South Africa!!!

Hello!
   Well, we have been in South Africa since last Friday evening! God has really blessed us so far with a wonderful trip. We just got up awhile ago, made breakfast and said goodbye to our friends. Mark, Leslie and Doug are headed to Pretoria with Micky to a store called Makro. Makro is similar to a Walmart or Sam's Club and where Micky does quite a bit of shopping for The Fold. They are going to give her a hand pushing full carts and then souvenir shop for awhile before she takes them to the airport in Johannesburg to catch their flight later today. Adam is at a men's breakfast this morning with Paul. They took the Fold kids to school in Vaalwater - 30 mins away - and then continued on about 25 mins to fellowship and eat with some of the men from their church there. A sweet older lady has provided and hosted this breakfast for a long time. When her husband died, she just kept right on hosting it!
   We have had a very successful week here. We have all sat with Paul and Micky many times and asked many many questions. They have been so patient and willing to share! Mark, Leslie and Doug are all very pleased with the ministry and all of the work that Paul and Micky are doing, as are we. It seems like a very very good fit for our family and God has been at work answering our prayers from the time that we arrived. Adam and I had been praying that the Lord would help us to not get wrapped up in the newness of things...

   - Sorry, things got busy and I took a several day break! That was all typed last Thursday. -
 
   We were concerned about that feeling of excitement that you get somewhere new and falling in love with the kids and being distracted by emotional things that can so often be fleeting! God is in control though and for almost the first week we were busy doing projects, sharing and discussing as a group and doing some important runs with Paul and Micky. We got to experience regular day to day life first off. Adam and I were talking last week and shared with each other that neither of us has felt that feeling of it all being new and exciting. It just feels normal and right. We feel at home. The past few days however we have had the chance to spend more and more time with the kids! They are so very precious. We have spent time with them playing soccer, reading, coloring, watching a movie and just playing and having fun. We are also getting to know the house moms a bit and are enjoying those relationships as well. Paul and Micky are an incredible couple following after God's own heart here in South Africa. We are really enjoying getting to know them and we all get along really well!
 
