The 5 Days of Christmas

Well, its been quite a long time since I've written...I can't believe its been a month already since my last post! Sorry to all of my avid readers who have been anxiously waiting at the computer for my next post ;). Its basically been an extremely quick month and since my last post I've experienced a South African/American Thanksgiving, 12 Christmas parties in 4 days with over 1000 kids, and have started leading music at a new church in Capricorn.

As November ended and December quickly approached it just seemed hard to believe that it was Thanksgiving already and that 2008 had only one month left! My 3 months here so far have flown by. But, despite the 80 degree weather and shorts and flip-flops, sure enough it was time to celebrate Thanksgiving. All of the American volunteers that were here at the time got together at Mike and Pam Talley's (the volunteer coordinators for Living Hope) house for a Thanksgiving feast and some American football, both on tv and in the parking lot outside their flat (yes, I have started using the South African/British terms such as flat, rather than apartment). We were all asked to make/purchase some food item to bring. I decided to make some good ol' southern sweet potato casserole. However, it took a thorough searh in 2 local grocery stores to finally come up with all the ingredients. Also, apparently the sweet potatoes they have in South Africa are white, rather than orange, which I was a bit skeptical of. Despite my skepticism over the colorless sweet potatoes, I continued on with my plan to make the casserole. I was a bit worried though to serve sweet potatoe casserole, with white potatoes, that would have looked basically like regular mashed potatoes with marshmallow/pecan topping, and how that would be received. So, I came up with a plan: red and yellow food coloring + white sweet potatoes = orange (regular) sweet potatoes. Well, at first, my plan failed miserably. Adding the food coloring to the mashed sweet potatoes resulted in what looked like some very disturbing corn beef hash. I didn't really know what to do at this point...I was too afraid to add more food coloring. So, I just laughed, took a picture of it and hoped that in the end at least it would taste ok. Fortunately, once I added the butter and eggs (luckily both very yellow in color) and the rest of the ingredients together, all of a sudden my very sad and unfortunate looking potatoes transformed into some close-to-perfect looking sweet potatoes. I appropriately gave much thanks to my successfully executed South African Thanksgiving sweet potato color transformation plan. So, after that adventure was over we headed over to the Talley's and enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal, with turkey, dressing, green beans, pumpkin pie, etc. It truly was an American Thanksgiving feast. We even watched the Cowboys v Redskins game that been recorded from sattelite cable to make the day feel more American. It was nice to be able to celebrate and enjoy the holiday, even being so far from home and away from family, it was nice to be able to spend it with new friends and those who I would consider my South African family. It certainly made it easier to be away from home and I had (have) so much to be thankful for!

This past week we have been working very hard to pull off 3 Christmas parties a day, each day in a different location. There is a team here from Atlanta called Extreme Response. Actually, the people here with ER are from all over the US, but ER is based out of Atlanta. They do mission projects all over the world and one of their projects is to host Christmas parties around the world, sharing the love and joy of the season and doing something special and bring joy and hope to those who are living in extreme situations. So each day this week we have been in a different Living Hope site: Red Hill, Capricorn, Masi, Ocean View and the Living Hope head office. Each day consists of a morning breakfast for the staff in each area, a lunch for the support group workers and clients(those suffering from HIV/AIDS) of Living Hope, and an afternoon party/carnival for the kids in the area. It has been so much fun to be a part of and each party has gone so well and been so well received. Its amazing to see people come together to celebrate Christmas and enjoy a nice meal and party and, at least for a little while, almost forget about everything else. My role this week has been driver/transportation man. Basically anything that needs to go anywhere...I take it there. I think in the past 5 days I've driven over 500km (310 miles) just around this part of the southern peninsula. I can certainly now say that I know my way around this area quite well! It has been an incredible week and a lot of fun, but it was also extremely exhausting. Today has been so nice...sleeping in and doing as little as possible. Our last day of parties is Monday. Our morning party will be at Living Grace, the homeless ministry, for the clients there and then in the afternoon at Red Hill for the kids, where I work every afternoon. That will be a special day for me, since Living Grace and Red Hill are the two places where I have the most connection.

