Two Weeks

I don’t want to find my identity in being a nurse. This past week I realized why I’ve been burying myself in extracurricular activities all throughout college… I can’t stand being around nursing for long periods of time. At school, I can escape and visit my friends who aren’t nursing majors, hang out with Alpha people, and study other subjects besides nursing. Here, I’m a nurse 24/7. I live with mostly all nursing majors, all of the other students are at their service sites during the day, leaving the nursing majors alone doing homework, and all of school work is for nursing. There’s just no break from being a nursing student. It’s not that the nursing profession isn’t noble and incredible, because it is. I have just realized that my goal is find my identity in Christ and Christ alone, in being his follower and here I am identified first as an American and second as a nurse. Right now in my life that means working hard to incorporate Christ into every aspect of my life. However, there are many times when my life is so crammed with nursing that I get to the end of the day and realize that I didn’t make room for God. How is it possible that the most important aspect of my life gets pushed aside for school work?

It’s been a few weeks since I last blogged. I think I just got to a point where there was so much going on in my brain that I didn’t know how to get it down in writing. We ended clinical a couple of weeks ago and it was an extremely abrupt ending. I had a beautiful last clinical day in pediatrics. At Eastboom clinic (which I had not had the best experiences at) I had a wonderful nurse who taught me so much about diagnosing patients and what to assess for when looking at children who come into the clinic. She showed incredible advocacy for her patients which I have not seen yet in one of my nurses. We had a 6year old boy come in with a cold. His mother informed us that he was HIV positive and had started ARVs, but he had stopped taking them 6 months ago because the mother couldn’t get to the clinic they had started the ARVs at – when you start taking ARVs at one clinic you have to continue to go there because they have all of your paperwork and records of your literacy classes. My sister told me that in order for this boy to get started on ARVs again, he and his mother would have to go through counseling and would have to get more blood work done meaning it could be another 6 months before this little boy could start taking ARVs again. My heart just broke for this family. The situation was one of the hardest there is because the little boy needs his medication, the mother probably was not educated enough about non-compliance, and there is no adequate transport for them to get to where they need to go. It’s just amazing to me that with all of the advances that have been made here, there are countless problems just like this one that are preventing people from getting proper medical aid.



These last few weeks have been filled with homework. We’re cramming the last month of our classes into these next two weeks in order to relieve our class work for when we go to Cape Town, but that means that we have had no lives for the past three weeks. Every time I talk to my mom she asks what I’m doing that day and all I can say is that I’m doing homework. But it’s not all dreary work. Two weekends ago we went hiking in the Drakensberg mountains to go and see the san cave paintings from the bushmen who were the original inhabitants of South Africa. The landscape on the way to and in the Drakensberg mountains is absolutely breathtaking. The sky was the brightest of blues and the grassy hills were an electric shade of green to the extent that it looked completely fake.

We spent last weekend on safari at the uMkhuze game reserve riding in open vehicles and enjoying the gorgeous scenery of the bush. We saw countless amounts of animals on these rides like leopard, lion, cheetah, zebra, giraffe, antelope, wildebeest, buffalo, and warthog. They were such an incredible reminder of how creative our God is. I think my favorite part, aside from driving around a bend and seeing giraffe in the street, was being in the bush and admiring the beauty that defines this country. Not only are the people beautiful and diverse and interesting, but the land is gorgeous and thrilling and stunning all at once.

Another amazing landscape moment was going zip-lining through the canopy this weekend. We spent a few hours on Saturday doing an incredible zip-lining adventure through the canopy of a South African forest. The weather wasn’t the clearest, but it was amazing to zip-line through the mist while dodging trees and looking into deep ravines filled with trees and waterfalls while spending time with some girls I have come to love and adore. We had a blast screaming our way through the 8 zip lines and entertaining the workers as we laughed and sang in Zulu.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that we’re leaving Pietermaritzburg in less than two weeks. We’ll be traveling down to Cape Town on the 27^th where we’ll spend our last three weeks studying more history and culture of South Africa and exploring the city. It’s not that I’m not excited to go to Cape Town that’s making me feel down these days – it’s the thought of leaving the people I’ve built relationships with and the thought that I can’t ever relive this experience. Even when I come back someday, it won’t be the same. The people will be different and the purpose will be different and it’s just so sad to me. But at the same time there is so much joy in the thought of coming back and seeing how people have grown and how programs have grown and seeking after what God might have planned for me here.

