My Dearest Family in Christ,
How is everything going with you all? Life has been full of ups and downs for me lately here. I have been so busy that I haven’t taken time to write a blog for a while. “Yikes… it looks like it has been almost 4 weeks!!!” I don’t think I could explain everything that happened, but I will try to do my best to let you know a little of what has been going on lately.
I kind of went into a slump for about two weeks this month. I was feeling homesick and starting to feel very lonely on this trip. “Isn’t it amazing to think you can live with 35 other people, go about your normal day, but not really connect with anyone throughout the whole day? I did this quite a bit in these two weeks.” Almost everything is starting to go by so fast. Weeks are just starting to fly by. I have so many projects on my mind that I haven’t been able to get them all done. So… this morning I woke up, “I am on Thanksgiving break right now, I get Friday through Monday off,” and decided to just get this project done so you guys wouldn’t feel left out.
One of the first major events that happened this month was when Kevin and Tyler went home. So out of the seven guys that used to be on our team, five are left now. It has been hard on us. As Blair once said, “There is a lot of personality that left the guys when they left.” As a group now, we can just tell that there is something missing. It is hard to believe they have been gone for almost three weeks now. We miss them all very much.
The second major even that happened this month was learning where we are going for the last semester of our trip. The three locations were Jeffreys Bay, Swaziland and Port Elizabeth. We have already found out where we are going. I am going to Port Elizabeth along with Matthey Hussey, Sarah Buller, Lisa, Jessica Emerson, Johanna, Meghan J., Nicole, Sarah Patterson, Victoria and Leah along with our leaders Chelsea, Dee Dee, and Becca. We might get another person on our team, but we won’t know that until after Christmas. This should be a good group. I am excited to see how God uses us. We will be working with a huge Church there, going into different places for ministry. One of the ministries I know is possible is working with the Church’s youth program. We are not sure what other kinds of ministries we will be going to, but I will let you know as soon as I find out. We think we found a house… well… two houses right next to each other. They sound great… but we will see.
Another thing that has been going on is I joined a group called Third Phase…. Basically this is a group within our 36 people that decided to start living like the early church. We all took the money we had and put it into a big pile, basically saying that now the money is not mine… it is the groups. We live as simply as possible, ” we live on $14 a week, which I might add is more than most people in Jeffreys bay live off of,” spend the money on most of our needs while buying things for people in the group. I got a new pair of flip flops from the group. We also do things together as a group like we went and had pizza together one night, “I am posting that picture for you all.” We also get together every night and pray for each other. It is a pretty good representation for what the early church did. There are 8 of us all together. The people in the group are me, Leah, Kepp, Matthew Hussey, Sarah Patterson, Nicole, Mary and Matthey Spainhour.
In my ministry group, we have gotten to know the community a little bit more. We have started to visit a few new people, praying for the community, and even having fun with the kids. Our ministry is stretching all of us in our group. You can tell that all of us are growing as people while we work with each other. There are so many new challenges every day… just trying to do ATLs every day is hard enough, let alone meeting new people and trying to figure out how we can minister to them. We are starting to have all sorts of new people come to us though, because for the most part, most of the people in the township know who we are. A few times we have had people come up to us so we could pray with them. We also found two house Churches and got to pray over them. I can surely say that God is truly using us in House Ministries.
As I said before, I went into a slump of almost depression for about two weeks. Just being overwhelmed and missing everyone so badly. Mom said on the phone that this is probably because of Thanksgiving coming up. That might be so. During this time,” I have to admit,” what I mostly did with my free time was go to the internet to talk to people and watch my Muppet Show movies I had with Blair. “For those who don’t know this about me…. and don’t feel bad if you don’t because some of my team-mates don’t even know… I love the Muppet Show and will watch them when I am depressed or am sick… and I was depressed… so I watched like 7 episodes one night after diner and went to bed.” I think just being overwhelmed with the homework they had for us, and trying to get other personal things done…. I just went bleh… which is why it has taken me so long to write this blog. I am feeling better now though. A whole lot better. I have so many people around me that loves me, and helps me get through hard times. I think I just had to switch my brain to thinking that these people are my family now, and that no matter where I go, Jesus is always with me.
Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. They split us into different groups to make different things. I was in the group that made mashed potatoes and stuffing. I mostly cut up all the potatoes and did a little bit of the stuffing. It was really nice to sit at a table with everyone and have dinner together. It was a little hard to eat all that food when starvation was only a few blocks away. So we took our leftovers, put them in doggie bags and took them to the hungry on the other side of town. So all together, it was a good thanksgiving.
Now we are on break… and I have to say that already I have had a blast. Yesterday I went to the WORLDS LARGEST BUNGEE JUMP!!!….. and I did bungee jump!!!!! I am going to post some pictures of my jump for you all to see. It was so scary…. And I jumped as soon as I could so I wouldn’t have to think about what I was doing…. And yes I am still alive. It was amazing…. And now I can say that I bungee jumped at the world’s largest one in Africa!!! YAYA…. I will have to use that for two truths and a lie some time.
Well…. That is about all I have for you all. I love you all so much… and Happy Thanksgiving!!!
In Christ,
Andrew
