Halloween in South Africa :)

Well, today is Halloween :)  Halloween isn't practiced here by Christians because it has too many associations with witchcraft, which is a major issue in Africa.  We were still allowed to have a party and dress up, but we weren't allowed to have any ghosts, witches, carving pumpkins, black cats, etc. Joey and I were originally not going to go to the party because 1. we had WAY too much homework and 2. we did not have a costume!  Well, about half an hour before the party we decided we would go, even if it was only for a little.  We had to find a costume that would work with what we already had so we decided to be the couple from the Notebook :) Allie and Noah!!  Joey borrowed a friends shirt and I borrowed the red sweater, but we had the rest of the stuff!! It turned out REALLY well except that it was raining so my hair fell pretty fast.  Overall, it was fun to get dressed up and take pictures :)  Now, we are back to working on homework! Wish us luck!! We love and miss everyone back home!!

The Notebook <3

 us :)

 Ashton as a zebra

 Zach as an avatar

 Megan and Kim as an old couple :)

 Katie's chalet mates :)

 Joey and Megan Frew

Canopy Tours!

This Saturday October 30, 2010 we went up into the hills of South Africa, to zip-line through the forests! It was an absolute blast, we went on something like 8 zip-lines some of them up to almost 200 meters long! It was a rush and such a beautiful view. How it worked was we put on a full body harness that infringed quite a bit on certain areas! After the harness we had a helmet, and the most important part of all was our leather gloves. The reason they were so important is because they were the stopping tool. So how it worked was you would put your strong hand behind you on the wire very lightly, however when you wanted to stop you pulled down on the wire with your strong hand and it slowed you rather quickly. That is basically the gist of the day. We had some funny/unfortunate moments, when one of the girls in our group (Cherokee) did not feel well and ended up vomiting off the side of one of the platforms. We got a good laugh out of it especially since the platform we were on at that moment was named stinkwood! After the canopy tours were done, they fed us grilled cheese and potato salad, it was wonderful having a good meal. More updates to come, we are going to try and stay on top of it from now on. So be looking for them! Miss you all.

Second Day at RivLife...

Today was our second day at RivLife and it was absolutely amazing again!!  We helped the gogos (granny's) garden for the first two hours of our day.  This consisted of using a hoe to get the weeds and then picking up the weeds.  It was very fun to be able to talk to these women and encouraging to see how much they appreciated our help.  These women water the plants everyday and work in the garden Mon/Wed/Fri every week.  They don't get paid much so they get to take whatever food they want from the garden.  The rest of the food will be used to feed the kids at RivLife and will be sold to their community in order to raise money for the seeds for the next season.  After this, we went to the Creche (preschool) again and played with the precious kids!  

I will mention two events that happened today:  1.  a little boy was crying so i picked him up and held him and he just laid his head on my chest.  So, I asked the gogo if he was tired and she said no, they just like to be held.  There are only two women working in the Creche and tons of kids.  The women who work there are old so it is hard to hold the kids because they are very heavy and there are so many of them.  It was so special to be able to hold this little boy who just wanted to relax and cuddle on me :) 2. I think I mentioned the little boy who really likes Joey.  He is the one that Joey was feeding in the previous post.  He is about 1 1/2 years old and super tubby.  he kind of keeps to himself and always is making funny faces, but for some reason, he always goes back to Joey.  Today he went and sat next to Joey and he looked a little tired so Joey rubbed hi neck and within a few seconds, he was OUT.  He had fallen asleep sitting up and it was the cutest thing ever!! joey just laid him down, then they took him inside to sleep.  