   I will give you a quick rundown of our days here and then will try to stay better caught up from here on out:
   Friday, 5 Oct - We arrived at the airport in Johannesburg at 5:00 pm. Eating, fueling and traveling to The Fold took us around 5 hours. We arrived at our apartment here with a special guest to greet us in the bedroom that Mark and Leslie would be sleeping in! A huge Golden Orb Spider. The biggest spider I have ever seen! If you know me very well at all, you probably know how much I hate and fear spiders and bugs! Once we brought some of our things in and got settled though we all got some much needed sleep. We are dreading the flight home so much! The flight here was terrible! None of us really got any good rest...
   Saturday, 6 Oct - We got up, had breakfast and headed to the store with Micky to buy our groceries for the next week or so. On our way there, just a few minutes down the road from The Fold we spotted some giraffes. I was able to get out of the car, walk right up to the game reserve fence and take some great pictures! The rest of the day was taken up just getting a it acclimated and 'trying' to adjust to the time change.
   Sunday, 7 Oct - We got up early to get ready for church. All 7 of us in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment! (4 rooms total - kitchen, dining and living room are all one big room. It is fairly small, but it is a nice place!) We all traveled together in The Fold's new 23 passenger bus. We went to Laphalale (about 45 mins away) to a traditional African church the The Fold attends every other week. It was a wonderful experience! It was such a blessing to worship and praise our awesome God together! We spent the rest of the afternoon resting, recuperating from our terribly long flight and visiting. Micky and Paul made us antelope stew for dinner. It was delicious!!!
   Monday, 8 Oct - We started the day working on several projects. Doug and Adam worked on welding bars onto the windows. Mark worked on his sermon for awhile on the picnic table outside of our front door and then worked on some painting. Leslie and I began to sort and organize the donation area of the pantry/storage room behind the school room. Ethan and Caeley worked hard playing with the kids! After lunch, Doug, Leslie and I went with Micky to return 2 children to their aunties. They were here for about a week on a trial basis. (They will be returning once they finish the current school year - which ends at the beginning of December.) The area that their family lived in is a squatters village. The makeshift houses were tin, very very small and had holes everywhere. The area did not have water or electricity. It reminded me a lot of some of the areas of Juarez. A house in that area is probably around 10 X 10 to 10 X 15. The average house has 16 people living in it in only 2 rooms. One for cooking, dining and living and the other a bedroom for everyone to share. We had a delicious meal with ground sable in it for dinner. The sable had been donated to The Fold. It is the most expensive meat in this area.
   Tuesday, 9 Oct - We jumped back into our projects in the morning. We had a late lunch and then had the wonderful opportunity of being treated to a game drive at the game reserve of one of the board members for The Fold. It was so so beautiful. I guess I haven't yet really mentioned the beauty of this country! It is absolutely magnificent! I had no idea that it would be this amazing! It is breath-taking to have the experience of enjoying more and more of this wonderful world that our Heavenly Father created. The game drive was a great experience for each one of us. Our guide, Joe, was fantastic! We saw some great wildlife and just enjoyed riding about in this beautiful country. For dinner the guys cooked hamburgers out on the braai spot in our front yard. They had a great time starting the fire and cooking together. The sky was packed full of beautiful stars! It was an amazing sight. Anyway, it was good that the guys all had a good time preparing the meat for dinner, because the result was not so good! We all had a good laugh as we tasted these South African hamburgers. Apparently if you buy them pre-pattied here they add quite a bit of "cereal" as filler! They were hard and rather flavorless! We ate them anyway and enjoyed one another's company!
   Wednesday, 10 Oct - Wednesday was rainy. Leslie and I finished up the donation room as much as we could without getting rid of things that Micky might want. I really enjoyed having Leslie here. We had some wonderful conversations regarding missions and other cultures. She has some great insight and perspective! She was such a blessing! Mark and Doug worked to get our new back door installed. It is a nice thick wooden split door so we can latch the bottom half and leave the top open for ventilation. It was a tricky project, but they did a wonderful job! Adam and Micky ran some errands about an hour away. He had the opportunity to look at prices on things like towels, sheets and mattresses. He had a really good time getting to know Micky better!
   Thursday, 11 Oct - I covered this at the beginning of my post... However, I can't begin to explain how thankful that we are that the three of them joined us for this first week! We enjoyed them all so much and are thrilled that they also had the opportunity to fall in love with The Fold! The questions that they asked us and Paul and Micky were so very helpful as we begin to build our relationship with them and with The Fold. We are glad for the opportunity to experience real day to day life here for the rest of our trip, but we miss our friends too. :) Caeley and Pastor Mark are now "best buds" and even had special "matching hats"! You'll have to ask them about them! The kids really enjoyed being silly with Mark and getting to know him better while he was here!
   Friday, 12 Oct - On Friday, I joined Micky as she traveled to another very rough, very poor area to pick up 2 new little boys. They are both orphans and their Granny and sister cannot take care of them or provide for them the way that they need to. The boys were 3 and 5 and the 5 year old is about he size of a 3 year old. He needs a good balanced diet! Thankfully he will get that here.It was sad how easily that they left their family and have now become acclimated to The Fold. I am thankful that it wasn't difficult for them, but it is sad to me that it was so easy. They do not speak English, so Micky and I could not communicate with them all the way home, which was about 2 hours. They were very very quiet and wide-eyed and took short little naps off and on. Once they arrived here, Gogo Leah (she fills in for the regular housemoms on their days off on a rotation) fixed them each a good filling meal and once they ate, they were full of smiles! On Fridays the school kids get out of class at 1:00. Once they got home a lot of us spent time playing soccer and just running around outside. We had a fun time!
   Saturday, 13 Oct - On Saturday we had a lot of time to spend with the kids. We brought some of Ethan and Caeley's books from when they were younger and Peit and Jessica enjoyed taking turns reading them to us! We also brought some HUGE coloring books that my Grandpa Bob had given to my kids when they were younger. They had colored some of the pages but there were a lot of good ones left so we brought along the uncolored parts. We thought that the kids here would enjoy them because many of them could work on one picture at once. We were right! They really had a good time! We spent time playing soccer and baseball also. We are really loving getting to know the kids better, but we are also loving getting to know the housemoms, Suzan, Fatima and Leah as well. They are very special ladies!
   Sunday, 14 Oct - We went to a different church this week. Every other week The Fold attends a church that is comprised of many white people. Some are South Africans and game reserve owners & drivers and some have other ministries here in the area. Paul and Micky have built good relationships with some of the other people running ministries here and that provides some great support for each of them. After church, we went to Michael Calamia's house. He is friend of Paul and Micky's who has a ministry here called A World Aware. We enjoyed food (LOTS of food), fellowship and communion together and the kids all got to play outside and swim in his small pool. It was a wonderful, refreshing day! Michael is full of information and insight about the culture of South Africa. We look forward to developing our friendship with him and learning all that we can from him!
   Monday, 15 Oct - The children at The Fold have to be driven into Vaalwater (the nearest town), 30 minutes away, every weekday for school. The school nearby is unfortunately really bad. I went with Micky for the school run and because fuel is so expensive here, whoever does the school run spends the day in town waiting on the children. Micky rents a desk area at a cottage near the school, so at least she is able to take some administrative work along with her often and get some of her work done while she waits. We spend awhile at the cottage and then headed to her weekly physiotherapy appointment. While we were in the waiting room I began to ask her questions about the Physiotherapist. I found out that her specialty is migraines! I now have an appointment with her next Monday, following Micky's and I am very excited to see how she can help me! The cost for the appointment will be 250 rand. That is around $30 - not bad!!!Next we spent a bit more time at the cottage and then headed to The Bush Stop Cafe for lunch. We ate at a table out on the lawn and split the most delicious salad! I ran in a shop, The Black Mamba, while we waited on our food and bought a souvenir for my mom. My first souvenir purchase of the trip! After that we did a bit of grocery shopping. Then it was time to pick up the kids from school. Anna was sick with tonsillitis again so we ran to the clinic and she got a shot since they were out of pills. We stopped at Spar to grocery shop on our way out of town and I bought each of the kids an orange popsicle to eat while they waited on me. They were each so thankful and sweet. They have very good manners! While we were gone Adam finished all but one of the windows!

