Love

So I know what your all thinking about when I title this blog with "love".... and it's not that kind of love. However I did get to go to my first professional rugby game last night and fell in love with #10! But besides that my focus has been on myself. Plus heck we only have 11 boys here and I cannot let myself fall in love with a South African boy or my mom would kill me! Besides that, this blog post has been dedicated to the things God has been challenging me to do this semester and that is simply to love. The church I am attending while in South Africa is going through the book of 1 Corinthians and one Sunday the pastor spoke on the topic of love. I have heard 1 Corinthians 13 all my life being quoted at weddings, movies, and so on. I have taken it for granted and it wasn't until I was at that service did I discover the real meaning of it. 1 Corinthians 13 goes like this, 

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 

God has been drawing my attention to these verses over and over again on this trip. I never knew why he kept directing it until a couple days ago. I began to realize that to genuinely love someone you must see them through the eyes of God. God sees the best in everyone, but we have been led into seeing everyones faults. Not only am I beginning to learn to love and see the best in me but to see the people around me as God would see them. We were driving back from somewhere one day when I had a lightbulb moment. Something just clicked in me why God had continued to put these verses on my mind. This up and coming fall I will be getting 12 sophomores in which I will help in becoming leaders to freshman. I need to be able to learn to love them and see the unique things in each and everyone of them. Because then will I be able to fully understand and love them. I have to keep reminding myself throughout the day to think in the mindset of how God loves. For now I take up the challenge that God has given me. 

Inspired.

It keeps slipping my mind to update my blog and I am disappointed in myself for not being a better blogger. I will continue to try my best. As for my time in Africa a lot has been the same. School is still kicking my butt. This week has been a lighter week, workload wise. Something that has been getting me through the school week is that they don't grade as hard here. Which is awesome! I am hoping for a 4.0 this semester. Which will boost my GPA. Life and Teachings of Jesus has been such a great class in boosting my knowledge of the bible. I continue to learn several new things a day that I never knew was in the bible. I am loving my art class, well beside the whole theory part. That is quite boring but when we get to draw it is so relaxing. For our History and Culture of South Africa class we get to go on field trips every Saturday so for this week we went to the Drakensberg Mountains. These mountains hold the oldest bushmen paintings. The thing is that it holds the paintings but they are surrounded by absolutely breathtaking scenery. It's like your in the middle of a movie, specifically Lord of the Rings. We actually found out later that Tolkien had lived in South Africa and was inspired by the Drakensberg Mountains. Of course many of the boys were having the times of their lives on this field trip being able to frolick around where the hobbits would of lived. It was a 45 minute hike up to the caves where the paintings were held and I took that time to just take in the view and to spend some alone time with God. It crazy to think about how someone could make something so beautiful. Luckily I had learned about the San Bushmen paintings in art class so I was able to appreciate the paintings and understand what was depicted. It is so crazy to think that people once lived in those caves and the environment around them was there home and all they knew. We celebrated Valentine's day on campus a day early and had a dinner and dance. It was an absolute blast. Everyone got all dressed up and we got to have dinner in the conference center with tables decorated and sparkling cider. It honestly felt like a mini prom. The dance was a success and overall a fun night. For me Valentine's day is a holiday I usually try to skip over but this year I had a pretty good one. This coming week has been a hard one in that living with 54 other people can be daunting. People start to get frustrated with one another and little things annoy one another. I can even find myself falling to this and joining in with the frustrations. I continue to pray for the group we have here and that this group can be one big family. I hope that I will be able to invest in as many people as I can. All I can hope for is that I learn as much as I can from as many people as I can. It has almost been a month being here and I am already sad knowing that time is just flying by. Today as I was running throughout campus I just had this realization that I have taken this place for granted. I have taken South Africa for granted. It just kind of woke me up from this daze I have been of just going through the motions. I only have three and half months here and I begin to realize that I need to embrace every moment, every person, and every chance I get here. One thing I have learned is that I have been so inspired to just focus on myself and my family this summer. I almost want nothing to come in the way that I simply do not want to waste time working. Which of course my dad hearing that ask well how are you going to make money. I know that I will need to work but I just have such a desire to soak up every last second with them. I begin to realize that my summers at home are dwindling and that this most likely will be the last summer I will be at home. I would never like to admit that I am actually homesick while being in South Africa but I am. Not to the point where I am not loving Africa its more of being surrounded by family. So call me crazy that I would rather spend my whole summer with my family but I do. I am starting to see how God is opening my eyes to things that I never thought were important or that I would struggle with. I came into this trip with expectations and God is just destroying them. I hope to keep learning and having my eyes be opened.

