Challenged.

This past weekend I was able to go with my group of APU students to the birds of prey rehabilitation center to see some of South Africa's rare birds and even experience a bird show which was pretty spectacular. The owls had to be my favorite to see, they were too cute. After that we got a tour of Pietermaritzberg where we got to see all the major landmarks. One being the trainstation where Gandhi had been thrown off of the train for sitting up in first class when he was not allowed to because of his skin color. This is what marked the start of his passive resistance march and what dramatically changed the country of India. That was a sort of neat place to see and especially funny timing because my previous blog was about him. I did not plan that at all. I got to go on Sunday to one of our coordinators home and lay out by the pool which was just so relaxing and of course fun to get off campus. We ended the night with a McFlurry run to McDonald's with a whole bus full of us. It had to have been the best night here because we just broke out into a dance party on the way there and back. I even got one of South Africas kind of McFlurry's called the Cornetto McFlurry where it has crushed up ice cream cone, chocolate sauce and chocoloate chips. It was super yummy. 


As for this weekend besides all the fun things I was able to do, these past couple of days have been a challenge. I can feel God trying to push me to my limits and see me grow. For a moment this past weekend I had never felt so alone even when being surrounded by 54 other people. I felt sad and alone and had moments where I could not even enjoy being here. I know crazy right? If I am being completely honest it sucked. In that moment of feeling alone it made me really think about why I came to this country and that was to be challenged by God. I had to take a step back and really look at this place I was surrounded by and figure out where in the world God needs and wants me to be concentrating. Finally I broke down and had to turn to him for guidance. There were two bible verses that just were able to comfort me.


Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down, but an encouraging word makes it       glad. Proverbs 12:25




In the day of my trouble I will call on You, for You will answer me. Psalm 86:7




On Sunday I was on my way to church and in the bus I asked God to please give me a good day. That I just needed a good day today. Never the less did I recieve the best day I had this semester so far. The day was filled with new relationships, people investing into me, uncontrollable laughter, feeling loved, and great converstations. I geninuinly felt happy. On the way back from McDonald's in the mist of people singing and dancing I looked out the bus window with the cool, night breeze blowing on my face and the beautiful starry night out in the distance and grinned from ear to ear and thanked God for giving me the most amazing day. For answering my prayer and giving me exactly what I had needed. It is in those moments I realize how great he is and just how much he loves us. It is from that, that my days have just continuely been going up and I finally am feeling confident in being here. 


Today in chapel one of our cordinators gave the sermon and it was about finding our identity in God but also allowing God to do the things he is wanting to do in your life. Opening the door for change. This just got me excited to spend more time in journaling and reading my bible to see what is in store. I can only hope that I allow him to do all he wants. I again like I do most of my blogs eagerly await. We got to sign up for d-groups today and cannot wait to be able to get into fellowship and to be held accountable. 


Something I am truely thankful for is all my friends back in the states and even more my family. I miss everyone so much. Talking to good friends from APU and even back home makes me appreciate how much I have. 


P.S. Pray for me because I still lack the motivation to do school here. I am doing the bare minimum right now. :) haha 

I want to be like Gandhi.

I bet your all wondering what the heck the title of this post means. I assure you that it will make complete sense as you keep reading. My mom sent me a quote the other day that was said by Gandhi when he had come over to South Africa for a while. It goes like this, "I was born in India but made in South Africa... it was after I went to South Africa that I became what I am now." - Mahatma Gandhi. This simple little quote made my day as I had been previously down in the dumps on feeling so overwhelmed. I have to make sure that I continue being patient as I am here in South Africa. Change is not going to happen over night. I like that Gandhi allowed for himself to be immersed into South Africa and to come out of this country being a new man. I only have such high hopes that I when I leave South Africa I will be much different then when I first arrived. 

As for today I have completed my first week of classes in South Africa. Only five more weeks to go. It is so strange thinking that I will be done with classes in five weeks. I am still in semester mode and keep telling myself, oh I have all semester for that final paper. That is when I have to wake myself up and realize that I have midterms in two weeks and actually need to start taking school seriously. For some reason being over in South Africa messes with your brain. You have zero motivation to do school work. Today was torture for me in classes. I could not stay awake for art to save my life. We were in a tiny, hot room of only eight people. Which means that if you sleep its super obvious. I could not keep my eyes open to save my life. We had four hours of this class too. The worst thing was that we could hear people enjoying going down the giant slip and slide that was out on the main lawn. All I kept thinking about was why do I have to be in class???