Since my last post I was asked to join the worship team at Capricorn Church, in Capricorn (the coloured township, where I work with the Music Academy kids). They have been using just a cd player and praise song cd's for their morning worship, but have been wanting to start using live music. So, they asked me to join and lead music every Sunday. I gladly joined and it has been amazing! It's a very small church, but with so much passion and such a positive focus and direction. The two pastors, Clinton and Des (who are in the Baptism in the ocean pictures) are just incredible and do such a good job leading that church. A couple Sundays ago, I met a 97 year old woman named Oma. Oma lives about 20 minutes walk from the church in Overcome Heights, and walks there every Sunday and is the first person there every time. Apparently Oma means "grandmother" or more literally "old mother". She shared with me that she usually walks some 15-20 km a couple times a week to go to a specific market. When I told her how amazing I thought that was, she responded "well, like the bible says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength...and well, God is good and keeps giving me strength, so I might as well us it". I didn't really know what to say to that other than just smile at her and laugh a little bit (she was having this whole conversation minus all of her teeth). What an amazing spirit and faith, though. I hope that if I make it to 97 that I have the same attitude Oma has...although I can't say I would enjoy being called "old mother". It was quite humbling though and makes me think how even now, at 22, and with all the provisions and things that I need, that my attitude and focus isn't always in the right place, or even close sometimes. I seem to weekly, even daily, be served a pretty healthy dose of perspective, that is, much more often than not, much needed. It's been so amazing to do so many different things with music and all the things that I've been able to experience through doing music in so many different places here. Antwon, a Congolese man that I was driving around the other day, reminded me how universal music is, and no matter what language you speak or what color you are, that music can be the one thing that so often brings people together. He felt pretty passionately about that and it was great just listening to him talk and hear him share his thoughts.

So, basically its been very busy since this time last month, but its been a great month! It is hard to believe that 3 months have passed and that 2008 is almost over. My time here will be done before I know it. For now, I'm just anxious to see what will happen over these last 4 weeks of 2008...hopefully not nearly as much time sitting behind the wheel of a truck, or dealing with poisonous snakes. ;)

Mas fotos...

New pictures are up!

(a few more still to come...including ones of the snake)

Snakes and Fireworks

So yesterday, November 5, was Guy Fawkes day, a day during which people in the UK, Australia and here in South Africa celebrate the foiling of Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the House of Parliament in England in 1605. The tradition is that on Guy Fawkes night to have bonfires and fireworks to celebrate the day. So last night we went to Fish Hoek beach to watch the fireworks and the celebration. Wow...it was crazy. It isn't a organized thing where the city sets off a big set of fireworks, instead there was a roped off area where people were anyone was allowed to shoot off their own fireworks. Most of the fireworks were being shot off in that area, but plenty of them weren't. Also, a lot of the ones being set off inside the roped in area weren't necessarily staying in the roped in area. At one point, a firework went off beside where we were standing and we were literally inside the fireworks "shower". It was a bit hectic. But the whole time we were there, no one was hurt, and all in all, it was a lot of fun and cool to see fireworks on the beach and be part of all the celebration.

Along with that excitement, about 2 days ago the gardners at our house were working in the garden and found a puff adder living under one of the bushes just outside our house. A puff adder is one of Africa's most poisonous snakes and definitely not something you want living outside your front door. They called the "Snake Busters", who sent out a young guy with long black hair dressed in all black with a skull on his tshirt, to take care of it. He pulled out his snake tongues and grabbed the puff adder with them then grabbed snake with his hand behind the snakes head. We took several pictures, which I'll post later on. So, fortunately the snake was discovered and taken away without anyone being bitten and the snake buster inspected the rest of the yard and told us that he didn't think there were anymore. We did however find a cool Leopard Tortoise along with the snake, who we kept in the garden. His name is Tommy. He doesn't bite.

Tuesday I had a lunch meeting with Avril and two ladies from the USA who are with a program called Hope2Africa that uses creative arts for their ministry to the kids in the townships. They are here working in Masi, and since the MMA is about to expand into Masi and they are doing the arts and we are doing music, we thought it'd be good to work together. So it'll be a cool couple of weeks working with them in Masi.

Not much else going on here. Although we did have our big MMA fundraiser last Saturday morning, and it went really well. Also I rented a car the other day to use for the rest of my time here. Its a dull lime green 1978 VW beetle. Its pretty awesome!

But I hope everyone is doing well and I'll be posting new pictures in the next few days, so you can look out for those.

Cheers!

To the GEMS girls at FBC:

So, I had a pretty great surprise yesterday when I got back to our house. I had a wonderful package from the GEMS (Girls engaged in missions) group at church filled with cards and pictures from them and a photo book with pictures of them inside. What a wonderful gift! It made my day!

So, thank you so much to all the GEMS girls who wrote me cards and drew me pictures and shared with me their thoughts and prayers and reminded me how great God is! You are all wonderful and very talented. The cards and drawings were beautiful and I have them in my room to look at and be reminded of you and the wonderful people back home. I feel your prayers every day, so again, thank you! I'm praying for you too.