Anyways, we also went to the drop in center which is where we prepare the food for the kids and we had a really fun tim hanging out with the gogos there and the kids after school!! Now we are home and trying to get some homework done and some sleep!  We are going to go ZIP-LINING tomorrow!! We are super excited!! :)

 their garden

 overlooking the town

Joey's little buddy. :)

 Lucas and some of the kids

 Joey chasing the "tiny one" and tickling her, making her laugh :D

Beka pushing kids on the swings :)

 baby sleeping 

 the little boy that Joey put to sleep :)

 Me holding hands with one of the little girls <3

 This is our team with Beatrice (the gogo) at the Creche

us with the two women from the Creche = Gloria and Beatrice

RivLife has already stolen our hearts :)

Sawubona!! (Hello in Zulu)
Today was our first day at our service sites!! I think we mentioned previously how we had visited numerous service sites and really loved one of them because we were able to talk to some of the women and got along with them really well.  They were such fun and amazing people.  After visiting all of the service sites, both Joey and I felt that RivLife was where we wanted to be, so we signed up and we got assigned to RivLife!  It is truly amazing to be able to do ministry with each other after having done it separately all summer.  We have the smallest team out of all the service sites (five) and we have already seen some benefits to having a small group.  Our group is absolutely amazing!  The people that are serving at RivLife with us are Lucas, Beka, and Elissa.  We are all very mellow, laid back people who like to have fun.  Even in our first day at RivLife, our willingness to serve and love on people was evident.  I think that we will learn and grow from the people at RivLife and also from our team members.  We all care about each other so much already and I can not wait to see how God moves within our team.  So... This morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and headed out to our site at 8:00 this morning. We arrived around 8:30 and met with Thendi (the women who will be in charge of us while we are there) and realized that our schedule at RivLife didn't start until next week so we were free to do what we wanted at RivLife today.  We went to the Creche, which is like a nursery/pre-school for the little kids.  We played, sang, danced, ran around, fed, held, and did all sorts of things with these little kids.  They are so amazing and already hold a piece of all of our hearts!! Then we went over to a community center where some Go-Go's were volunterring.  The gogos are basically grandmas and some of them volunteer their time to cook food for the kids who come to this center after school.  We helped the gogos make the food and then went back to the Creche and played for a little bit longer.  Then, we returned to the community center and played games there with the kids who came there after school.  We will be serving at RivLife for the next 3 weeks and while we are there we will be helping out in the Creche, helping the gogos, playing with the kids after school, helping in their garden, going to a support group for the gogos and also going to a support group for women with HIV/AIDS twice a week.  We can not wait to see what the Lord has in store for us!! Prayers would be greatly appreciated because we know that anytime God is at work and we, as his agents, are making a difference in people's lives, the devil will be working that much harder to stop it.  We ask that you can pray for strength, renewal, energy, unity, and for us to be filled with God's love.  If you have ANY questions, feel free to ask!

Some highlights from our day:::

Our friends had told us that it was going to rain today so the boys wore pants and then regretted wearing pants because it was so hot when we were playing outside with the kids.  Then, some clouds started rolling in and we were like “Let’s take the kids out to play a little more before it starts raining.” So we go outside and we see some dark clouds and down in the valley I hear a really loud noise that sounded like something was pounding on the buildings and like it was getting closer.  We ran all the kids inside and out of NOWHERE  … HAIL!!!  It was the biggest hail we have ever seen in our lives!  Then it started pouring down super hard and stormed for about 30 minutes and ended up getting sunny again by the end of the day.

Joey got peed… AND pooped on!! Haha well, kind of.  He was feeding one of the little boys and he peed on Joey’s lap.  Later, he picked up the same boy and his arm got wet and then he smelled it and it smelled like poop.  Then, he made Lucas smell it and he started gagging! Ha

I had THE cutest little girl fall asleep on me today.  She went completely limp and was so tiny that it wasn’t even hard to hold her.  The only downside: she was sick and her nose was running.  She fell asleep on my shoulder and slowly slid down as she went into a deeper sleep so I had snot on my jacket from my shoulder to my stomach.

One of the gogo’s is SUPER funny and always jokes about having younger boys as her “boyfriend.”  It is super funny because she has chosen Lucas to be one of her boyfriends and she does NOT stop joking about it and talks about it every time she sees him!  It is super funny and Lucas never knows how to respond so he just stands there and feels awkward, but we all love it and poke fun at him! J