Safari Weekend!!

Soo.. sorry that we have been lagging on the posting!  School is CRAZY right now!! We are half way through so we only have 3 weeks left of the intensive part!!  Africa is still awesome!!  Me and some of the girls went to a dance fitness class last night and I am so sore today I can hardly walk!! haha But it is so nice to be able to just go on walks and relax when we aren't doing homework!  Joey and I have both enjoyed not being consumed  with the busyness of life back home!  We definitely miss the food from back home, our friends from central park, our church, friends and family, but we are definitely loving South Africa too!  Me and Joey are going on a safari this weekend so hopefully we will see lots of animals and get good pictures!!! We are both currently trying to work on some homework before we leave tomorrow so I am not going to write much, but I am going to post some pictures of the animals that Joey saw on his biology trip and of the monkeys around here and stuff like that!!!  Hope everyone is doing well!!! We love you all!!

this is what Joey saw on his bio field trip ( he will have to tell you more about one of the giraffe's on their trip)

zebra from Joey's field trip

some trees

Monkeys that live with us :)

some buck that I saw when I went on a morning walk with some friends!

Drakensburg mountains!

Yesterday we woke up, ate breakfast, and then drove to go and see the bushman cave paintings.  It was such an amazing day!  We went hiking pretty much all day and it was ABSOLUTELY beautiful!  Our group split up into two groups, which was really nice because sometimes it gets exhausting being with a group of 44.  We were able to pack a lunch, hike down to a river, and eat lunch on the river.  We continued hiking and went to some caves that had paintings which were done by the Bushmen thousands of years ago.  Joey and all of the guy were having a blast running around and jumping and climbing all over the rocks and trees!  It was super nice to be able to just walk around out in the wilderness and take in the beauty of our God’s creation.  We returned home for dinner and the kitchen had prepared a Mexican style meal which was AMAZNG!  We had tortillas, rice, beef, cooked veggies that had a fajita flavor, guacamole, cheese, and pico de gallo!! It was delicious!!  Then me and Joey ended the night by watching a movie together and of course, I fell asleep J  We have a pretty busy week ahead of us!  We are super swamped with homework and on Friday we head off on our weekend Safari which should be amazing!!  Sorry that our blogs have kind of been spread out!!  We hope that we are filling everyone in with enough detail, but not an overwhelming amount J Also, Joey went on a super cool biology field trip this week as well which he will be blogging on soon :) We love and miss all of you!! 

us in the Drakensburg mountains

bushman paintings

plants with the scenery in the back

river where we ate lunch

crazy boys

  funny sign

HOOT THE HOOTER! :)

this is a picture of our whole group the day we arrived in South Africa

This is a picture of me and Joey with the Zulu prince!!

this is a picture of the monkeys eating crystal light packets that they stole from some of the girls i live with!!  The monkeys broke into our chalet and stole them!!



an interesting fact: they call the horn of a car the "hooter"  so they would hoot it rather than honk!! haha

Also, just to add a little more detail about the service sites we have been visiting that Joey mentioned... I really enjoyed the last one we went to!  I sat and talked with the ladies there for about an hour and they were doing some beadwork because they make and sell jewelry in the local community.  I would love to be able to go back and work with them and the children, so we will see where God leads me.  If anyone would like us to buy anything specific for you while we are over here let us know!!

It has been awhile!