Not just a preacher...

Apparently this is how my parents afforded our college education...a painting and waterproofing business here in South Africa. Who knew...

Happy Birthday Dad!

Well, its been a little while since I’ve written, but things here are going really well! This morning I had a meeting with the Director of the Silvermine Music Academy which is connected with one of the local primary schools. It was a great meeting and good way to get some ideas and feedback as well as some very helpful and useful contacts for the Mobile Music Academy to use. This Saturday is actually the big breakfast fundraiser for the MMA and we’ve been a little busy getting everything together for that. Hopefully that will go well and regardless of how much money it brings in, it will be a great way just to get our name out there and raise some awareness about what the academy is and what we are doing. Regardless, it should be fun!

This past Friday we started something new. From now on Fridays will be work project days for the volunteers. Friday is generally a half work day for most people in SA and so instead of just working half days, we’re going to use all of Friday to do work projects in the townships. So, this past Friday, I went with the other volunteers and the volunteer coordinators (Mike and Pam Talley from Brentwood Baptist) to rebuild a lady’s ceiling in Capricorn. We spent the day taking out her old ceiling, which is just sheetrock nailed to cross boards, all underneath a tin roof. We then added some more support boards and began putting up new “rhino board” ceiling panels. We also spent some time helping redo her herb garden and added some new plants for her to use. Its hard to go into these houses (shacks) and not feel incredibly humbled, guilty, and even ashamed. This lady’s house was a very small shack with two small rooms. Her bedroom was divided in two by an extra sheetrock panel, one side with her bed, the other was her bathroom. It makes you feel those emotions because of how much we take for granted and it throws into perspective how trivial many of our “needs” and problems really are. Maggie is fortunate to have a sink with running water, minimal electricity and a microwave, but many of the people living in these communities aren’t as fortunate. The inspiring part for me is always how high spirited the people are who live in these conditions. Most of us, I don’t think, would consider Maggie to be all that fortunate, but the reality is that she is. She has a roof over her head, a bed, running water, food and she is proud of these things and her house, her garden and her awesome little dog, Yupi. I’m always reminded of what “taking things for granted” really means when I spend time with the people in the townships and spend time visiting them in their homes. It’s such a great experience and I’ve met some very cool people. It keeps my in check with reality.

Last Monday we went into Cape Town to see Ryan Dalton, a Nashville guy, in concert. Ryan moved here 8 years ago and is musician who works with the kids on the streets around Cape Town. He’s started using rap music and hip-hop as both a form of outreach and to create awareness of the very real and very unfortunate things that are taking place in these kids lives. He’s signed a record deal and his concert was a lot of fun. He’s very talented and does a great job with the message in his songs. We had a lot of fun.

Tonight we are going to Pat Ball’s house, a US volunteer who now lives here, to have “taco night”. I’m looking forward to some really good American style tacos! Also, Thursday we are moving out of the place we are in now and into the Team House for a few months. The Crags, where we are now, was only temporary and the lease is up, so until we find our permanent location we will be living at the Team House. The Team House is pretty awesome and just on the other side of the peninsula on a really cool beach, so moving there is ok with us! But that just means we have to pack up again and move, but its no big deal. We’ll have to move again in a couple months, which, including my initial move-in when I got here will be our 4th move. Crazy! But we’re looking forward to living there, with two more volunteers and the team house manager who is a friend of ours.

That’s all for now! Feel free to give my dad a hard time for being so old (54)! I’m sure he’ll appreciate that. ;)

Miss you all!

A tough week in Masi

So its been a pretty good week. There was a group here from Virginia that I worked with some at Living Grace. They helped me lead music for the devotions there and helped prepare food and spend time with the homeless people that came in. So that was a nice change of pace. Also, Wednesday night the church showed the movie "God Grew Tired of Us", a documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan. It was an incredible good movie and I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it already! The movie night is part of the church's missions week.
Tonight there is a missions banquet that Danielle and I are going to go to. It sounds like a pretty good event. Along with dinner, there is a speaker from Zimbabwe and several missions organizations in the are will be attending and have set up displays in the banquet room for people to see what each organization is all about. This morning there was a breakfast, also part of the missions week, and we, the MMA, were asked to attend and our kids performed for the group on their drums. It went really well and I was quite proud of the kids!