Went to the mall again, of course! I swear I think I may go to the mall at least three times a week while I am here. It like the best source of entertainment. Needless to say I went to Mr. Price again and ended up buying some more clothes. It is becoming addictive. The best part of tonight was that there was a random little outing to the local restaurant near campus called the Keg and Hedgehog. A couple of us girls decided to go out for dinner tonight to just get off campus. Immediately when we get there everyone is staring at us like were FREAKS! Let me tell you us Americans really stand out. I found out tonight that because were so loud that is what gives it away. As soon as we got to the restaurant I spotted the waiter in which I noticed how beautiful he was. At that moment I realized I wanted to marry a South African. (Just don't let my mom know I said that. She is convinced that I will fall in love and marry a South African and never come home.) Well we got to know him fairly well and we even got his name although I am still unsure how to say it or even be able to write it. Something that was rather funny was a table of older men who asked if we were apart of AE which is African Enterprise which is the name of our campus. We of course said yes and then the guys looked at each other and was like yes I just won 10 rand. So we had people betting on us. The thing that is interesting about South Africa is time is much different then the states. For example someone could say that they will pick you up at 10am but that could mean anywhere from 12pm to 10pm. They are very carefree and lenient, whereas Americans are uptight and if you not five minutes early your already late. So as for dinner it took a total of three hours for us to get our all our food. We of course enjoyed it! After dinner I came and hung out my roomie and just got to talk. I look forward to more talks and getting to know her even more. Tomorrow is our first Saturday excursion and I CANNOT wait! We are going to Birds of Prey and I have heard a lot about it from previous semesters. I will be sure to share all about it tomorrow. 

P.S. For those you could not comment on my blog I realized that I needed to change my profile setting so I did. You all should now be able to post a comment! :) 

Overwhelmed

Today marks the 7th official day that I have been in South Africa. It is hard for me to imagine that I have been here only a week. Yesterday marked my day of becoming overwhelmed with everything that is going on. I think it came from several different things...being sick, missing home, realizing that I am actually going to school, homework and getting to know 54 new people. One thing I never realized coming on this trip is that you will always be with people. Not that that's a bad thing but for me I need some time to myself. I am beginning to realize and figure out the balance and routine for this upcoming semester. I began to freak myself out sometime in thinking that I am going to miss why I came on this trip. I came on this trip to be transformed. Something that a good friend told me is that I cannot sit around and expect to change rather I need to concentrate on the now and the people around me and through that I will be changed. As I was thinking yesterday it is true that you don't ever really realize change while your in the process of it. Rather it just happens and you wake up one day realizing that you have completely changed into a new person. I think I came into this semester saying that I didn't have any expectations but I am now realizing that I came in with a lot of high expectations. I am already wondering when my expectations are going to be met and it has only been a week. I took today as a day to allow myself to rethink my thinking and to throw all those expectations away. I feel like having too many expectations always ends up in let downs. I am hoping that I may be able to refocus my attention towards the things I need to be focusing on. One thing is for sure that I must immediately start on is getting better. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and realized my tonsils were huge. I have been feeling very dizzy and getting headaches since arriving on campus and not sure why. So sleep is going to be my friend for the next couple of days. Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow. The rain is starting to get old for me! Not that I am complaining :)
P.S. I went to a coffee shop place called Mugg & Bean and got a Carribean mocha. It literally was the best coffee I have every had in my life. The place was the cutest. You get seated and they bring it out in a super cute cup and everything. I got to meet up with my RA from this past semester and catch up which was super fun! 

