Sorry for the short blog today, I'm just going to give some highlights of the week and throw a bunch of pictures up for you to enjoy.

Big news, Swazi team made it back Wednesday night around 11, after a breakdown that prevented them from leaving sooner, and no trouble at the border. So… PRAISE GOD!
It's really awesome having everyone back. It's crowded again but it's been crowded all week. So no complaining here. There have been 2 Global Challenge teams stay here with us, along with their families, so every cabin, room and house was full this week.

What else…Thanksgiving was awesome. One of the girls parents from the Swazi Real Life Team (they're different than our Swazi First Year Mission Team, the Real Lifers only have their program for 3 months, and is a bit more intense in the fact that they don't have sessions in the morning and the place they stayed is on a homestead which is dry, no electricity or running water, they live with the locals) came and paid for us to have a Thanksgiving lunch at a restaurant in Pretoria. So for our thanksgiving we had around  120ish people maybe more. There was us, Swazi, Swazi RLT, All the staff from Alabanza, and Swazi Discipleship Team (which is a group of locals from Swaziland that work with a few different missionaries and are basically local missionaries and church disciplers). So we had a good time pictures are below.

Thanskgiving with Themba who is wearing Traditional Swazi Gear

Special K Team at T-Giving

Thanksgiving Table-Left and back then Right and front: Carrie, Elisa, Bailey, Amber, Brianna, Chelsea, Me, Marcus, Albert, Luke

Wednesday was a tough day, since it was our last day of ministry in A-Ville. I was there for about 7 hours, which was a long and emotional day. It was hard saying goodbye to everyone, but I'm glad everyone I wanted to say goodbye to I got the chance to say it to. We also did a lot of praying for people that Pastor Peter wanted us to do for the people he's been ministering to, and people from his church.

Also awesome! We were asked to preach at Pastor Peter's church, actually Michael was, and the rest of us were asked to participate somehow. So that was Friday, Saturday we had our day off and kind of forgot till late that night, Michael stayed up thinking but wasn't feeling anything to preach on, so Sunday morning a bit freaked out, we went to church, Pastor Peter got up introduced us, they sang their songs and then we were up. I went up to give part of my testimony in the way God worked when my mom passed away, then Chelsea told part of her testimony, then Michael went up…and the Holy Spirit worked in him, because he brought an amazing message on the promises of God. He brought it for about 30 min. During his preaching Michelle and Carrie did a little kids program outside of the tent then brought them up to present their verse that they learned and sang a song for everyone. It was a great service.

Pastor Peter's Church Sign

Me testifying in Church

Monday we went to a lion park. Which was pretty cool. We did a little drive where we saw a bunch of lions, big and small, and got to hold baby lions, which was super cool, I got bit, and Luke got a nice gash in his side. We also fed giraffes and saw ostriches. It made for a fun day.

Me being torn apart by Man Eating Lions

Awww Cute...UNTIL IT STRIKES!!!

Yes Call me Mr. National Geographic

Me and a Giraffe, Whose Tongue is Bigger?
A cool ending to our ministry on Wednesday; one lady at the hospital that 2 of the girls have visited almost everyday for 2 months asked Christ into her life!!! And one of the ladies that almost everyone from the team has had contact with, Loraine (she helps with the Chreche every once in a while and are good friends with the ladies there) accepted Christ into her heart on Sunday but didn't tell us till Wednesday, so it was a huge praise that God allowed us to see the labor of our work and His mighty hand at work.

Me and Lydia the Last Day in A-Ville

Last Day in A-Ville with Street Kids
Tell me how Thanksgiving was and what you ate and everything and how the week's been.

We leave for J-Bay tomorrow!!! It's about a 10-hour drive but knowing our group it will be more like 18… so pray for our sanity, and that our vehicles will not break down. We're going down to do some intense learning. I'll be taking "courses" on Discipling, and also there is a big township outside of J-Bay that we will minister in or do in town ministry. So we are not slacking these next 2 weeks. I'll hopefully give everyone an update on Tuesday that we made it (God Willing).

Thank you all, love ya, stay strong.

Part 2

Since I was unable to post this on Friday I am now doing it today.