Unfortunately, there was a pretty tragic event earlier this week. A 3 year old girl in Masi (the black township that Living Hope works in) was killed. The 2 people responsible were a married couple living in Masi and were renting a house (a shack) from a woman named Faith, who teaches in Masi and works with some of the kids in the afternoons with the Living Hope kid's club there. The couple was arrested and basically their story is that they had been told by a witch doctor that to cure their infertility they needed organs from a young girl. So they killed this poor girl to take the organs for the witch doctor, which they did. When the girl was found and the people arrested, the story got out among the community, but someone spread the rumor that the couple was Zimbabwean, which isn't true. The Khosa communty in Masi doesn't particulary like the Zimbabweans anyway, and there are regularly reports of xenophobic attacks on the Zimbabweans in Masi, where several Zim families live. The rumor obviously then led to rioting and violence towards the Zimbabweans in Masi and destruction of some of their houses and shops. The police went in and blocked off the entrance to Masi, not letting anyone in or out, trying to control the situation. Eventually they did get it under control and re-opened the entrance the next day. Luckily, the truth was told about the nationality of the couple who happen to actually be from Mozambique. So a very sad and scary couple of days for the Masi community. Unfortunately, since the couple that killed the girl was living in a shack owned by Faith, several people in the community decided she was at fault, and not only burned down the shack the couple was renting, but also burned down Faith's house and all her posessions inside. Wednesday, the day after Masi was reopened, I went with Avril, Danielle, and Avril's assistant, Chantel, into Masi to visit the preschool at the Living Hope center in Masi to see Faith and the other Living Hope workers there and to see the damage in Masi. It was heartbreaking to see how devastated and scared Faith was. But the Living Hope workers were doing an incredible job supporting her and helping the kids deal with the situation! That was actually pretty inspiring to see!
As we drove around, there was definitely a decrease in the number of people walking around and the community seemed much more somber than usual, with reason. However, despite all that had happened and the damage we saw, it was good to see that the police had controlled the situation and things had calmed down! Apparently the weeks leading up to Halloween, celebrated here and all over the world by some apparently as Satan's Birthday, is a very scary and intense time among that community and in communities all over. It is a time of human sacrifices and devil worship...very dark stuff. So this is the time when, sadly, you hear about disappearances and murders and other disturbing things, mainly all in the townships...some townships.
Basically, I'd just like to ask you all to keep the people affected by this tragedy in your thoughts and prayers, as well as all the people here and in these communities. Especially the next couple weeks leading up to Halloween!

Sorry this is a rather sad and unpleasant post, but I thought it was important to let you know some of the very real, and very unfortunate, things that happen here at times. However, in the midst of such unpleasant things, there have been several things happening here to be happy about and thankful for! Lots of really good work is happening at Living Hope and at the church and especially in the kid's clubs. They have just added two more clubs, reaching an additional 125 kids. Also, the music academy is beginning to make some good progress and will begin our expansion into a second township, starting in November. So, there are good things happening too! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for all these things!

PEACE

Cooking, Bike riding and German Shoes

Well, not much going on lately, except regular work things. But two sort of exciting happenings this week...I bought a bike and cooked for the first time here...

I finally bought a bike, which has been great, since I don't have a car. Its nice to be able to get around on my own now. Biking is actually quite a big thing here. There are always lots of people riding. My first bike trip was out to Noordhoek beach, where the ACTS Team House is. As I was walking around the beach, I came upon a group of people doing what looked like a photo shoot. I asked one of the people nearby what was going on, and apparenlty it was a German shoe company shooting and new shoe ad. Not as exciting as I hoped it might have been...a movie or tv show or something...but no. Definintely a first for me though, witnessing a German shoe photo shoot!

Also, after much searching at 3 different grocery stores, I found the ingredients (close enough) to make some chicken chili, which I made last night and turned out to be pretty good. Cooking here is a little interesting, since everything here is metric. So I had to do a bit of converting to make it work. But it worked out.

Other than that, not much else happening. Although, I did drive a car for the first time since I've been here. Yesterday I borrowed my housemates car to run a couple errands, and can I just say how weird it is to drive not only on the other side of the road, but be driving/steering from the other side of the car! Very weird and took me about 10 minutes to adjust. Fortunately I didn't make any wrong way turns or switch back over to the "normal" side of the rode! It definitely will take some more getting used to though...

Fotografias

New pictures are up...