Getting into the swing of things

So its been almost a week since we have been in Africa and I am now getting used to having a little bit of a routine here. Even though we have only been here a week it honestly feels like I have been here for months. Time is going by slow which is great because I then am able to soak up everything. I have a feeling though when we get into the swing of things it will fly by. I still wake up and cannot believe I am here and feel so blessed to be on this trip. I had my first classes yesterday and already am in love with them. My first class was art and I have eight people including me in the class. The small dynamic of the class is great and I love my professor. We already of course had to start drawing. We had to draw each other and were all laughing about how no body looked like what our pictures were. The thing I love about classes here is we get to stop for teatime! I am thinking that we should probably start doing this back in America! In the afternoon I was able to go to the mall and have already fall in love with a store called Mr. Price. It's the Forever 21 of South Africa except cheaper! I already bought a pair of sandals! The other classes I had was my Intro to Zulu class where I learn how hard the language is. We all sat and laughed at each other in trying to pronounce and even click to say phrases. I am hoping to learn as much as possible. Then we had our Intercultural Communications class where I realized I will be learning a great amount. Tons of reading already though which isn't too fun! Oh and of course I forgot I finally saw Zebra. Me and Annaliesa went on a run in the game reserve and were feet away from Zebra walking in the wild. We actually freaked out at first and jumped on a table because they come very close to you. It was breathtaking to be able to be so close to them. They actually followed us like a puppy for quite some of our walk. We saw six in total with one being a baby. The one thing we did not like was the monkeys that greeted us around one of the corners in which we ran away as fast as possible because one was chasing us! One thing I am getting eager about it really taking time to spend with God as it has been hard being around so many new people and places. I am hoping that I do not get to caught up in school and other things. I know that God has a lot to teach me here and I am hoping that I can give him the chance to do that. I continue to fall in love with this place. Well I am off to my Life and Teachings of Jesus class with our program director Reg. Semesters that have come here before say this class is life changing so I am of course eager to dive deep into it. Sizobonana Kusasa! (It means see you tomorrow!)

Vacation Has Come to an End....

Well I experienced my last day of being able to explore and have loads of free time around campus today. Tomorrow we start classes and I know it kind of sounds nerdy but I am kind of excited for our classes to start. I will most likely take this statement back when I am having to experience 8 hours of classes and tons of papers but either way I am excited to learn. I am taking three required classes and two electives. We have to take history and culture of South Africa, Intercultural communications, Intro to Zulu, Global Culture classes and then my electives are Intro to Art and Life and Teachings of Jesus. I just cannot wait to dig deep into learning more about the history and culture of SA. Besides having class tomorrow, today consisted of getting up for breakfast and going to a SA church. We were able to choose between four different churches in which I choose my program directors church. I have to say it was quite an experience and much different than churches in America. The people are very much relaxed and there really is not much structure. It is so relaxed that children are provided with coloring books at the front of the church in which they constantly walk back and forth throughout the church service. Other differences is that it was a very charismatic church in which I have never experienced much of that. As much as it was very foreign to me I enjoyed being able to see God work through people throughout the service. One other rather different fact is that the service was two hours long! The people were incredible in greeting us and making us feel welcome. I even got to talk to some college age students after the service in which they invited us to come and hang out with them in the future. It is so fascinating to me to make friendships in other countries and I cannot wait to see what this semester unfolds. I will be checking out the rest of the churches and hopefully being able to settle on one and then hopefully being able to get connected as best as possible. After we came back from church we were greeted with the rain of course. It has been raining non-stop here and I am wondering when the beautiful sunshine will be out. Oh of course I almost forgot to mention that this morning I woke up to an obnoxious noise that sounded like a dying duck. Everyone in my chalet woke up to it also and found out it is a rather odd looking bird. We are all hoping that this will not be are alarm clock for the rest of the semester. As I was woken up we decided to open are windows and then fell back asleep. Everyone has told us that monkeys will climb through your windows and destroy your stuff. I woke up and had this urged to close the windows, well good thing I did because we were greeted with an entire family of monkeys right outside our windows. It was an awesome sight to see and I could not believe how lucky I am to be here. Later on a group of us decided we were going to go and try to find some zebras on the game reserve. Of course it was raining and I was a part of the group that went on the wrong trail. So even though it was beautiful, we sadly did not spot any zebra today. I am on a quest tomorrow morning to spot some. I will let you know how that goes. Well its only 9 o'clock here and I am exhausted. So I am off to bed.

This is Africa

Hello Everyone,

I know you are all probably wondering what the heck I have been doing since I left. We have been traveling like crazy. I can honestly say I never want to be on a plane again for a while. So what we ended up doing was traveling from LAX to Washington D.C. which was about 5 hours, then from D.C to Dakar which was 7 hours, and then we traveled from Dakar to Johannesburg which was about 10 hours. 

