God is soooo good! I know that most of you know that already, but I am just overflowing with excitement about how He has just been blessing me in many large and small ways in the past few days. I’ll try to be brief about what’s been happening… here’s a day by day…

>Thursday:
In the morning, all the missionaries here went and picked up 15 volunteer missionaries from Louisiana. There were supposed to be 16 of them, but one poor guy didn’t know that your passport can’t expires within 30 days of the return flight… his expired about a week or so after he was scheduled to fly back to the States. Poor guy. His name is Zane. So… we got them and brought them home. It was a crazy day because they all had to exchange money, figure out lodging, and eat (yeah, we almost forgot to let them eat – oops!). They ended up changing the girls’ sleeping arrangements, and instead of 7 girls sleeping in out house, all 11 (yes ELEVEN) girls are now staying here. It’s awesome – a huge slumber party! hehe Thursday afternoon I received an SMS (like a text message) and it was from a girl named Heather, a girl that I met a couple months ago. I hadn’t heard from her in a while, so I was excited to get something from her. She was inviting me to a braai (a South African cookout) and movie night at her apartment complex. She goes to the Baptist College, and it was all people from the college. I was so happy to be invited to something fun and completely unrelated to my work here. I had to ask Charlie (my boss) if it was ok for me to leave the LSU team for the evening, and he said I could! Hooray! Thursday night I went to music practice at church, and as always, I had a blast! I love singing with these guys.

>Friday:
Zane arrived! He got all of his passport stuff worked out (after a flight to DC and talking to certain people), and he ended up being able to get on a flight to SA just a day after his team. I know he was happy to get here! We took the team on a historical tour of SOWETO, which stands for Southwestern Townships. That was fun… I continue to learn more every time we take someone on a tour! There were some men from a Baptist Church there that served as our tour guides. That afternoon we went to lunch at Wandie’s Place, a restaurant in SOWETO known for authentic South African’ cuisine. As always, it was delicious! By now I have learned what I like, and what to stay away from. :) After lunch, we went to Jabavu Baptist Church (in SOWETO) to have a little orientation with the pastor there. He told the team some thing to do and not to do. He informed us that all the girls had to wear skirt during the prayer walking and street evangelism, which was the next day… well, many of the girls had not brought fitting skirts, so after that we went to the mall!! My carload was more than excited when we saw Brenda (remember her, my car washer friend?). We all talked to her in the parking lot for a while before shopping quickly for a khaki skirt. The girls really blessed Brenda, and I know God ordained that meeting. Praise Him! That night the team had a meeting at the Lechners house while the Lechners left and went on a date! This team has been awesome. They’re paying for everything for us missionaries so we don’t have to pay out of our pockets… and they took up money to send Charlie and Angie on a date and enough money to spend the night somewhere! The guy on the team all stayed with the kids (since they are sleeping at their house). What a blessing that was to Charlie and Angie!

>Saturday:
Grrrreat day! We did prayer walking and street evangelism around Jabavu Baptist Church. We also invited people to come to church Sunday morning. For once, I felt like I knew what I was doing. I knew how to greet people, and communicate with (most) people. I hadn’t even realized how much I have been learning since I got here, but I saw it come out on Saturday! I think about 9 people on the streets of SOWETO came to know the Lord on Saturday. Isn’t God GOOD?!? I got to pray with various people and just spend some time talking to them. It was awesome. After that, the team went to Bruma Market for some souvenir shopping. I separated from them at that point and came home to get ready for the braai! I was so nervous. I only knew Heather and Sean (Sean goes to my church), but they had purposely invited me because they’re trying to help me make friends (aren’t they sweet?). Well, once I got there I wasn’t very nervous at all, and by the end of the night I wasn’t nervous at all! It was a cool event. People had brought out their couches from their flats (apartments) and put them in the parking lot. They set up a screen with a movie projector. We watched Christian music videos for a while and just talked to people and hung out. Then when the braai (grill) was ready, we took our meat (oh yeah, a braai is “bring your own meat”) to the guys since the men to the cooking at a braai. Once we finally all had our food (which was well after this function began) we started the movie. It was cold outside! So we were all on these couches, bundled up in blankets and coats to keep warm. It was SO much fun. I enjoyed being able to hang out with people my age and not worry or even think about work except when people asked what I was doing here. Now I just pray that I will have a chance to se these people again sometime! After the braai, I came home, and of course the girls were all still awake. The ones I’ve gotten closer with all wanted to know how it was and who I met. They were as excited for me as I was! Then, a little later, all but 2 of us sat in the living room having some serious girl/God talk. It was amazing, and I know God was present in the room. We were all sharing testimonies of how God has working in our lives, and discussing girl issues. We even finished off the discussion by praying. Wow… I do NOT want these girls to leave! God has blessed me an incredible amount through them already.

Well, now it’s Sunday afternoon. I went to my church this morning because I was scheduled to sing. The team all went to Jabavu. They’re not back yet, but I want them to come home so I can ask them how it went! I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on whenever I can.

Thanks for checking in on me!


Link to pictures:
http://community.webshots.com/user/bonnieb81