   This post is so very long already, but I have to include just a few more things for you to better visualize our time here. Ethan and Caeley are keeping up with their homeschool work while we are here so they get the reality of what day to day life will be. They have also been struggling with sickness a lot. Caeley quickly caught the end of the cold that had been going around here and has been fighting a ton of congestion and fever after fever. She has been a trooper though and really loves it here anyway. Then this last Sunday she had a bad headache and was vomiting and Ethan became ill with a fever. Thankfully his fever was gone by the next morning and Caeley's has been gone for several days. She has used all of the cough medicine that we brought with us though, so I am using Tea Tree Oil and Peppermint Oil on her chest and neck. It is helping her to sleep at night at least! Also, I didn't include some of the most important daily things in my posts and I want you to know about them! Every day at 10:00 am, Paul meets with the housemoms and their outdoor worker, Sam, for a Bible study. They spend time doing a devotion and reading some of God's Word. I am thankful for the dedication of encouraging and teaching the housemoms and Sam in this way. Adam and I join them whenever we can. Also, every evening at 6:00 pm everyone gathers in one living room or the other and Paul does Bible Story Time with the kids. They are very attentive and amazing listeners. They really absorb what he shares with them. He is reading through a kids story Bible and each night he recaps the previous day's story, reads the new story and to involve the kids and to inspire better cognitive thinking he asks them 2 questions. 1) What questions do you have? and 2) What was important in this story? What should we remember? The children have very good questions and answers and it is obvious that they understand each story and the significance of it. They are being raised up with wonderful character and Godly morals, both in word and deed! All four of us enjoy being a part of this special time. Paul and Micky were gone on Saturday evening for a gala, so Adam filled in. He did a great job and will continue to lead this time while we are here.
   The connection here is fairly slow right now so if you want to see lots of pictures our time here, just check out my facebook page! I made all of the South Africa albums public, but I would love for you to friend me so we can get to know you!
   I will leave you with one last thought. Our desire is to serve the Lord in whatever He calls us to. We are striving to hear His voice and His direction above all else. As I think of the way that we feel here at The Fold, the words of Paul in Philippians 4:6-7 come to mind: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." The best way that Adam and I can describe our feeling here is - at peace. Thank you Father. You are so faithful!

Countdown = 0 !!!

We had a great morning at church yesterday. In the elementary area - the classes all prayed for Caeley, in Ethan's Bible study - many of the kids went forward to pray for him, 2nd hour - the middle schoolers and high schoolers had them come forward and prayed for them as a group, and in the main services they had Adam and I come forward and prayed over us and our trip. Ethan's 6th grade small group prayed for him that evening too and his leaders gave him a devotional with a special note of encouragement in it. We should be well covered in prayer! It was a nice send off. :) We are blessed to be a part of the GCC family. I want to take a minute to thank each of you. We appreciate your interest in following our journey down God's road and we appreciate your love and encouragement as well. We really really appreciate your prayers on our behalf though. We are constantly made more and more aware of the spiritual battle that is taking place all around us each and everyday. We have been asking God to strengthen us in preparation for Satan's attacks as we continue to follow the path that God has laid before us. Please pray that we will stay strong with serving hands and hearts and that God would speak clearly to us as we visit this wonderful ministry that he has led us to. In less than an hour my family will be awake, gathering our final things, eating breakfast, and heading to the church to load up the church van and head to the airport. We can't wait to see what God has in store for us! We are excited about the 3 people that God coordinated to be with us for the first week of our trip. We have seen His hand so evidently in all of our plans. We are praying that God will strengthen our relationships with one another and that most of all He will strengthen each one of our relationships with Him. We will be blogging and facebooking during our stay and we would love to share our trip with you thanks to the wonders of technology! Blessings!