Ostriches don't play fetch

This past week really was a lot of fun, but was surprisingly exhausting. It was fun to hang out with my aunt and my grandmother! It was a chance to get to know them better, which was great! But it was cool getting to spend time with the rest of the group too and get to know them and get to do some of the tourist things with them. There are so many really cool things to do here! In face I had made a list the week after I got here of things that I wanted to do or see while I was here and I’ve already crossed of quite a few. Things like go to the top of Table Mountain, see the penguins, go to the aquarium, to the botanical gardens, Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope, etc.When we were at Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern-most tip of Africa, we saw a ton of baboons on our way out and a zebra! It was too cool! I'll definitely be posting some pictures of those soon! We also saw some wild ostriches on the side of the road. So of course we got out to take pictures and one of the members of the Brentwood group, who I'll leave nameless, decided to throw sticks at the ostriches to try and flush out the babies. However it didn't work, and I don't think it made mom and dad ostrich very happy, and they had no interest in playing fetch! Fortunately they decided not to run us down and peck us to death for disturbing them so much! On the way back we did get to see the babies though, which were so funny and we also witnessed a baboon jump into a car behind us! Good times...

Since I was with the Brentwood group all week, I went to VBS in Capricorn, the township where I do music, and helped out with that instead of going to work, which was a nice change of pace! It was fun to get to know those kids better. Its amazing how desperate for love they are! They are always looking for hugs or some kind of positive attention since honestly most of them don’t get ANY of that at home. I’ve been several places where I’ve experienced extreme poverty and living conditions like the ones I see and work in here, but even still, its hard to accept or believe how so many people live the way they do! It’s heartbreaking especially the more you build relationships with those same people! During evening devotions with the group several of the team members from Brentwood shared some of their experiences and ways that they were affected by what they saw and experienced and how they saw God working this week. It was really cool to hear about their personal experiences!

This week I’m helping out at Living Grace, the homeless ministry, because one of directors is an older man named John, who has cancer, and has gotten pretty sick recently. So he and his wife, Joan, aren’t there this week so I’m helping out in whatever way they need me to. Its fun to spend some time with the homeless community, more than I normally do in just the morning devotion time where I d songs with them. It’ll be a good chance to meet some really interesting and amazing people! Hope everyone back home is doing really well! I’ll be posting a bunch of new pictures soon so check back for those in the next day or two…

Been a while...

So, for all of you who are following my blog, I apologize for the lack of posts recently. This is about the first time I've had internet in almost a week! But I'll give you a quick recap of the last week. Last Friday my grandmother (Dad's mom) and my aunt (Dad's sister, Melanie) arrived with the missions team from Brentwood Baptist Church in Nashville. Its been great having them all here! They are here this week working in each of the townships that Living Hope works in doing construction and landscaping work as well as some pretty great Vacation Bible Schools! I've been able to spend pretty much all of my time working with them this week, taking a break from my regular work, except Saturdays with the Mobile Music Academy. We spent their first couple days doing some tourist things, like exploring the top of Table Mountain and visiting the V&A Waterfront. This weekend we are going down to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope, the end of the Cape Peninsula, the south western most tip of Africa. We will also get a chance to see the penguins at Boulder Beach and my grandmother, aunt and myself (and a few others) will go to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens on Saturday. So fun things coming up this weekend. This week though I've been going to VBS in Capricorn, the coloured township where I work with the music kids. Brentwood also lead a retreat for the health care center workers and I lead music for that which was great! It was so much fun singing with them, and hearing them sing some of their songs for us! I'll share more about that later.

Well, I just wanted to let you know what I've been up to lately and once the BBC team leaves (on Saturday) I'll be back to my normal schedule and will have regular internet access again and will share more! Hope everyone is doing extremely well!

God Bless!

Heritage Day, Calvin, and Elvis

Yesterday we enjoyed a day of thanks to the national holiday, Heritage Day. So after sleeping in, I went into Cape Town with my 2 housemates. We headed down to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront and went to the big craft market and the Two Oceans Aquarium. We also got some lunch at a cool restaurant right on the water, the Green Dolphin. It was a lot of fun! There were a couple of local music groups performing around the waterfront that were really good…singers and drummers. Despite the cold weather and occasional rain, it was a nice day! Heritage Day is also National Braai Day. A braai is like a barbecue, and is a pretty big thing here. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to braai.