Hopefully I’ll be able to update you soon… the internet is being ridiculous and the president of APU and the head of internationalism are coming this week to visit which is amazingly exciting. For now, love, grace and peace.

Anger

I want to be angry at God. I have seen some of the most atrocious injustices, met the faces of the silent poor, heard the suffering in the voices of those that still have them, and felt the hopelessness that these people fight against every day. I want to be angry at God. I want it to be His fault so I don’t have to look any further into whose fault it might actually be. I want to scream and yell and beg Him for the answer as to why He’s allowing all of these things to happen to incredible, beautiful people. The people I’m surrounded with are angry and upset and frustrated with God, but my heart can’t feel anything at all. It is in those moments where we’re frustrated to the point of the absence of emotion, God reminds us of who He is. I’m re-reading a book called Intercessory Prayer about why prayer is even necessary and how to release God’s power through prayer. In the first chapter (which is the chapter I read this week as I was feeling void of emotion) Sheets explains that the reason we need to ask God for things is because He gave us authority over the earth. Back when Adam was created, God gave him the responsibility of watching over the earth and everything in it. And then, through a simple act of rebellion, our world came crashing down. It’s not that God has done this to us… it’s that we have done this to ourselves. So now the emotion that I feel is sadness… sadness that we as human beings have failed our brothers and sisters by not taking care of them and loving them has God does. He even re-sent us an example in Christ of how to love each other and we still can’t get it right. So my heart is heavy with sadness, but urgency to experience more of what this means and to encourage people to look past their anger at God and to take responsibility so that we can move forward and start undoing the mess that we have created.

So now what? That’s always my next question. What do I need to do now that I have this information? What are some action steps I can take? Well, I can tell you, I can encourage the people around me here in South Africa to think about this as a counterargument as to why God would allow this to happen, and then I can go and do something in the community that surrounds me and encourage you to do the same. This week the non-nursing students are starting their community engagement projects and the nursing students were able to sit in on the introduction of the course that will be taught by Francis Njoroge. It is an incredible course about how to go into a community to facilitate growth and understanding of their own needs and how they can improve their quality of life from within their own context. The non-nursing students will be using the material in this course to start a project with specific African groups of people to try and help them discover some problem areas in their communities and work toward developing solutions to those problems. For me, it’s giving me tools with which to take into communities at home as well as preparation for things to come and it’s teaching me to be culturally relevant and focused on building peoples’ capacity so they can do things for themselves by walking with them toward their own personal goal.

Ok… I have to tell you about the other parts of my fantastic week that don’t have to do with life revelations! Last weekend was a catch-up weekend… on sleep, strength, and homework. We were supposed to go hiking in the Drakensberg mountains to go see some sand paintings done by the bushmen, but the weather here is ridiculous and they wouldn’t let us go in the rain, so we stayed home and hung out around campus.

Monday began homecoming week, which for normal APU students is a semi-big deal, but we went all out. It was like high school spirit week on steroids. We had dress-up competitions between our chalets every day and activities almost every night. We started out the week with by roasting marshmallows and making makeshift S’mores out of Marie cookies and Cadbury chocolate and small marshmallows that we had to double-up. Monday was inside out and backwards day and we all put our clothes on inside out and backwards and walked around campus in that all day long. Mind you, there is a conference going on at the center this week, so we’re having meals with a group of people who look at us like we’re crazy every time they see us.