ok so i am soooo sorry it has been so long since we last updated! but as you all know we have been really busy. the last time we wrote to you katie and i had just been to Umzinto and the beach! since then there have been some other quite eventful happenings. however, i will go chronological for the sake of not forgetting anything. so sunday was a more or less free day, katie and i tried a new church and then came back and did homework the rest of the day (not too eventful). monday, however, was a very crazy day! but absolutely a blessing! well first off, i had the privilege of leading our campus into a time of Eucharist, which was like i said such a blessing. they allowed me to give my thoughts onto what the meaning of Eucharist is, and i really enjoyed sharing that with the group. later in the day, our class got the privilege to go to a conference that the company at which we are staying was putting on. at the conference the prince of the Zulu people Mongosuthu Buthelezi. he shared his story of  how he held to his Christian values of peace and reconciliation in the political world even when there was much opposition to it. very much opposition violent opposition that threatened his life. it was a truly inspiring speech and i really do feel blessed to have heard it. afterwards we had the honor and privilege of meeting him and taking pictures. ill have to post some pictures of us with him on this, or i will have katie do it since all our pictures are on her computer. tuesday we visited some of the service sites that people will possibly be working at for a month a little later in the semester. katie and i really enjoyed the ones we visited yesterday but we will see where God wants to put us. the rest of the day tuesday was a day of procrastination . we went to the mall, and treated ourselves to some familiar food that was absolutely amazing. and then the rest of the day we just struggled to do homework. we are already getting burnt out! we will fill you in more as the days come, keep us in your prayers.

-joey

Umzinto and the Indian Ocean!!

Sooo... today was a super long day but really fun at the same time!!  We woke up at 7:30, had breakfast, then headed out for the day.  We had about a two hour drive on a bus which is usually pretty fun with all the crazy people that are on our trip with us!!  We arrived in Umzinto and spent a few hours walking around the town, then we headed towards the beach!  When we got to the beach it was absolutely beautiful!!  This was our first time in the Indian Ocean and it was super fun!  It was a super nice day today so we all went swimming!  The waves were really strong, but it was so much fun!! As usual, the boys all messed around and got in sand fights and had fun being taken out by the waves.  We were supposed to have a Brie (BBQ) at this beach, but as the night progressed, there were lots of people at the beach who were drinking and being obnoxious, so we decided to switch locations to avoid any conflict.  We got to the new location which was beautiful as well and had a lot of rocks so we all hung out, took pictures, played soccer, and ate!  It was super weird to have the sun setting on the opposite side of the ocean because we are so used to it setting over the ocean! ha.  Well, we just got home and its 11 o'clock at night and i feel disgusting, but out water isn't working for some reason so I am going to go find someone's shower to use.  We have to be up early for church in the morning and I am sure that tomorrow will be filled with homework!!  One week of classes down, six to go!! :)  Let me or Joey know if you guys have any specific questions that you want us to answer in our blogs :)

Umzinto

Indian Ocean

friends :)

The Kraken!

i almost forgot. this is the thing we found in our bathroom!

First Week Down!

hey all,

sorry we have been slacking on keeping up on our blogging, rather sorry i havent been keeping up on it. so, we have finished the first week of classes, well i have, katie is currently sitting in her last class of the week. since our last update i cant think of too much craziness that has happened on campus as a whole, and maybe katie will correct me if i forgot. however, there have been some fun minor things that happened. so wednesday was my day off from classes, and as i was sitting in my room doing my homework, i see something in my peripheral. i look over and there is a monkey in my door way with its back to me. i dont really know what to do because i didnt want to scare it. but before i could think of what to do, it had turned to look my way. so i got up really fast and it took off out the door. i go to the front door of our chalet and look out and up in the trees are about 8 other monkeys! the one i encountered in my doorway was a scout! ha these monkeys are so cleaver it is ridiculous. another monkey story was when we were in class earlier this week. our professor decided to have class outside. as we were sitting there and he was lecturing we looked in to the lecture room and there were a ton of monkeys mobbing on candy and fruit people left behind! so funny! on thursday of this week i went on my first biology field trip. we went to this site that was a savannah that was back to back with a massive canyon. we got to have some quiet time, just sitting on the edge of this canyon which was amazing and beautiful. but of course i found a rock face that seemed possible to climb down to the next shelf in the canyon wall. so i did. super sketchy! but super fun! however, the craziest part of that day was participating in some african games. the game we did was this african tradition of who could spit the farthest. however, it wasnt just spitting your own spit, what you spit is dried buck poop! i know it sounds crazy but when in africa. or as everyone says T.I.A. (this is africa). other than that there isnt too much else exciting. school is crazy and will continue to be so for the next 5 weeks, but we can do it! if there is anything i missed on katies last few days, she will fill you in on the next post!