One of the things I am doing each day is leading music at Living Grace, the homeless ministry, for their morning devotions. Its been so much fun! They do a devotion each morning with several different people who speak on a rotation and they always do a few songs before the speaker. So, I have a guitar that I am using here and have been leading the music. There was a volunteer here about a month before I came who used to do the same thing, and a woman before him who would play a little organ, but since they left they’ve just been singing on their own. They were pretty grateful when I showed up. Its been fun being a part of that! Its amazing how much they enjoy singing songs and the devotion each day and I’m always humbled by how passionate they are about their faith and how much their faith and God mean to them! It’s easy to think that the homeless people here or the children in the townships would have plenty of reason to feel the opposite way about faith/God/religion since they are in the living conditions that they are in. However, its not that way and it makes me thing about what Pastor Pedro said in the Dominican Republic one night when talking about this very topic. What he suggested to us was that because those people have so much less and are in the situations and living conditions they are in that they have a greater dependence on God, whereas we (referring to us…Americans, and others) so often allow ourselves to be dependent on other things: jobs, money, relationships, material things…all these things that distract us from God and our faith and our dependence on those things. I’ve witnessed this in the Bahamas, Jamaica and the DR but am seeing it here so much more and much more closely than I did before. As I said before, it’s humbling, but it’s also inspiring!

This morning while I was getting the music ready and tuning the guitar one of the men there came over to see what I was doing. His name was Calvin and he was very interested in the guitar tuner, so I showed him how it worked. We then started talking about a little bit of everything and he told me that he had a 4 month-old daughter, whose name I’m not sure I can pronounce, much less spell. He said that sometimes when its warmer he brings her with him to Living Grace. So I told him that I would like to meet her when he brings her in next time, which he then gave me a huge toothless smile. It was pretty obvious how much he loved her, regardless of how much he had to sacrifice just to take care of her. So it was fun meeting Calvin and will be great to meet his baby daughter.

Tonight we are taking the MMA kids to the theater in Cape Town for the Elvis Show: a musical tribute to the king of rock and roll…I’m not really sure what to expect, but if its anything like the Brady Blade’s drum show, then it will be great!

The Craggs

So Friday we moved from our B&B to a new place, "The Craggs". It’s a 3 bedroom apartment that overlooks the beach/ocean and is just around the corner of the main street/downtown area of Fish Hoek, which is a small coastal town that is a lot of fun to be living in the middle of! There are lots of neat little shops and restaurants around and the beach is so close and so nice! There are lots of whales and seals playing in the bay where the beach is, so from our balcony and the walking trail along the coast below our house you can easily watch the whales! Unfortunately our new home doesn’t have internet like the B&B did, but fortunately there is a nice and cheap internet café about 3 minutes walk from our house, so it’ll be easy to keep up with emails and the blog.
The weekend was pretty uneventful, and very relaxing, which was perfect! Saturday is the day we do the Mobile Music Academy and is so much fun! Right now we are doing theory lessons with them at the living hope container just outside their township, and then we take them to a jazz workshop put on by the Glenn Robertson jazz band, a pretty big local jazz band. It’s a free workshop for beginners on any instrument and any age. They do some cool things and the end of each workshop they have a jam session, letting kids switch out on different instruments. Its pretty awesome! Its so cool to see how excited they kids are about music and to give them something productive and meaningful to do! Part of our program includes some music therapy. We provide them with music and the academy as a safe haven and physical and emotional escape from the stresses and issues that they unfortunately have to deal with on a daily basis: drugs, alcohol, sexual/physical/verbal abuse, disease, etc. One day, one of our girls, who until recently thanks to some social work intervention by Living Hope, has been on drugs since she was about 8, came up to Amy, the MMA coordinator and said “Amy guess what! I turned down drugs yesterday cause I wanted to do music instead!” Which makes it all very worth it!
But things are good. Just wanted to give you all an update on the new house and my weekend. Also, as I was walking around downtown Fish Hoek, I came to a cross street and just happened to look at the street sign and was very surprised to see that the street’s name was ‘Dalton Rd’! How weird. I added a picture of it to my slideshow at the top right of my blog. (you can click on the slideshow and see the album much larger and with captions)

Moving Day

Sadly, today we are moving from the B&B to a new location, which we found out yesterday! The owner of the B&B is selling it, and despite their best efforts, ACTS (the organization that takes care of our accommodations and transport) was unable to buy it from them. Since it is getting into the spring/summer seasons, the rates of the B&B will be getting higher and other people are booked to come in a use the rooms, so we are moving now. We are moving actually into the town of Fish Hoek, into a house, which apparently is pretty nice, and in walking distance to "downtown" Fish Hoek, which is a cool area, and also in walking distance to Fish Hoek beach. So we''ll see! But definitely an exciting adventure for today!

3 Churches and Brady Blade

So, I have been without internet for the past 3 days, so haven't been able to post anything about this week. So I'll give you a brief update of my week so far.

