Christmas Music

"All this time I've been finding myself and I didn't know I was lost." 

^^ that's a lie. I've been lost my whole life.

But I think I'm on my way to finding myself.

Tomorrow we leave for Pomfret at 6am, it's about a 600 km drive and we will be going about 90kph, so we estimate about 8-9 hours including stops and lunch? 

Pomfret is a small desert town immediaty outside the calahary desert and has little to no income. About two years ago, the government wanted to close the town down but about 1000 people live there, so try couldn't. So they sent in soldiers and just destroyed it and massacred the masses. But the people that survived didn't leave. They are hopeless, but trying. We will be working in an orphanage, rebuilding homes, working in the gardens and evangelizing. These people need Jesus and they need his love an hope. I could not be more excited to work with them. 

I love my team. We are all so excited and nervous and challenged by this amazing oppertunity in front of us. Tonight we had a traditional African BBQ. It was AMAZING.

Then we all jumped in the pool. Even though it's chilly tonight, about 65. But the sky is clear an we realized that down here the moon is upside down.

Mind blown.

But we all sat around outside. Played with the dogs, had a BBQ, jumped in the pool and got pumped for pomfret! Then we all went inside, packed, cleaned and then played games and listened to Christmas music! What a perfect evening. 

Prayers as we enter our new step in this God given journey.

Hadidas and Potato Chips

Africa is amazing.

First of all there are these cuss UGLY birds called Hadidas (ha-dee-duhs). They look like a mangy pelican had a bad date with a seagull and a Hadida was the outcome. And the sound they make is no better. It sounds like a 50lb angry/sick crow. Ugh. They never shut up.

Everything is so different, even the little things like the names on the cereal. There's Otees and Milo and this funky hazelnut type called Squillios. The potato chips make me laugh. They have normal brands like we do but the Lay's "sour cream and onion" flavor is called "Sweet Onion and Cheese Flavor". Hhahahaaha and the nacho cheese Doritos are called.. "Cheese supreme flavoured tortilla style corn chips." What a mouth full. Imagine you friend is going to the store and they ask what you want as you leave and are like:

"Hey man you want anything at the store?" *door closing*

"YEAH GET ME SOME CHEESE SUPREME FLAVOURED TORTILLA STYLE CORN CHIPS."

haha the first guy would have already closed the door.

But everything is so fresh and natural, you don't have to wonder what you are eating. This morning they went to the bakery and bought bagels for us for breakfast, the bagels were still warm from the oven <3 The meat is not genetically altered the rolls are to die for. You get all bread at a bakery around here, store bought is not really heard of. I mean, you can buy store bought bagels but no one really does.

The scenery is incredible. I can't describe to you what it looks like. We are in a town called Centurion, which is a rather nice town but the area we are living in right now (at our Leader, Hein's, house) is completely caged off. The entire area is surrounded by fencing that you need a specific sticker on your car to get into, the house is completely surrounded by a fence that is armed with a rather loud (annoying) alarm, the house is alarmed and every window and door is bared. He said when we got here, "we don't know who is more trapt. The people on the outside or the people on the inside." And practically everyone leaves their dog outside all day and night. Hein has a spaniel (Max) and a Great Dane (Tigger) cross. The neighbors have a full sized Great Dane (he is HUGE) and a couple small dogs. They bark a lot but it's sort of a sense of comfort. They tell us it's because of the dog hair but we all sort of known it's for extra protection. We aren't really allowed outside at night, except in the back yard (surrounded by brick walls) for a little while. But, he doesn't suggest it. It makes me laugh every time when we leave because he hits this thing on his key chain that basically locks his house and arms the alarm and I always giggle.

We had pizza last night, and it was fantastic! American pizza will forever be gross to me.

Thank you all for your prayers! I'm so excited to go to Pomfret on Wednesday morning!

And Were Off

Just landed in Washington, D.C.. Our first flight went well, slightly turbulent but nothin to fret about. It's crazy to think that when we take off in our next plane, it'll be 24 hours before we touch ground again. With the flight being almost 18 hours and than jumping 6 hours ahead. The plane offers us 3 full meals and we will be able to see the sunset and sunrise from the air. Kinda excited, not gonna lie.

One cool thing is a flight attendant on our Indianapolis - Washington, D.C. Flight announced that we were on board and what an honor it was to serve missionaries. That was cool!

