Radiantly Stellar

This past week has been awesome.  I feel like I am really growing and changing since being down here in Africa.  Not sure if it is just the way people are, or because I’m in another part of the world and away from home.  Either way, I’ll let you in on what’s up, and what has been mulling around in my brain lately.

I started volunteering this week, at Thandusana and through Unity for Africa, the first is an abandoned babies home, and I just love it, the kids are amazing, and I feel so blessed to be able to work in a Christian home for these little ones.  I love every day I can go, and might start going on Thursdays as well, we’ll see.  Unity for Africa was really cool we are doing art projects to help kids find what they are good at and explore it.  I enjoyed it last week, and I’m excited to go back, although this afterschool program is in a very run down part of town, it just goes to show the difference in rich and poor.  It’s crazy intense.

I hosted a girls night on Friday night that ended up getting crashed by Jer and the guys, but we had a great night and ended up going out dancing at a club.  It’s kind of crazy, at first I thought all of us had come to Africa to give back and be an effective part of a community, but you can start seeing who wants to give back, and who is here to party.  Nothing bad either way, but I feel like your missing out if you are just going out all of the time. 

I’ve been reading my Bible more that I’ve been here than I did before I came,  I felt so disconnected before I came, I think because I was travelling so much, and just felt out of place.  I started reading my Bible every day, and having God time, and it’s amazing how much my perspective and attitude has changed just in a few weeks.  Amazing what God can do, when you just push through the 7^th veil, we’ll see what else he has in store for me.

Watched my first rugby game on Saturday, we went to an amphitheatre to watch it, it’s intense.  It’s like football, but much crazier, and no armor, glad I don’t play.

Found a new place to volunteer at, it’s a rehab center for penguins, I’m pretty stoked, Jer and I are going to start going once a week to help out, I think it should be a lot of fun.

I represented America the other day on Friday and each country that came to the international fair had to bring some sort of food that represented their country.  I decided on Puppy Chow, one because I’m really goopd at making it, and the other reason is because nobody knew what it actually was.  While we were lined up at the fair people kept coming up and eyeing our stuff and were like, “what is that?”  I was like really?  You are going to eye my table with oddness, when there are worms over at the other table?  J But everyone liked it, and a judge came over and said that we had the best food and came back for seconds.  We didn’t win anything, but we did run out of food by 11.  Guess it was good.  I made 4 gallon sized bags for it, it was intense. 

I don’t know if I talked about this before, but something I’ve been stirring around in my head is what God has called me to be.  I read a magazine article about being freaking awesome.  Due to the real title having a less than appropriate four letter word in the title, I decided to change it to mean “radiantly stellar”.  You know those people that you meet and they just seem to be the coolest people you’ve ever met?  You just feel like you know them, and they exude this contentment and easy going-ness. I have so many things I want to do in my life, but if I can just be radiantly stellar and help other people and be a woman of Christ then I did my job.  God put other people on my heart, and so whether that will be volunteering here in Africa, or helping kindergarteners read back in America I’m not sure, but I feel like I’m starting to discover what kind of person God wants me to be.

God bless,

Aj

Sorry the blog was so long, I haven't been able to post in a while.