Tuesday brought an interesting day. I was supposed to be at an HIV and AIDS facility that does research at the same time as treat patients, but instead, they sent me to the clinic next door where I was of far more use. I saw primary health care (chronic patients who need medication and colds) and drew bloods in a room by myself, and spent time with the equivalent of an LVN in the states who was taking blood pressures, giving Depo (contraceptive) shots, and taking blood sugars. He let me do a lot, but I noticed that he was very flirtations with his patients which bothered me a little. At lunch time, he took me on a walk to go and see the community because I hadn’t been there before. We walked the dirt roads and met the women in the community and he literally flirted with every woman we walked by, which made me uncomfortable. When we got back, I had about an hour left and he proceeded to flirt with me for the remainder of the time with me. I didn’t really know what to do. He was talking about flying to the U.S. and paying labolo (the bride price) for me and bringing me back to have his 7 children and kept asking me when I was coming back to see him. I was composed enough, but in my head I was just angry. All I could think of was these poor women who had to subject themselves to being cared for by this man because they don’t have the rights that he does here and they don’t have a voice to stand up for themselves. Ugg. So frustrating. When we got back to campus (after much venting in the car about my anger) we got dressed up for crazy hair and mismatch day and it snapped me out of my anger and helped me focus on the beauty of being in this place aside from all of the things that are wrong with the system.

Wednesday was another incredible day. We dressed in black and white, went to the mall for a cup of coffee, and then headed out to the Drakensberg mountains to listen to the Drakensberg boys choir. They are a group of 4th-9th graders whose main focus in school is singing and they are incredible. I had goose bumps multiple times and you could just drink in the beauty of the music as they did songs from all eras including classical, contemporary, and traditional South African music. They even did “We Will Rock You” by Queen and added a little stomp in with their South African music. Thursday was a very uneventful day out at Caprica (which is the HIV and AIDS facility I was supposed to be at on Tuesday) and I literally did nothing all day because there wasn’t anything to do besides paperwork and do blood pressures which my sister insisted on doing herself. We went back home to twin day and had just a few hours to prepare for an “Air Band” competition which turned into a dance competition. Allison and Teresa choreographed our dance to “Battlefield” by Jordan Sparks and which was so amazing and we came in with war paint and dressed in black and busted out an awesome dance! After the competition (which I still think we should have won) we busted out a spontaneous dance party in preparation for the “Homecoming” dance the next night. Friday was color day and our whole chalet dressed in pink and we ended the day in a Brie (BBQ) and a tacky dress dance. We looked aweful and it was amazing! I got to do big stage makeup on a bunch of people which made it glorious and we just danced our hearts out for a few hours.

All in all, it was a glorious week and I can’t wait to tell you about the weekend, but I’ll save that for another day! Thanks for reading so much! I’ll try to cut the next one down ; ) Enjoy the pictures and leave me some comments! Miss and love you all!

What Do I Know of Holy?

What Do I Know of Holy – Addison Road

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS 2)
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

(CHORUS)

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

I’m discovering God in new ways. I can see Him in the tears of a girl that “doesn’t ever cry” but who loves her friends so much she cried for their redemption. I have seen Him in the Muslim nurse that cries with her patient because she only has weeks to live. I have seen Him the face of a two year old boy who was fascinated by the blood I was drawing from his mother’s body. I have seen Him working in the life of a girl who doesn’t want to be here, yet is searching for source of joy through it all. I taste Him in the lovingly prepared food that our cooks make three times a week. I hear him in the voice of an incredible woman who feels so much strife because she doesn’t want to invest in us too much because she’s afraid if she does she won’t be able to let us go. How do you experience God every day?

