My Brain Was Not Prepared For This

We had a 7 hour training today that completely challenged my faith, it was really difficult to deal with on an intellectual level and not a spiritual level. After 4 hours I had a headache. After 6 hours, I drank a cup of coffee just to keep up. I don't even like coffee. 

But it was really interesting and I'm sort of excited for tomorrow's training session.

Everyone is so kind. I was up until 1am last night having pretty deep conversations with a couple people. There are two teams here and we are training together. The Coata Rica team is reall nice and I've made a lot of friends but I'm trying to spend more time with the South Africa team. 

We all live in a house together without any leaders, cook meals, clean and everything. We share cooking and cleaning duties. I was dish duty tonight and sliced my thumb pretty bad so I'm not longer allowed to do dishes (oh well!!). But all the men are cleaning well we women sit and chat. 

I'm not complaining:)

Corn

Ive Successfully been delivered to Indiana and I am currently hanging out with my team! Everyone is so nice and welcoming. 

We got here about 5 and we are all settled in and getting to know each other.

The drive today was ridiculously boring. Ohio is nothing but corn. If you think I'm joking I am being completely and totally serious. The only other state I've seen that much corn in is Nebraska.

I died a little.

"Stop staring, kid!"

Today was an eventful traveling day! We travelled an excess of 500 miles and most of it was through one state. I never know Pennsylvania was so huge until we had to drive straight across it for 5 hours..

But it was beautiful! I defiantly want to live in Pennsylvania some day!!

We drove by New York City today as well, which was breath-taking! I've never seen a city besides Boston, MA. Portland, ME doesn't really count does it? But I got a pretty awesome picture I NYC:

I think that was my favorite part of today besides some of the views from the highway in PA. 

Some other events of today:

-Got lost in Conneticut.

-Missed our ONE TURN in New Jersey 

-My mom yelled at a kid to stop staring at us when we drove threw a parking lot for the second time (lost again), and I almost peed laughing.

-Spewed profanities when we stopped to pee, exhausted and sore around 4pm and learned that we still had 200 miles to go.

-Could not find a hotel and finally nailed a suit with a whirl pool tub and cascade shower. Win.

God bless.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

First day of travel went fantastic!

We stopped in Mass for a while to visit my best friend, and ended up staying a little longer than we planned due to rush hour traffic. But that's alright, I bonded with a really dumb, afro-chicken. Looked kinda like this: 

You can't stop our love.

But as of right now, we are in Hartford, CT at a hotel. And I am curled up on a giant pillow-like bed with 4 giant fluffy pillows and I don't intend on moving for at least 12 hours. Except to look out the window because you can see the city from the window and it looks beautiful. 

Tomorrow we are venturing through New York City! Woo! 

I leave for Africa in exactly a week!

Slow Motion

The days are moving in slow motion the closer my leave date gets.

Today I feel like the main character in Castaway

My mom is working and has been for 3 days now and besides part of yesterday, I've been alone. I'm starting to hold full conversations with inanimate objects. I won't be concerned until they start to talk back. 

But only today left in solitude and then tomorrow is my last day home! Going riding with my mom and then seeing my little brother and explaining to him where I am going. 

Gonna miss this little guy more than anything.

Gettin' ready!

Only 4 days until I leave Maine!

Planned out our trip and found a couple of stops:

So we start in Maine, travel to Mass to see my friends, Conneticut to go to a huge aquarium, in Ohio to see another friend and than finally to Indiana to do training and then fly out next friday!

So excited!

Packing is tough, but money is finally coming together and packing 3 months of gear into one 65L backpack is hard! But so ready to go change some lives <3

American Noise

We grow up around such noise in America. 

Sirens.

Phones.

Bullying.

Standardized Testing.

Pollution.

Global Warming.

Growing up in America has really messed with my views of everything. All I care about is having the new iPhone, or the new MacBook computer. When I entered college, I realized that I had no idea what I actually wanted from life. I had the computer, the iPhone, the friends, everything. But nothing that really filled the "hole" that I had in my life. 

When I finally realized that I needed to get out, I figured Africa would be the perfect place to go!

Only 4 days now!

 

Ohana

God stated very clearly that we were to go out and treat the least of these as he would treat them. Who is going to help them if we don't? All of us are God's children.

All of us.

That makes us a family here on Earth. Family is supposed to take care of each other and we don't do that. The world is wrong. There are thousands of starving helpless children. So here we go, a group of us kids from America are headed over to South Africa to take care of these children and these people that the world left behind. 

We are going for 3 months to two different towns.

We are going to bring the message of hope.

And love.

And Jesus.