before dinner, so I got to meet and hang out with all the amazing people on Team 21! I already knew two of our team members - Dana Mays (my friend from school, who was actually the reason I went on this trip) and her mom Eve. The other five people I had never met before. Our team leader is Pete Wilkerson; he and his wife Julie have been on trips with Heart for Africa multiple times, and this time they brought along their fourteen-year-old son Kyle. We also have a woman named Sandra Mann and a man named Elliott Moon; although Elliott is with a band that is playing for Litsemba, so he won't get to be with us very often because of rehearsals. Can't wait for tomorrow - our first day at the church!

Day 3 - July 17 - Saturday

Spent most of the morning/afternoon on a bus travelling from Johannesburg, South Africa to Ezulwini, Swaziland. We checked in at the Lugogo Sun (our permanent residence until we leave), had a brief orientation, then a few of us walked to a local market for a few minutes before heading back to dinner. The Lugogo is pretty much like any hotel at home, but with a more awesome pool. (http://www.go2africa.com/swaziland/ezulwini-valley/hotels/lugogo-sun) As a matter of fact, a lot of South Africa and Swaziland looks like home - except for little parts of it that remind me of the Wild Animal Park. Tomorrow we go to church at Project Canaan and take a tour of it and it facilities.

Days 1-2 - July 15-16th - Thurday-Friday

Went on two plane rides from 8AM on Thursday to 9AM on Friday, going by California time. Sat by someone I knew for the first (five-hour) flight, then next to someone I didn't for the second (twenty-hour) flight. Got to know her pretty well during that time - Jocelyn is a nurse who came from the Philippines when she was 15, and she is a part of the Heart for Africa team as well. Thankfully the longer flight had a great movie selection, so I spent my total twenty five hours watching three movies,reading Great Expectations, sleeping (barely), and listening to the plane's awesome classical music. We checked in at the City Lodge hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa. It's a REALLY nice hotel... check out their link. http://www.citylodge-joburg.co.za/Rooms.aspx
Tomorrow we bus over to Swaziland!

Got home yesterday morning...

... and I have tons of photos and stories to share with everybody!!! I'm sad to be back home, but it is nice to be sleeping in my own bed again... so far as the jet lag allows, that is. Woke up at 3:00 this morning. Good news is, I slept in until noon Swazi time! Oh well. Since I'm up, I figured I might as well start to share my adventures with you! Here's the way this is going to work - I'm going to make a new post for each day of my trip; I journaled every night, so I'll simply type up what I wrote in there for all of you. Then, after I've posted for every day, I'm going to post random stuff about the people that I met there, other stories that I didn't journal about, all the awesome answers to prayer that we had while there, etc. in no particular order. And at some point I'm going to sift through my 2,410 photos and find ones worth sticking up here for all of you to see. :) Enjoy!

MY GOAL HAS BEEN MET!!!

Thanks to my amazing donor and friend Craig Baldon, the last of the $3,850 that I need to complete my funding deadline has been filled!!! Thank you God! It's official... I'm on my way to Swaziland! :D Thank you to all of my wonderful donors! I couldn't have done it without you!

My Trip Itinerary...

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