- The flight over here was pretty long. 27 hours total, with the longest flight being 17 hours. I felt so claustrophobic. But at least I could watch movies!
- I found out really quick that the South African sun is really intense. I usually take pride in never having to wear sunscreen. But I found myself caking my whole body with it on the second day after getting burned pretty bad on the first day. Definitely a rookie mistake on my part.
- I love the smell out here. It smells like a combo of coconut and pineapple mixed with lotion. I don't know. I just love it!
-A few of us stayed up late and went to a local restaurant in town to watch the Superbowl early Monday morning (it started at 1:30am out here). Sadly, we only stayed til the half and so we missed all the exciting stuff.
- I still can't sleep very well. There is an 8 hour difference in time, and so they say it should take 8 days to get adapted to it.
- As lot of you probably know, I don't like animals. Thankfully I haven't gotten attacked by anything yet, but I've been keeping a constant eye out. There are some scary looking birds and some poisonous snakes over here. But the thing I am most worried about are the baboons. Apparently, they attack people and are pretty vicious. But that is usually only if the person is carrying around food. The other day on my run I saw two baboons about 50 meters away and I got pretty scared, even though I knew they wouldn't attack me since I didn't have food. I just gotta make sure I'm not carrying any food when I head out the door. Hopefully, that shouldn't be too hard!
-I'm super thankful I've been able to squeeze in some runs. Although all of them haven't been too great. It's been 90-100 degrees everyday, there are tons of bikes on the roads, no shoulders or sidewalks to run on, and the cars drive on the opposite side of the road which definitely makes things really confusing. I'm more worried about just surviving than about getting a good workout in. The good thing is, my runs here have been the most scenic runs of my life! And I have been fortunate enough to do some of my easy runs with my good friends Matt and Jay. They know the area a little better and aren't a newbie like I am.
- The program I'm in, which is called CPx (Church Planting Experience), started up on Sunday evening. In a typical week we will spend three of the days (Tues-Thurs) in lectures learning and hearing stories from some very wise, awesome, Christ-following people. Another three days (Fri-Sun) will be spent doing outreach in certain townships in Cape Town. For these outreaches we will be in our church of people (6 or 7) and will just try to love on, serve, and just spread the Gospel. The townships have extreme poverty and generally have pretty high rates of crime. Then on Mondays, we will have the day off!
I've found out quickly that I'm gonna have to get used to being uncomfortable out here. There are so many differences and a lot of daily comforts that aren't around out here like I'm used to at home. But after hearing everyone's awesome stories, I've been so excited to see how God will work in my heart over these next 5 months, and where He will lead me to afterwards. I've already felt Him working in my heart these first few days!
I miss all you guys back in the States! If you guys wanna get a hold of me then just shoot me an email or send me an F-book message. And lastly, Go Timberwolves- they just went over .500 a couple hours ago!
-I'm super thankful I've been able to squeeze in some runs. Although all of them haven't been too great. It's been 90-100 degrees everyday, there are tons of bikes on the roads, no shoulders or sidewalks to run on, and the cars drive on the opposite side of the road which definitely makes things really confusing. I'm more worried about just surviving than about getting a good workout in. The good thing is, my runs here have been the most scenic runs of my life! And I have been fortunate enough to do some of my easy runs with my good friends Matt and Jay. They know the area a little better and aren't a newbie like I am.
- The program I'm in, which is called CPx (Church Planting Experience), started up on Sunday evening. In a typical week we will spend three of the days (Tues-Thurs) in lectures learning and hearing stories from some very wise, awesome, Christ-following people. Another three days (Fri-Sun) will be spent doing outreach in certain townships in Cape Town. For these outreaches we will be in our church of people (6 or 7) and will just try to love on, serve, and just spread the Gospel. The townships have extreme poverty and generally have pretty high rates of crime. Then on Mondays, we will have the day off!
I've found out quickly that I'm gonna have to get used to being uncomfortable out here. There are so many differences and a lot of daily comforts that aren't around out here like I'm used to at home. But after hearing everyone's awesome stories, I've been so excited to see how God will work in my heart over these next 5 months, and where He will lead me to afterwards. I've already felt Him working in my heart these first few days!
I miss all you guys back in the States! If you guys wanna get a hold of me then just shoot me an email or send me an F-book message. And lastly, Go Timberwolves- they just went over .500 a couple hours ago!
Hey excellent "first post" (considering it's your first one actually out of the states. Animals would be REALLY hard for me in that situation (especially if you add in spiders... sick) and I would never be able to do runs in that heat and with that intensity of the baboon population. lol.
ReplyDeleteI think this excursion is good for you (makes me feel like I need to get out of my comfort zone) Most of my friends that have done missions come back with a really interesting point of view on the world, and it's usually extremely different from their original view, and it changes their lifestyle. The nice thing about this blog is that you can look back and see how you've grown within that time!