We stayed in Johannesburg for two nights in a hotel and for an entire day we toured around the city. We got to see a township called Soweto and learn all about the culture and history of their town. It was amazing to see how the people responded to us being there. Everywhere we went either on the bus or on the streets they would wave to us or shake our hands and welcome us to the township. Students had told me that the people are very inviting but I was not prepared for this. One thing I learned about their township is that the living conditions are unique. You can look on one side of the road and see shacks that people are living in and then on the other side are apartment complex with satellite dishes on the outside. One thing our tour guide told us is that the people are happy no matter where they live. Because they know that one day they will be able to move up. After that we had our first South African Lunch which was awesome. I had cream soda that was bright green color which was fun. Our lunch had mash potatoes, rice, lamb, and beef. The best part was the dessert mango and ice cream! Our last thing for that day was going to the apartheid museum where we got to learn the history of South Africa. It talked about the political life of South Africa and how the government demanded an apartheid. We got to see a tribute to Nelson Mandella which was truly amazing to see. I cannot wait to keep learning more about the history and culture. For those people out there you don’t  think I am going to be actually doing school out here we already had a homework assignment for our cultural class! 

The next day we flew out to pietermaritzburg where are school campus is located. It was a very short flight! THANK GOD! We then took a hour bus trip to get to our campus. I have to say that being in pietermaritzburg makes me actually feel like I am in South Africa. Johannesburg is very city like and doesn’t really feel like what you picture South Africa. It is very americanized there. So driving to our campus there is hills, trees and green grass, exactly what you picture SA to be like. We even got to see the family of monkeys. I found out at orientation that we get pepper spray to scare them away if they get in our houses. When we arrive on campus we were immediately greeted with 12 men dressed up in african tribal wear dancing and singing. It was then I could not believe I was actually here. Seeing them dancing and then the beautiful green scenery almost seemed unreal. After that we had orientation where we learned we will all being extremely spoiled. We pretty much are in a hotel. We get our laundry cleaned, our beds made everyday, sheets changed two times a week, and our bathrooms cleaned daily. Not to mention we have 5 meals a day. Breakfast at 7:30 am, Tea Time at 10:30am, Lunch at 1pm, Tea Time again at 4pm, and finally dinner at 6pm. I have to say that I am afraid of gaining at least 20 pounds here but I do at least have the nice hikes I have to take to get anywhere. Our dinner tonight was yummy, we got to meet a lot of the staff and the other South African students that will be joining our classes as well. The best part of today was that we got to move into our chalets which is what they call our houses. We have 4 bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen per chalet. I loved finally being able to move and get settled. The one thing that no one bothered to mention before I embarked on this trip is the amount of bugs and spiders I will encounter. I was greeted with my first lovely spider when I came into my room and it was right next to my bed. Soon I later seen a few more HUGE ones in the bathroom. Right now I have no clue how I will sleep tonight...I am praying to God that I will somehow be spared from having one crawl on me. So far this trip has been great its been a little hard getting to know so many new people I can only hope in time that we will be one big family. I am excited to get to know the other girls in my chalet more! Sorry this post is extremely long I will not allow for me to wait this long to update. Something we learn is called TIA which means this is Africa. Whenever something is going wrong or behind, the people will say This is Africa. 

It's Time for Africa!

Things I am thinking about as the time for our departure to South Africa continues to approach...

1. It's 1:20 AM and I am still debating about whether or not I should sleep or not. We must be at the buses at 3:30 AM for departure.

2. I am mad at myself for taking this long to start a blog.

3. I realized for the first time tonight how much I value the relationships I have built over the past year.

4. I hope my mom does not cry her eyes out when I am leaving. But I know she will! 

5. I am ready for the challenges God is going to throw my way while being in SA.

6. I can't wait to see how close all 54 of us students going will be by the end of the semester.

7. I am so ready to go bungee jumping and all the crazy adventures we will be on.

8. I am nervous.

9. Have no clue what we will be eating and looking forward to seeing what that is.

10. I don't know much about the country of SA and CANNOT wait to learn so so much about the culture.

11. I am worried about my hair straightener and curling iron not being able to work. Yes I know this is very vain of me. :)

12. I am hoping to be able to focus on myself this semester.

13. Being able to listen and hear God. 

14. Everyone keeps telling me that the people of SA are extremely nice and inviting. I am really curious as to how that looks like and can't wait to experience it.

I am hoping to blog as much as I can and really want to make sure everyone back home is connected into what is happening over here. I can't believe this is actually happening and can only hope that this semester is life changing! :)