This country is such a beautiful anomaly in the world. It can’t be classified as a developing world and it can’t be classified as a developed world. It’s a grey area. There are men and women here that live next door to each other and are of completely different economic statuses. There are families that have been ripped apart by death and sadness and segregation and yet do good work every day. I was talking to a nurse this week and she asked me what I could possibly like about this country. She was confused as to how I could like it here because the people are so poor and racked with sickness. When I told her that that is exactly the reason that I love it here she looked at me like I was crazy. I continued to tell her that I love the fact that there are so many hurting people, yet their joy is unending and that joy and hope in the face of everything that has happened in this country is something to be admired. She smiled and thanked me for noticing.

Last weekend we went to visit the battlefields of South Africa. The first one that we visited was called the Battle of Blood River. It was the site where the 600 Afrikaners fought off 10-20 thousand Zulu warriors and won the fight. It’s a miracle that they were able to do this and they attribute it to the fact that they prayed and asked God to deliver them from the Zulus and if He did, they would keep the day as a tribute to God’s mercy. However, over the years it turned into a day to celebrate Afrikaner victory over the Zulus – a celebration of oppression. After apartheid ended, the day (which was called the Day of the Vow) was renamed the Day of Reconciliation and became a day to celebrate people loving people. My kind of holiday ; ) That night we stayed at one of the oldest hotels in South Africa that was filled with beautiful antiques in rooms that were all different and just had the feel of being from an old romance novel… meaning it was right up my alley. Part of me wanted to draw a bath in the old bathtub, light some candles and curl up with Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights and just soak in the beauty of it. They fed us so well! There was a South African version of meatloaf, chicken that tasted like it had Thai sauce on it, sweet potato and rosemary soup, and all the deserts you could imagine. They even had coffee that could have put my mom’s to shame because it was so strong and you could tell that it was real drip coffee (which is a miracle because most of the coffee here is instant).After dinner our director, Reg, sat down with us and told us stories of his amazing life and I remembered just how important it is to get to know the incredible people God has surrounded me with here. The next day we drove to two other battlefields. I forgot to mention that this whole time we were being shown around by a little old man named Tony who Reg says “has forgotten more history than I ever learned”. The man was a steel trap of knowledge and you could tell that he adored telling people about the history of his country. The next battlefield was the site of massacre of the British army by the Zulu army because of a tactical error of arrogance by the British army commander. We walked the ground where this fight had taken place and could imagine the army of tens of thousands of Zulus flowing over the hills toward you and knowing you were going to die. It was frightening. The final battlefield we went to was not a battlefield at all. It was a store and a makeshift hospital that had been in place at the same time when some of the Zulus decided to cross the river and attack it. The able bodied soldiers held off thousands of Zulu warriors with only some sacks of Mealy Meal (think of flour sacks) and their guns. Sorry for the history lesson… I just think it’s incredible.

This week on Tuesday I was able to go teach eighth graders about health. While my nursing classmates and I were still in the States, we prepared teaching projects for people of low literacy in rural areas. What we were faced with, however, were 5 classes of incredibly bright eighth graders who all spoke English and had learned a lot of what we had to teach them already. But it was an awesome experience anyway. We taught about basic hygiene, dental hygiene, communicable diseases (Diarrheal diseases, Respiratory infections and HIV) and the menstrual cycle. It was five hours of teaching with a tea break after the second break. We all talked to them like they were 5 years old and they laughed at us for our ridiculous examples and funny way of talking, but they were so quiet and attentive to everything we had to say and answered all of our questions beautifully. I had the express pleasure of teaching HIV causes, prevention and treatment to them which was amazing because I have always loved HIV education. It was a really big struggle for me talking about safe sex with eighth graders because I just didn’t want to imagine them even getting into those situations. But I know that it happens here just as much as it happens in the U.S. and that the only way to prevent this disease and other ones is to empower them, so I told them that many years down the road when they decided to have sex they should use condoms and have one partner. I think I emphasized “someday a long time from now” quite frequently and my professors teased me about it later, while telling me that they loved that abstinence was my emphasis because they need to hear that preached as much as then need safe sex preached. I fell in love with teaching again this week. I think like a teacher and it cracks me up because the one thing I swore I would never be was a teacher. But I know that someday I will be a health educator and that I’ll love it.

