So right now I am sitting in an internet cafe in Jeffreys Bay South Africa and it is still so surreal to me. This is where I live! We arrived in Jeffreys Bay about 1:00am on Wendesday! So even though I was still in Georgia last week it was such a huge growing time. Training camp prepared us extremely well for JBay! We had classes on cultural differences, spiritual warfare, and listening prayer. We did a lot of different team builders such as obstacle courses and problem solvers which helped us learn to work together better as a team. Training camp was really hard at time but God did some incredible things there! It was a time to get real with God and lay everything at His feet and it was a time to get to know team members better as well! The last day we were able to go out into the town on Gainesville and do an ATL (Ask The Lord). We went to the park, got into groups, started praying and asking God what He wanted us to do. We eventually went to a picnic table in the middle of the park and starting singing but as soon as we started singing I saw a lady that I knew God wanted me to talk to. It was scary and I was hesitate to walk up to a total stranger but I knew I had to so as soon as we stopped singing I went over to ger. She was sitting under a pavilion and she was at her daughters birthday party. Her husband got up and went somewhere so I asked if I could sit down beside her. She said yes and we exchanged names. Her name was Sue. Another one of my teammates, Johanna sat down on the grown in from of us. She started telling us all about her family. She has 10 grand children and 10 great grand children. She told us about he grandson and her neice overdosing on drugs. Her grandson died from in but her neice lived after hospitalization. She said that her niece had two sons but just didn’t want to live anymore. Johanna was able to share her story of attempted suicide and I asked if we could pray with her and she held out her hands! She hugged us and kissed us on the cheek! So God was already doing incredible things and we weren’t even in JBay!
We are now in JBay and the passed two days we have been recovering from jet lag and exporing our new home. Today, we went on a scavenger hunt all around town and it was really fun! We had to take a picture in the freexing cold ocean BUT the beach is soooooo beautiful! We live about a block from the beach and there are mountains in the background! I live in a compound sort of thing. It a gated little community thing. I live with 11 other girls in a small house with two rooms and a bathroom. There are 5 other girls in my room. It is different but I am extremely excited for what God has in store for us! We are going to the Bush this weekend for some kind of camp trip thing!
If you want to pray for my team and I here are a few things you can pray for: about 6 of our team members arre stilling traveling from the states, one team member llost her passport in JoBurg and got dported to canada, and just pray for our safety and unity as a team!
Thanks! Love you all!
-mary-
