Welcome to South Africa

Well, to let you guys know I made it safe and sound to South Africa. The trip was a long one, twenty-six hours to be exact, but it was completely worth the flight.  The beauty of South Africa is incomparable. The mountains, the beach, the water, and the people are some of the best I have experienced. Living in South Africa is like living in a postcard and you don’t even have to edit your pictures to make it look more appealing. South Africa is a place that is going to be extremely difficult to leave. God has been amazing even in the past day I have been here. It all began with my plane ride. I was asked to bring over about 16Ibs of books to a family over here for their schooling, which I was happy to do. The hard part was once I realized that I couldn’t fit them into my suitcase and had to carry them on. Normally taking items on like that is hard, but once you add jeans from you slightly overweight suitcase in addition to your boredom relieving activities it adds some poundage. So all in all I was carrying about 25Ibs, which doesn’t sound to heavy, but when you are rushing to try and make your connecting flight, it can really slow you down. However, God was really good, which He always is. On my first flight, I had a really nice man help me squeeze my bag into the overhead compartment, which sadly I couldn’t reach and furthermore, after the flight the guy sitting next to me, Romeo was his name, offered to help carry my bag to my terminal, which saved a lot of heartache.  It was a blessing to have someone help me out like that. In addition, I was stressing getting through customs and passport control once I reached Johannesburg. I only had about an hour layover before they started boarding my final flight to Johannesburg and the plane was pretty full of tourists and new people coming into South Africa, which meant I was going to have to hustle to make sure I got there in time to make my flight. Having 25Ibs of extra weight was going to slow me down a ton especially when moving through a thick crowd. But again, the Lord was good, I was at the check in counter and the lady had made an announcement about overweight carry-on’s, so I took my bag and went and had it weighed. It was definitely overweight.  She took my bag and checked it on for me at no additional cost, and I was able to get a bag to carry on the stuff I needed, so once I landed in Johannesburg I was able to get off the plane quickly, make it through passport control, re-check my bags and go through security with time to spare for my final flight to Capetown. It was just amazing to see how God watches out for us, even in the small things. Well, I finally made it to Capetown, grabbed all my bags, and headed down to meet Brandon Jones and Mark Proeger, who took me to the Africa house where I would be living. The drive there was quite interesting. I have driven on the opposite side of the road with the wheel on the right side of the car instead of the left, but didn’t notice as much because at that time I had never driven, but now as a “experienced” driver, this was a whole new world to me.  I was extremely happy I was not the one driving, but before I leave I think I am going to try. After a quick debrief from the house coordinator, I fell into bed utterly exhausted and welcoming sleep. The next morning, very early (5am), I met one of my roommates due to the jetlag from flying.  Her name was Evette and she was extremely friendly. Well we stayed up the rest of the night and after I unpacked, Brandon Jones, one of the leaders, showed me around and I got to spend time with him, his wife, and his daughter. We ate at this delicious little whole in the wall café, in a garden center, the food here is quite good. We then headed up to Floyd and Sally McClung’s, good family friends of ours and founders of All Nations. It was nice to see a familiar face and talk with them for a while. We then headed back and I finished out my second night by meeting more students, attempting to learn Afrikaans and introducing many of the students to York Peppermint Patties, only the best candy ever made.  These next five months are going to be good, I can’t wait to see what the Lord does! I really appreciate the support, if you are wondering I will post about once a week hopefully on Sunday’s. Thank-you again for your prayers!