Ok. That’s enough procrastinating for now. I love you all. Thanks for reading my rambling. Listen to the song if can… it’s changing my life.

Grace and Peace

Real

The room was dark and the smell of paraffin was intoxicating. On the stove sat a pan filled with a corn couscous-type food called puthu. The walls were thick and made of cement. Around the home were a few shelves with dishes and a few small trinkets. And in the corner there were ten children huddled together close to the oven. Outside, the rain was falling and making mud around where the cows were grazing. It was my first time doing home visits for the Etembeni Hospice Centre in Mpopomeni. I was up in the hills delivering bags of food to families that have family members that are dying from HIV or other life stealing diseases. For the first time I saw the inside of home like the ones I’ve seen so many times before in pictures and magazines. It wasn’t real until that point. Being here in Africa, working with the population that I’ve wanted to work with for so long, putting faces and stories with pictures I’ve seen all my life… its real now. The pain and the suffering of patients and their families and the imminent death that comes with these diseases finally became real. I needed it to become real. I think a part of me thought that once I could see it and understand it I wouldn’t be as excited about it anymore or that it would take away some of my passion. But it did the opposite. It lit a fire under me to want to change the system and to search harder to understand the heart of God.

Two weekends ago we went to a city called Durban which is right on the beach. Before hand we spent some time at an indoor market. There was everything South African you could possibly imagine. Jewelry and decorations were hanging from the ceilings of the shops and every corner was crammed with trinkets and curries and the air was thick with the smells of South African foods. The colors were so bright and cheerful, though the light was dim in the shops. We met some women in the shops that thought we were so funny for wanting to buy so many pairs of earrings and not being able to decide which paintings we wanted. They also thought I was hilarious because I bought a basket for my mom, but it’s awkward to carry and I was trying to carry it around with me through the crammed little shops apparently I was making quite a scene.

We left the indoor market and headed to the beach for the rest of the day. Kelsey, Jeanna and I went and found some of the best iced coffee I’ve ever had and enjoyed it on the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day at the Indian Ocean. We were lying blissfully on the beach when we heard yelling and clapping from the water. Apparently there are lifeguards that lead songs in the water and people jump up and down and clap in different rhythms as a game at the beach. I really like this country.

This last weekend we enjoyed the finest in Zulu culture. We were a bit worried that going to a Zulu home and staying in huts meant we would be eating parts of a cow I never wanted to think about eating. But it was a wonderful experience. We learned all about Zulu culture: the multiple wives, the “homes” which consisted of five or six huts placed in a circle with a cow corral in the middle. They take the cow poop and put it in a pit in the ground and use the built up methane as a supply of gas to light their stoves. They did some Zulu dancing for us and cooked amazing brie (which means BBQ) and some great vegetables and bread as well as giving us tea and biscuits. We slept in huts and then woke up and made clay pots and beaded necklaces. It was an absolutely beautiful experience!

When we got back we quickly changed and jumped into the bus again to head to a professional rugby game! We had a South African with us who sat and explained the game to us. I loved the differences between professional rugby and professional football. It was all about the game. There wasn’t any loud music playing and cheerleaders dancing around. It was 80 minutes of uninterrupted quiet, intense man hitting man crazy rough bliss. Afterward, we headed into Durban for some Italian food with just a few of us to hang out for awhile. It was a beautiful night.

Life is beautiful. It’s filled with brokenness and tension and confusion and frustration and joy. Last week wasn’t pleasant. I can’t quite wrap my head around what God is trying to teach me about His Kingdom right now in this country that is in a beautiful grey area between the first and the developing world, between hate and love, between black and white.

