Hiep Hoy! Holland!

So yes, I am a very bad blogger...it was my friend Marnie who inspired me to finally get off my lazy cyber butt and log in. Her blog is http://hongkongmoo.blogspot.com/ and it''s a darn
sight more developed than mine!




Westminster Abbey

I spent my first week in the UK actually at a Christian camp called Soul Survivor. A lot of the recent worship songs have come from these conferences and I can see why. As it is I heard new songs called Éverlasting God' and Í'll stand that I think will become quite popular when they eventually reach our shores. although it rained and was muddy and chilly, I still had a good time and God pointed out some important things to me. The missions area also re-affirmed by call to Asia. It was probably a very nice cross-over between a DTS and normal London life.
The next two weeks were job searching in london. l'm extremely lucky in that since my London friend Kate was able to organise house-sitting, I still haven't had to pay for accomodation yet in europe and so have had the luxury of being able to hunt for a graphics job rather than grab any.


Now I am currently visiting DTS friends in Holland. The village my friend Marieke (the biker in the photo) lives in is sooooo cute and we have been riding around everywhere - including to the beach!
Next week I visit TJ in north Holland - the Friesen land.

Nearly out of Africa...

It's only a couple of sleeps till I fly for London. I've been tidying up and preparing for it. I've also been reflecting on all this time in Africa and what I've learnt.
Most of all I think I have learnt to wrestle with God, rather than not involving him at all and avoiding the hard emotions.
Why did we have to flee a country? I don't know but I do know God is okay with me being angry about it - He's big enough for that.
Why are so many still suffering? I don't know but I do know Christian Africans that have a deep joyful faith regardless.
Does God use ridiculously young and naieve people? Yes.
A lot of our time felt wasted and ineffective- was it? Perhaps, but then most of mission work is long boring 'wasted' work with very few rewards and possibly never seeing the results.
Would I do it all again if I knew what would happen? Definitely. I do not want to let go of the little understanding that I've gained of a people standing among a country in ruins and what the lives are like behind those faces on the world vision ads.
I have made many great friends who are now scattered around the world, which makes me exceedingly grateful for the giant re-union heaven will be. I will miss the children here at Beautiful Gate, I have watched some of them grow from whimpering babies to having developed vibrant little personalities even though they are only just talking. It will be strange not waking to their chatter.
See you in London.

Last Night in Joburg

So while the strike was going on we didn't really have any schoolkids coming to Joseph Project so we began working with one of the Lambano baby house, which has very small children and toddlers. Most of the time we just held them and played with them. For one day I went to the park with them which they loved.



Thankfully this isn't me getting nibbled on. But they were right next to our van.


Tonight is our last night at Joseph Project. We reunite with the other teams on saturday and begin debriefing next week. Outreach has been challenging, rewarding and downright dangerous at times. But I have learnt and experienced a lot even though our team did not end up working where we thought we would. Definitely I want to be back in africa someday.

Apartheid Museum

The group that went to visit the apartheid museum - Ren, Kari, TJ, Matt and I.


Nooses for those who died fighting apartheid.


A Casspir vehicle that patrolled the streets during the riots.


Dis-armed weapons from the fighting. There were a lot of AK-47's.
The fighting had even come down Commissioner street in Johannesburg, which is where we were staying. Even though I remember seeing the news about Soweto during the 90's, I hadn't realised that a lot of the fighters were children - until I saw video footage of them being beaten up by police. It is really amazing that there is peace between the races in South Africa today after the terrible atrocities that line their past. I think Nelson Mandela did a pretty good job against the odds. It was incredibly moving.

Day at the Park

This is the park we went to on Saturday. We had a picnic lunch.


I lay on the grass and took photos.






This is Ryan, the ninja, jumping off the horsy ride.

Joseph Project

So now we're safe and sound doing sleeping, eating and working in a community centre called Joseph Project. The whole concept of it is to teach the inner city kids of Joburg to dream again. It's based in Troyeville, once a rich gold baron's residential area, now turned into a slum controlled by 'slumlords'.
So here's what my schedule looks like...
Monday mornings I'm helping build a website
Tuesdays I help out in the preschool for kids too poor to go to normal preschool. They are incredibly cute but their little toes stick out from their shoes and they still arrive in shorts even when it's freezing. Here's some photos of them.

This is Josua who quite prefers the pink bike.

This is Noella. I think she's from the Congo.

Here is the extremely rickety swingset that rocks off it's feet everytime the three of them get on and start swinging.

Mawimpizo, who is the smallest boy in the class, also managed to build a tower bigger than he was. I was so impressed.

Esther is a Malaysian Australian who is the preschool teacher. We have 'circle time' every morning which includes singing. People keep asking us if we're sisters e.t.c


Everyday Lungile, the girl, dresses up like a princess.


We're trying out a new thing, which is teaching them to clean their own dishes. It's very slow, but they did do it. The kids here have to take on a lot more responsibility around the house than kids in Australia. They already fold their own blankets, wipe down tables and help me butter the bread.



Then on Weds there's a meeting and I plan (which usually means shooting a few hoops at the local basketball court while I'm thinking)
On Thursdays I do building work, which so far has been bricklaying or like today, shopping for cement, timber and fittings.
On Fridays it's the website again.
This is only for the mornings. Every afternoon kids from the local primary schools arrive from 2pm onward. We play cricket, pingpong or this dodgy American version of handball called 'foursquare' which turns the kids really vicious as they slam the ball at each other. Then they sit down at tables and get fed lunch. You can tell the ones that are really poor cause they eat everything.
Then we do homework with them for an hour, which usually forces me to go into teacher mode to make them all sit and concentrate. Their level of education is pretty bad considering the ones I tutor are in Yr 7 and they ask me questions like "what's 6 x 2?". I've been trying to give them extra work to help them catch up because a lot of the time their teachers aren't giving them homework (or the teachers simply aren't turning up to class). Surprisingly they like maths a lot better than English.
Finally it's playtime then clean up at 5pm. By this time I am usually exhausted because I have the rowdiest class. I don't know how teachers do it everyday.
The girl on the left, Princess, makes me play pick up sticks with her every day. I hate that game now. She always wins...until yesterday!


This is the dining situation. That's my team leader, CarrieAnne in the red cardigan.

This is cricket in the garage. It's extremely scary if you're fielding up close. I have bruises on my legs from it.

This is that evil foursquare game. Did I mention it was played with a basketball?

Although at first I really missed the open fields, skies and plain living of Zimbabwe, I'm finally adjusting to life here and not feeling so cooped up. Since this is Johannesburg we can't be outside after 6pm at night so the only time I get to be under the blue sky is if I sneak away to do planning on a weds or on 5 min walks at lunchtime. It was driving me crazy at first but I realised a lot of their regular staff are away so they do really need our team here so I had better stop 'kicking against the goads' and just come to accept it was in God's plan.

We have fled Zimbabwe!

So after being robbed on Monday, during which our car keys were stolen and I was stabbed at while trying to get them back, we were forced to leave the country due to police pressure. The police began accusing us of 'working with the opposition' and since the elections are in January, political opposition in Zimbabwe has been beaten up, imprisoned or simply 'disappeared'. Tehy were also taking in people for interrogation. So it was time for us to leave.
Still God protected us during this time, and gave us an incredibly smooth flight as we ran for it, leaving quite a bit of our stuff behind. I just pray he protects the people we left behind. But we are safe in Johannesburg, South Africa, oxymoron though that sounds.