Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Being Sick, Loving the Children of South Africa, and Mozambique Tomorrow!

Loved ones! Wow, I am so excited to be connecting with you all! As most of you probably have heard I have made it safely to South Africa. I have been here for 10 days. Unfortunately, for 5 of those 10 days I was horribly sick and couldn't get out of bed. I just started feeling better two days ago. It turns out that I had a sinus infection that went untreated and eventually spread and got pretty bad. BUT thank God for the kindness of you people who are reading this and have sent me donations this month I was able to go the hospital and afford all of my prescriptions. I am currently on 5 different medicines. Thank you thank you thank you all sooooooo much for supporting me. If felt so good to know that even though a crisis occurred I didnt need to worry because I am not alone. I have amazing people like YOU backing me and praying for me and supporting me and checking on me. It was such an amazing feeling! Thank you so much! So obviously I dont have many things to update you on yet because I have been in bed sick this whole trip so far lol, but there are some highlights! Firstly, I spent 2 days in Johannesburg visiting great friends which I havent seen for years! It was really great!I then came to Cape Town and have been here for 7 days. On Saturday I was given the great pleasure of doing a drama workshop for an NGO here called Resilient Kids. This was absolutely amazing. I had forgotten why I love doing theatre with children in South Africa so much. These kids were actually teenagers so I got to get into more deep and challenging things with them. The theme of the workshop was "dreams" and it focused on awakening the dreams that God has placed in their hearts. At the end I broke them into 2 groups and they each made about 5 min long skits about their dreams. They were sooooo good. What talented young people!!! My heart hasnt been moved like that in a while. As I was watching them I was praying to God telling Him that if this is all I did with my life i'd be satisfied. It felt to good to love those kids by giving them a platform to tell their stories. However, as is normal with doing this kind of work with children who live in poverty in Africa, it was hard to watch their skits because they were so full of trauma. They were filled with rape, violence, sadness and crushed dreams. But this is their reality, and they must be given a safe place to share their stories. However, each skit ended with hope and with Gods light so that made me really happy. Tomorrow I leave for Mozambique!!!! I will be spending 2 and a half months in a missionary training school there. Super excited! In fact I have to get ready to leave for the airport in just a matter of hours and I havent even gotten any sleep yet. But I wanted to go ahead and give you all a glimpse into how im doing because I wont have internet access there often so may not be able to blog again until mid August. SO just wanted to let you all know that im feeling MUCH better. Thanks so so much for all the prayers. Im beyond excited about leaving for Mozambique tomorrow and spending 2 and a half months of seeking my Jesus. Again, I love you all soooooooo much and will blog about all the amazing experiences Papa God and I have in Mozambique when I return!!