We have a book that EM gave us to read during our mission called "When Helping Hurts" and we will be able to get a good amount of reading done on the flight. And then maybe I'll get to read my Nicholas Sparks book too!

Last night was hard on all of us. There was a lot of tears and a lot of hard praying amongst the team during our meeting. The training this week completely rocked our faith to the core. It made me question everything I've grown up believing. I obviously still believe in the gospel but just the way I believe it.

Everything I believe in was ripped out from under me in a matter of 4 days. We were asked numerous questions we couldn't answer and asked to discuss things we had never thought about. We ate dinner every night very discouraged, and very kept to ourselves. 

We are nervous, scared and in need of a lot prayer.

Overflow

I
am
exhausted.

My brain shut down at about 2 o'clock today, after a long discussion on how overwhelmed we all were and how none of us had ever had a faith challenged like this before. And then for another 3 hours, we talked in depth about what poverty meant and all the separate forms of it. I'm pretty sure I could not take in any more information today.

So I'm going to tell you guys about the silly things we did today!!

• We got marbles thrown at us.
• Played with playdough
• Played a game outside
• Colored
• Built puzzles to try and work together quickly
• Took group jumping pictures (attempted)
• Picked out names for secret santa when we get home!! :)
• Discussed the fact that we are going to all be living in the same house come thanksgiving so we are going to go to the market and make ourselves a thanksgiving dinner!

We have finished most of our training and tomorrow consists of mostly formal stuff and paper work!
We fly out friday! So excited!

Marbles (Cont.)

As I explained an in earlier blog post, we were all given a cup with 30 marbles at the beginning of the week. Between then and now, hundreds of marbles of come in gone during games, betting, gambling, paying people to do things, random hand outs, and very unfair gifts from the staff of EM.

A few things that were unfair were:

• Giving men marbles just because they were men
• Taking marbles from women
• Asking a question like "how many have you guys have stolen and gotten away with it" and then deciding who (out of the people that raised their hands) are worthy of marbles. 
• Picking people randomly to give away all their marbles

It was very frustrating, especially for us women because we never got a break. The men always got more marbles simply for being men so it was obvious that at the end of it, a man was going to win. There was no way around it.  It's not like it was a huge deal, we just kinda gave up.

Today after lunch they called an end to the marble game and we all played a game in the end, a man did win and was followed up by two other men. Between the three of them, they won $175.

The EM staff then stood up and said, "what was the point of this game." And none of us had a clue. They were simply making it clear that life was unfair and that men always had an unfair advantage in the countries we were going to visit and it made it hard for women to keep up.

It actually made a lot of sense. In the end, we all understood completely what the point of it was.

Classical Music and Scripture

Today has been a roller coaster. What we focused on in this mornings session was what we think of ourselves. I have a hard time forgiving myself for some stuff I've done in the past and I don't see myself as a good person so, that was difficult. But we spent a lot of time just in a group discussing our struggles as followers of Christ and it was very bonding. Our team is becoming more of a family. Walls are coming down, tears are being shed and love is pouring out. 

But I've spent most of my day focused on my unforgivable past. And how is God supposed to forgive me if I can't even forgive myself?

And we got out of "class" early today and it is positively beautiful out over here in Indiana, so I grabbed my bible and phone and plopped down in some grass to really just dive into the word of God. I'm listening to classical music and I have no idea what to read and "Ephesians" pops into my head so I open it up and it is the book Matt Chandler preached out of in his sermon on foriveness. (If you haven't heard it, I highly suggest it. Amazing. YouTube it.) 

"Our default position as strugglers is to believe that God is disappointed and frustrated. That He is simply tolerating us." Matt Chandler

And that sermon means a lot to me as a struggler and so I'm reading trough the book and just hear the sermon from the mouth of God instead of a fellow follower. It says (my favorite part): "...he chose us before the foundation of the world was laid, that we should be holy in blameless before him... In him we have redemption trough his blood." (Ephesians 1:4,7)

"God does not regret saving you."

I am in total awe of his grace right now.

Praise.

Marbles

We have been given marbles that are basically money here during training and at the end of the week the person with the most marbles will in $100.

Basically we gamble. 

And they make us do pretty ridiculous thing for the marbles. Chad ate a bug for 30 marbles. We had to bet against each other for mystery envelops. And then today there was a push up contest:

Kyle won a lot of marbles! 

I lose mine. I'm not sure how.