Sunday was our day of 3 church services. Myself and two of the other volunteers spent the day with the mission team here from Knoxville. (By the way, the Calfee's nephew, Brad and his wife Caroline, were a part of that team, which was fun to meet them!) We started the morning at Fish Hoek Baptist Church for their regular morning service at 9am. After the FHBC service we all headed to Masiphumelele (or 'Masi') Baptist Church. Masiphumelele is one of the black communities that was originally setup by the gov't when apartheid ended. The community was designed for 750 families, with that many houses constructed by they gov't. Now, however, there are over 5 times that many living there, most in shacks built around each of the actual houses. The church building also serves the Living Hope Community Center site for Masi. The church service was such a fun experience. They speak Xhosa, so since we were there and don't understand Xhosa, they had someone translating into English for us, which was so helpful! But the music was amazing. They start singing and all know these songs, and start dancing and doing incredible harmonies and have a small organ playing with another guy playing drum sounds on a small keyboard. It was amazing! The music was incredible! This is actually the church that I may start working in, to help restart their choir, but after experiencing that, I'm not sure how much help they need! If nothing else, I'll certainly learn a ton!

We left Masi and headed to downtown Cape Town for lunch. We ate a place downtown called the 'Spur', which is very similar to a TGIFridays, but with a more South African menu obviously. The have your basic hamburgers, sandwiches, ribs, chicken, etc. but also serve snails as an appetizer, a chocolate chili burger, and have a monkey gland sauce for meats. We quickly asked and were told that monkey gland sauce isn't actually made from monkeys, its just a name. We were a bit relieved! From lunch we headed to the big open-air market which is in the parking lot of the future FIFA World Cup stadium, which is currently being constructed for the 2010 World Cup. But we spent some time at the market, which may have been the windiest day I've ever experienced. It was hard to even walk forwards against the wind and most of the vendors were struggling to keep their items from blowing away. However, because of the weather, all the vendors were offering "windy day" prices. So everyone was able to get some things for much less than they normally would have. We left the market and headed to Hillsong Church, our 3rd and final service of the day. Hillsong is a megachurch started in Australia, that has locations in London, St Petersburg, and now Cape Town. It's a very contemporary service with a big praise band and they do a lot of music, which Hillsong writes. The pastor is one of the founders from Australia and was really good!

Monday night was my first field trip with the Mobile Music Academy kids. We took them downtown Cape Town to a drum clinic that was performed by Brady Blade, a pretty famous studio drummer that has recorded with everyone from Dave Matthews to the Indigo Girls. It was a lot of fun and after the show we took the kids down to the stage to meet him. He was so nice and very interested in the kids and the Academy and spent about 10 minutes with them taking pictures with them, signing a poster for them and all their hands, and even gave them a couple of his drum sticks! As we were leaving he gave me his email address and said that when he come back here in a couple months he would love to come see what we are doing in the academy and maybe do a drumming workshop with the kids, which would be amazing!!

But other than those things, Monday through today I've been at the Living Hope offices in Muizenberg (the town over from Fish Hoek) where the homeless ministry, Living Grace, is located. I've been doing music in the mornings as part of the Living Grace morning devotions for the homeless community, and doing some work and personal research for the Music Academy. I'm trying to redo and upgrade the current curriculum for the academy and also putting together songs to do in the mornings at Living Grace and to do with the kids at their afternoon Kid's Clubs!

Sorry this one is a bit long, but just wanted to catch everyone up on the last 4 days. Hope everyone is great!

PEACE

Circus Tents and Dance Skills

Today was quite a busy and long day, but a great day! I met the kids from Mobile Music Academy today for the first time. They are amazing kids and incredibly talented. They were so excited to have me there and so anxious to show off their talents and learn new things, especially the piano! There is one boy, Basil, who is 13 and has an unbelievable singing voice. Its hard to explain exactly how good this boy is, except to say that when he first started singing today, my mouth literally dropped open! He is so talented, with dancing and rhythm and of course singing, and picks up everything so quickly. I spent some time with him one-on-one today showing him some things on the piano. He is so anxious to learn! They're are so much fun and all have so much talent and potential. It was an exciting morning!

This afternoon, we (the Living Hope volunteers) helped the mission team here from Knoxville with a big outreach event in own of the coloured townships, Mountain View. 'Coloured' is the proper term used here for people who are of mixed race. But we set up a huge circus type tent on a big field just outside the township and split up the almost 150 kids into 4 groups and the groups rotated around stations. There were 4 stations: crafts, a puppet show, sports and games and face painting. There was also some blood pressure checks and other health related things for the parents there. We served them dinner and and showed Veggie Tales movies after dinner for those who wanted to stay. It was a lot of fun, and the kids and parents both seemed to really enjoy it. I got two big hugs from a mother and grandmother who stopped me as I walked by just to say "thank you for doing this"!