No longer a teenager.

20 years old! Can you believe it? I know I can't. Today officially marks me no longer being a teenager. I feel like when you turn 20 you automatically feel so much older and so grown up. This is the second year in the row that I have not been home for my birthday, but the first for celebrating it in another country. I was 30 minutes late this morning to breakfast but had a wonderful surprise of walking into the cafeteria and having everyone scream Happy Birthday. I found out that everyone had been waiting for me to come to breakfast and I just kept them waiting. My two best friends were great today and made sure to make my birthday special. I loved being able to share my birthday with the new friendships I made also. Sadly I was stuck in class all day. But was able to sneak out to see a movie tonight with a couple of people. My birthday cake was their version of cupcakes which was like mini apple pies. The best thing that I received today was two letters I got from my mom and dad. I sure do miss them and especially on my birthday. I just got done skyping my mom and she was eating swedish fish and red hots in my honor. I even teased her and said why didn't you send them???????? Something I will love about having my birthday in South Africa is that I will always remember it. Also I did get to see my man Jake Gyllenhaul in Love and Other Drugs tonight! :))))

Indian Ocean

I haven't been able to blog as much as I would like to but it is starting to get really busy on campus. Our six week intensive classes are starting to catch up to me. Remember how I said I was having a hard time doing my homework? Well lets just say thats over with. This coming week is going to be crazy I have papers galore and am dreading it. Besides school I am loving being here in South Africa. I know I have said that numerous times but I am really starting to get in a routine and I feel like the group of 54 is starting to really mesh. It is actually hard for me to recognize that two weeks ago a lot of these people I did not know and now I feel like I know them so well. I am loving all the new friendships that our being formed. This week I got to do a lot of things. Went out to the Mugg and Bean again on Tuesday night and got the best drink EVER. It was a Iced Mocha but its not what we think back in the states it was a milkshake with coffee in it. I also got to hike up three waterfalls. There is some waterfalls on our campus that is quite a hike up on a path that really isn't a path. Anyways its a hike where you have to climb over trees and climb up waterfalls. I of course scraped my knee right at the beginning of the hike even before we got to the waterfalls. It was a scary but exciting hike. I literally probably slipped and fell at least 8 times. Let's just say I was incredible sore the next day. We came back extremely dirty and wet and even put some war paint on our face with mud and puts some leaves and such in our hair. Everyone said we looked like tribal girls. Yesterday we went to the keg and hedgehog again with a bigger group and had a blast! We all were loving the fact of having food besides the stuff we get here everyday! I got a milkshake that was the best! We all came back and had a spontaneous dance party which was super fun. Today we had a field trip for intercultural communications to Durban. Our field trip was from 9 am to 9 pm so a pretty packed day. We first headed to Durban which was about an hour and half drive. We stopped at a market in a little town and was able to explore the town in groups for about two hours. We were able to see a hindu temple and learn all about the religion there. We had to take off our shoes and walk around the temple three times before we were allowed to even go in the temple. Then we went in the temple and saw all the gods they pray too. Some of us even participated in one of the prayers they do. I ended up doing it just to experience what they do when they worship their gods. It was the practice of burning incense and circling this rock three times and then taking a leaf dipped in water and doing that three times and then putting the hindu dot of white ashes onto your forehead. Then you are instructed to kneel and pray. It was then that I prayed for all the lost people in this religion and how they waste their time on rituals that mean nothing. When we left the temple our teacher told us about the dangers in practicing their rituals and it made me realize how lucky I am. The lady at the temple told us an interesting fact that not a lot of people are coming to pray at the temples because most of them are converting to Christianity. What I wondered is why she hadn't converted or that I wondered if she has ever thought about it because so many have converted. We then walked the markets and it was then that I finally felt like I was in another country. We were the only white people in this entire town. The town was filled with indians and black people. Everyone was staring at us as we walked through the street even some trying to pick pocket us. People of course approached us to buy them things or to buy there things they were selling. It was a great experience to see how other people live. After that we headed for the beach where we spend the rest of the afternoon and dinner. The Indian Ocean is beautiful and the waves are crazy. I went in a couple of times but the undertow was so strong that it kept taking us away. For dinner we got to experience a South African Braii which is what they call barbeque. They cooked us so much meat it was insane. The whole day was a blast. I am beat though and incredibly sunburned again.  Hopefully it won't be so long again for me to update this.