Breath

Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit breathe? The pulsating of the room that is electrified by the presence of God and then all of a sudden you feel the release of tension. Oh tension… that miraculous place where God dwells between heaven and earth. That’s where I want to be – not of this earth, but not removed from it. The breath of the Spirit comes when God is present in that place between heaven and earth, those moments when you’re surrounded by a hundred voices praising God with their entire beings or when you’re surrounded by His glorious beauty and all you can do is think of Him. That’s when you can feel that release of breathe but you can’t breathe because you’re afraid your breathing will make it disappear. I hope you’ve felt this.

I felt the Holy Spirit at church last week. We were at a Pentecostal church called God’s Family Life Center in Pietermaritzburg. We had just spent the previous day at a birds of prey reserve and a lion reserve and had been surrounded by God’s incredible creations (lions are a lot bigger in person than I remember them being). Our group hadn’t been to church in South Africa yet and it was a little nerve racking because we weren’t quite sure what to expect. What we found was refreshment and peace. The congregation welcomed us with open arms and for the first time I didn’t feel crazy for wanting to move in my praise to God. It wasn’t the Pentecostal you’re probably thinking of right now. It was just a place to come and be in the presence of God in any way you wanted to. And then it happened. In a moment of musical dissonance and uninhibited prayer I felt that breath and I knew that this whole thing isn’t a mistake. I think it’s really good for me to get that confirmation every once in awhile that I’m not crazy for coming to live in another country for 15 weeks of my life. After the service we were greeted by many people from the congregation and I actually ended up coming back that night to another worship service at the same church where we spent more time glorifying God.

This last week was wonderful. The days go by really slowly here… so much so that breakfast feels like a whole day before by the time dinner hits. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was at Mason’s clinic again on Tuesday and Wednesday, but they were really slow days because of the rain. I’m beginning to learn the difference between when South Africans say “just now” and “now now”. Tuesday Sal and I waited an hour and a half for one of the nurses to show up and even when she did come she only had a few patients and we were left to sit and wait for people to show up. Before Sister Gasa showed up, the other health care workers would say “She’s coming just now”, and Sal and I kept looking around for her to come through the door. When we got back to campus we asked our Student Life Coordinator Reagan, who is South African, why in the world they kept telling us that she was coming “just now” and she still didn’t show. He said that in South Africa “just now” can mean in five minutes or in an hour and that “now now” means she’s coming through the door. This is just a taste of the laid back culture here.

Thursday and Friday the nursing majors had off for the most part and we used it to do work, go to the mall for some studying at our favorite coffee place (yes I’m drinking coffee, but only sometimes) and to rest up from the week. A few of us went out to pizza Thursday night to a place called Leonardo’s pizza and had pizza which was a nice change of pace. Getting off campus isn't easy, so whenever we get the chance we jump at it!

Love you all. Thanks for staying connected with me and for all your notes of love an encouragement. They are much needed and very appreciated!

Sala Khlale (Stay Well)

This is me with a giant African bug on my head...

Tea Time

Who would have thought that I would become a tea drinker? Tea time has become two of my favorite times of day (there are two of them) firstly because I’ve fallen in love with Rooibos tea (which means Red Bush in Afrikaans) and secondly because it’s a break that promotes fellowship and gets us all out of our rooms so we don’t get completely immersed in our homework. That’s not the only thing that that has changed in my life recently. I feel like a melting ice cube… made of the same substance, just changing forms. I’m doing homework during the day now and attempting to stay on top of my work. But it’s more than just lifestyle changes. I see people differently now, smile with more love in my heart and enter into conversation with better intention that I ever have before. It feels like my senses have been sharpened. Colors are brighter here, the smells are more pungent, and I notice the things going on around me with more precision.

