My first fulll week!!

Hi, All,

Here are highlights from my first full week:

* Went to SOS Children's Village twice this week. We lead a club that in which we teach lifeskills and a Bible study, attendance ranges from 10 - 20 kids ages 13-16.

* One of the SOS Moms fixes us a meal on Wednesdays sometimes, so we went did that this Wednesday and it was great to sit down and talk with Trudi, the mom, and get to know the kids a little better. I had fun reading to her younger son, Hendrick, and taking pictures of him, he loved checking out the picture and then he kept posing for more - it reminded me of my nephew, Dalton, he did the same thing with me over Christmas!! Below is one of the pics!

* Going to Maitland Childrens Hospital, its an orthopedic hospital and the services are free of charge, so the children there all come from disadvantaged backgrounds. There are no individual rooms, its one big room for the boys and one for the girls. We go in with books, games, puzzles to play with them and some do puppet shows or we take in a guitar and sing songs. It's so rewarding to bring them a little joy. Most of the kids are confined to their beds for long periods of a time, so when they see us coming they start calling for us, "Auntie, Auntie". We go there twice a week.

* I also got to visit the two schools we have programs in. They are both elementary schools. One is in town and a couple of the volunteers go in and serve as teachers aides. Then the other school is a rural farm school, where some of the kids come from a nearby township. The volunteers teach lifeskills for an hour three times a week. When we arrived there the kids all flocked to us, holding our hands, wanting to be picked up and held, wanting to play or just get our attention. They are all so precious, such warm welcomes everywhere we go!

* On Friday evening we headed to Stellenbosch, where Denzel is from, to go on a hike up the mountain. I had my reservations going in, and for good reason! I thought I was going to die on that mountain! It was not a nice cleared trail like back home. It was just a narrow trampled down trail with branches and vegetaion growing into it, scratching and catching on our clothes and lots of rocks to navigate, climb up. We had big ole backpacks on our back because we camped out over night on the mountain. I really can't believe I made it up to the campsite. Everyone was very supportive to me, but I was holding us up immensely! Then on Saturday I thought I was doing better until I turned my ankle, my mood took a nosedive and the rest of the day was not good! I didn't get to climb up to the waterfall and my ankle throbbed everytime I stepped wrong! I'm still trying to get over the negative effects to my psyche, so please pray for me. It all seemed so easy for everyone else!! Needless to say, I will not be hiking any mountains any time soon!! I need to start a training regimine or something!

* Sunday night we were invited to a Baptist church to give a presentation. So some of the volunteers did their drama. Team Khanya came as well, they are another program YFC does here that does ministry through drama and dance. Members are on the team for a year at a time. They got up and spoke and then I had to get up and give my testimony! I was nervous but it went well. It was fun to be with the Khanya (pronounced like Kenya, but its a Khosa word) again, they are a lot of fun!

Thats about it for this week....please pray for my continued adaptation to living with 10 people, to find my place on the team, that I would continue to see God leading and guiding me through all of this, to increase my dependence on Him!! To share His love with the kids here who are so desperate for it!

Love and blessings to you!!