First off we made it to Jeffrey's Bay!!! PTL (Praise The Lord) with only one tire problem that happened at a gas station. It took a bit but we got the tire changed and that was our only hassle. Amazing. We left at 5:30 am Saturday morning, which meant I was up at 4:02 am. But it wasn't too bad. We threw everything in the vans, after we had to hop over the fence to get the key to unlock the gate, then got ourselves situated in seats. They segregated us in our teams, so Swazi rode in the big van, Sprinter, which fit all 15 or 17 of them. While Kenya was split in two cars, one of them being a coombie, which I was in, and the other being in Ally's Condor. But we made it without any big problems, no fights, and no metal breakdowns (I think some of us left part of our sanity 10 hours 28 minutes into the trip… But we made it in right around 7:30, which after seeing the ocean brought screams of joy from everyone in the van and the sunset which we were able to see driving in was "to-die-for" it was all pretty epic. So once we parked and got out JBay team was waiting for us where we're staying and hugs were given all around, we ran to the beach, and got our feet wet. We're only about a block and half away from the beach. It reminds me a lot of a Californian beach, only with better sand and not so crowded. After that we went back got into our cabins, we're staying in a backpackers spot, which is lot of cabins and a big meeting area all in a gated community, it's pretty big, the guys cabin has about 15 or 16 bunks in it, and I think all of them are about the same. We then had dinner, a quick rundown of what Sunday was, Me and Ben being told that we are doing church for our team, and a good nite.

Sunday morning, lots of the team got up to walk on the beach pretty early, the guys stayed back and slept till, well right before breakfast. Then we had church, I led some I-Pod worship, not worship the I Pod… Then I read some verses that the Lord had given me and asked a few people to testify of how they were applicable in the last 2 weeks while we were away from each other, and then Ben went ahead and gave a message, on King Jehosephat, which he did a really good job with. Then it was beach time, we went out to the beach, the guys had a race to see who could get to the water first, I don't think I won, but it was very close, then we had a really good time getting burnt, fighting waves, throwing people in etc. Then a few of our JBay friends stopped by after their church, brought their surfboard and skim board, and let us go at it. I had a great time with the skim board, I got to do a bit of it back at Ecola last year. And I tried surfing, none of our guys know how to do it, but we strapped on and tried to do it anyways. We all failed, but we had a good time, then we went searching for food which was difficult since the power was out around town, not sure why, but a few restaurants were open with generators and me and Ben grabbed a burger which was excellent. After that it was naptime back in the cabin, where I passed out and wrapped myself in my sleeping bag, cuz the sunburn from the morning was pretty bad to cool me off. A nice nap, then we met up at 5:30 to go to a church called Christ for the Nations that the JBay team goes to on Sunday nites, it's a college and career group. So we went there, it was weird being back in an "American Church" just the nice building that's big and has seats and all the decorations. But it was good. Then we came back and had a nice night sleeping. One of the things that the youth pastor said (and the only thing that really stuck with me) is "What would you do for God if you knew you couldn't fail?" Holy Cow! That got some thoughts in me going.

Tuesday I got up like normal, had breakfast, then quiet time on the beach for a bit, until I decided I was tired of getting sand in my pupil and my bible being flipped from Philippians to Deuteronomy and back, so I moved back up to the cabin. Then we walked over to the JBay house, which is about a 15 minute walk, and hung out until lunchtime by playing games. I played some UNO and Phase 10 and dominated at both, because I'm so awesome ;) It was fun, then we had a quick lunch then shadowed our JBay teammates in their ministry. I went with a girl named Cassie and we visited one of her friends in the township right outside of JBay, which we had to walk to in freezing cold rain, that pelted us, and I was in shots and a T Shirt which were both soaking by the time we got to Martha's house. We sat down and she told us about her story and I got to meet her kids, she has 3 awesome kids, one who's nickname is Mighty Mouse; he's 8 but an awesome kid. Then we walked over to a chreche which is almost right next door and played with some of the kids and encouraged the ladies running it. Then we went ahead and went back to JBay house around 5ish, and I played 2 games of Chess with Ty and beat him both times, and just had a good time catching up with him and listening to some Mitch Hedberg. After that we walked over to the church which is about a 10 minute walk from the JBay house and had some awesome Taco Salad. We don't really eat at the camper's resort because there's no place to do it, and we don't have any silverware or plates… So the church has been very kind to let us use their kitchen and supplies. After that we had a good time of praise and worship back at the camper's resort. That's been about it.
I feel like this has been a bunch of rambling, and I apologize for that, but hopefully you can get a bit of what's been going down the last little while. I think I might try and polish up my blogs over winter break.

Oh an idea I've had, and I need/want feedback on it, is making a calendar, with my pictures from here in Africa, and selling it to get a little more funding for my plane ticket coming back to Kenya. I just want to see if anyone would be interested or what not. So like always, and I mean it, I love you guys, God Bless, stay safe, can't wait to see everyone very soon.

I think that's it for photos right now, I'll have more time later to get them up.