Thursday we went to the clinic for the first time and I can’t quite find a word to describe it, so I’ll just explain how it went. I was at a small medical clinic outside Pietermaritzburg called Mason’s clinic and was able to work with HIV positive patients who either had high CD4 counts(the white blood cells that HIV attacks and eventually kills) and needed Vitamin B and Bactrim to prevent minor ailments or had very low CD4 counts and were on Antiretroviral medications (ARVs) that fight HIV. It was amazing to talk to the nurse about what she had seen here in the past 20 years or so as the AIDS epidemic came in full force. She kept saying that it was such a blessing that the government gives people the medication for free now because before they were accessible to the masses, people were dropping like flies. I talked to a girl my age who came in with a CD4 count of 7 (a count of 200 or below is considered AIDS defining and a person who is not infected with the virus has a count of 500-1500) and she was one of the most fragile and weak people I have ever seen. She could barely walk and couldn’t get out of her chair without help. It was one of those defining moments for me. I’ve talked about working with the HIV/AIDS population for so long, but that day I was able to put a face and a story with this burning desire in my heart to see lives changed and an improved quality of life for God’s children. In the clinic I was able to interact with many other people… some who looked healthy and others who did not. Another one of the hard cases for me was a 5 year old boy who came in needing his first CD4 count after being diagnosed as HIV positive. He was so tired and scared and he screamed his head off while we took his blood, but same time was so precious and beautiful that I knew God could not have abandoned his little son.

Life around African Enterprise (we call it AE) is strangely normal. Besides the monkeys running around outside my window (one tried to attack Teresa and I today) and the hot water heater going out on us every other day, we do mall runs, go out to eat, and watch movies just like we do at home. After a week here I feel perfectly at home. We have breakfast at 7:45 every morning, lunch at 1 and dinner at 6 with two tea times thrown in there. There’s chapel twice a week and classes in between the meal times ; ) And I get to go to the clinic twice a week. We’ll be rotating clinics every three clinical days, so I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. I love you all. Praying for you ; ) I want to hear about your lives too!

Waterfalls

I have a bit of a problem... I'm in love with a country. Imagine the most breathtaking landscapes you can (include beaches, mountains and farmland), then add in some of the most diverse and beautiful people you've ever seen with incredible accents and mix them together with rich food dishes and an intense and vibrant history that is full of hope and you have the South Africa that I have experienced in the past few days. I'm here studying abroad at African Enterprise, South Africa with 28 other people (25 girls and 3 boys) and it's still surreal to me.

We spent 14.5 hours traveling from JFK to Johannesburg and then got off the plane, ate at a mall and then went to ride roller coasters at an amusement park in order to try and adjust to the time zone. The next morning was spent at the apartheid museum in Joburg. It is an incredible testament to the story of those who fought against the apartheid in South Africa. There are buildings filled with history of why it was put in place, who was able to fight against it, and what happened after the apartheid ended. My heart was filled with joy as I watched black, white, colored, and Indian people walking together through the halls of this beautiful place as brothers and sisters and not as enemies separated by fear. We spent the afternoon in a large township outside of Joburg called Soweto which has a population of close to a million. I was blown away. We had a tour guide with us and we were able to take our giant coach around the township. I think I expected a small little area in the middle of nowhere with a few shanties and dirt roads. There were definitely dirt roads, but there were also paved roads and government subsidized houses right next to the tin homes for those who had nothing... but the government even gave them toilets. We had lunch at our tour guide's home which she had turned into a restaurant and enjoyed a dance from the neighbor boys.

This morning we left Joburg for the Durban airport and then took a bus to the African Enterprise, South Africa Conference Center in Pietermaritzburg. Just the drive alone was breathtaking and as we arrived on campus, small squeals escaped our lips! The campus is set in gorgeous green hills spotted with white picturesque buildings surrounded by waterfalls and magnificent trees everywhere you look. We did some orienting to the campus and were placed in our chalets. Mine is a single room on the bottom floor with a small window that overlooks a waterfall. A little piece of heaven!

My heart is ready to see what God has to teach me in this unfathomable place. It's a world all its own with people who have a culture that is steeped in history and family. In the last three days I have seen and experienced things that I haven't been able to understand or comprehend but I pray that God will reveal his plan and some incredible understanding in His timing. And I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s supposed to be…