-joey

And the homework begins...

Hey guys!!  As Joey said, we started classes this week!!  It has been a little overwhelming because we are cramming our classes into a six week schedule so we are in class a lot of the day.  At the same time, it is still amazing because we are in SOUTH AFRICA!!!  Joey and I and some of our friends went and laid in some shade under a tree by the waterfall and did our homework outside today and that was really nice!!  We were able to exchange our money today at the mall and we got some KFC for lunch!! :)  The food here is decent, but we can already tell that we are going to get tired of it eventually.  Many of you know that I don't eat much meat and they serve a lot of that here so that has been a little hard.  And although the food is good, it just doesn't satisfy the craving for the food we are used to eating.  We have tea time twice a day which is always enjoyable because you know i love my sweets :)  We visited our first service site today.  We will be visiting four different service sites over the next six weeks and then once we are done with classes we each pick one that we would like to serve at and we serve there for the next four weeks!  Neither of us had classes today so we mostly worked on homework!  My Canon camera stopped working which was a bummer and I have been trying o figure that out, but no luck :(  Other than that, we are doing great and really enjoying our time here!!  We love and miss all of our family and friends back home!!

September 11th-12th

So Saturday the 11th was mine and Katie's first day of class. We had a three hour lecture on the history and culture of South Africa. It was, at least for me, fascinating learning about the history of this country and all that led up to the apartheid hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. Later on on Saturday we went to a birds of prey exhibit where we got to see some absolutely beautiful birds or as the South Africans call them "raptors". At the exhibit not only did they have the birds in cages where we could walk around and look at them, but they also put on a show where they brought the birds out and the handlers let them fly around. Those birds were amazing, we will post some pictures of them.

Sunday we went to church at a predominantly Indian church and it was a good time. Sunday was a free day so a bunch of us went on a hike through the nature reserve for a few hours. Unfortunately we were not able to see any of the zebra, rhinos, or any of the other crazy animals there. However, we found out later that the times to see the animals is in the early morning or later afternoon, so we are definitely going to go one afternoon so we can see them! On our way back me and my friend Lucas jumped into the watering hole and climbed up the waterfall, it was a blast but really cold! At around 5pm some friends from church came and picked us up and wanted to take us to a church in Durban. So a group us took a van to Durban, which is about an hour away, and went to church there. It probably wasn't the best idea because Katie and I were exhausted and have a ton of homework already but our logic was how many times in our life are we going to be in South Africa? ha

Now it is Monday morning for us and we are starting our first official day of full classes. Be praying for us and we will keep this updated at least every other day if not everyday!

by the waterfall

monkey

ugly bird :)

my favorite little owl ever!

pretty view over the whole valley

The beginning of our new home in South Africa

Hello everyone!!  Well, after tons of travel, we arrived in Johannesburg on Wednesday and spent two days touring the city.  This morning (Friday) we flew to Durban, then drove into Petermaritzburg, where we will be living and studying for the next few months!!  It is absolutely beautiful here and we are really excited to be here and unpacked.  We have already started a little bit of classes and will continue to do a little more this weekend.  We start the intensive part of our schooling this Monday.  We will be doing six weeks of intensive classes, and following that we will do four weeks of ministry work in the community surrounding us.  If anyone wants to know the address for where we are staying if you would like to send anything, it is: PO box 13870, Cascades 3203 Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu-Natal South Africa.  Anything that you want to send to us must be sent by mid-late October otherwise it will not make it here in time. Also, keep in mind that packages do not always make there way here, so if you decide to send something, don't include anything valuable.  We are 9 hours ahead of you guys back home if anyone was interested in knowing :)  Me and Joey both have skype if anyone would like to add us and skype with us!!  We will be going to visit some sort of bird museum tomorrow which should be cool.  I have posted some pictures on facebook already and will be posting more.  I will also try to post a few here as well!  We love you all


-Katie