Last night, we all went to the fundraiser ball in the Ocean View, another coloured township. The ball was put on by the church as a fundrasier and also as something fun and positive for the people of the community to do. It was 'formal evening wear' so everyone was dressed up and wearing all the "bling" the could. It was kinda like church dinner/small highschool prom. It was great fun though. We volunteers dressed up as much as we could and were the only white people there, which didn't matter, cause they loved us being there! After dinner they called out ticket numbers and if your number was called you had to go to the front. The announced that we were to have a dance competition. Myself and another volunteer, Danielle (a 32 school teacher from Nashville) were called and partnered up. They were playing some good ol' Boys 2 Men and other R&B. Danielle and I basically did all the cheesy American moves we knew, including the "shopping cart" and just had fun making fools of ourselves. But, it paid off...cause we won! There were 3 of these dance offs and we one the second one. Each winning couple was awarded with a very delicious chocolate bar. It was a great time!

Today was 82 and sunny and a perfectly clear day. Unfortunately the weather here changes extremely quickly and a cold front has come through and tomorrow will be 58, very rainy with 30 mph winds. Oh well.

The ball last night was just proof that cheesy American dance moves really do pay off!

Mail

So for all those interested, I now know my mailing address.

It is: Ryan Wilson
PO Box 734
Noordhoek
South Africa 7979

Apparently sending mail here is pretty easy and not too expensive. So for all those who feel so led, all letters, postcards, packages, etc are welcome!

Balloons aren't just for Kids

The USAID/Living Hope Conference ended Wednesday afternoon and went really well! There were about 80 delegates from different faith-based community development non-profit/NGOs and was pretty interesting to be a part of. Wednesday morning the new (as of Monday) US Consulate General of South Africa spoke and I got to meet her, a very fascinating lady!

The conference was essentially a seminar or workshop, but one of the ice breaker/teambuilding excercises they did was to get into groups of about 10 and blow up as many balloons as you can and make the tallest balloon tower possible in 20 minutes. Let me just say, watching a bunch of 30-60 year old adults from all over South Africa blowing up balloons and getting extrememly creative on how to make their balloon tower the tallest was hilarious! There was some cheating and stretching of the rules involved and was so fun to watch.

After all those shenanigans were over, and the winner declared, they all piled up all the balloons (probably close to 1,0000) in a corner, which after the conference we, the volunteers, got to enjoy popping, and then of course cleaning up. But before we cleaned them up, during one of the breaks, one of the conference attendees out of no where jumped straight on top of the huge pile of balloons! A 45 year old man from Pretoria. It was hilarious! He was then given the 10 Rand (US$1.25) from the guy who dared him to do it. However, the best part of all of that was Pastor John Thomas, the Senior Pastor of Fish Hoek Baptist Church and the head of all of Living Hope, rolling around in this huge pile of balloons revealing the child within! I've attached some pictures for your entertainment!

Cheers!

Senegal, Tacos and South African Malls

Well, I made it! After 18 hours on 2 different planes and a 6 hour time change, I arrived in Cape Town yesterday (Friday) at around 4pm. Both flights were fine, watched several movies, slept, ate, read...anything and everything I could do to keep my self from going stir crazy! But I did sleep most of the second flight which helped a lot!

We landed in Dakar, Sengal for our connecting flight about 4am their time, and got off of the plane via a wheeled staircase and everyone staying in Dakar got on one shuttle bus, and everyone going to Cape Town got on another (everyone else was going on to Johannesburg and stayed on the plane.) My shuttle drove us a couple hundred yards to the airport door and dropped us off. From there we went into one airport door, did a big U around a wall where we then showed our boarding passes to someone, then walked straight out the adjacent door to the one we came in through, got back on the same shuttle which had just pulled up a few feet, which then drove us back to the tarmac to the plane parked right beside the plane we just got off of. We "boarded" that plane, sat down and then took off... all of which took less than 10 minutes. Kinda of a strange first Africa experience. But I am glad that I wasn't staying in Senegal, cause it might be the most muggy and humid place I've ever been!

South Africa is wonderful though! An amazingly beautiful country, even from what little I've seen so far! The volunteer house is a nice bed and breakfast type place where 2 other volunteers are staying. The town of Fish Hoek, where I live is located in between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean on the southern peninsula about 30 minutes from Cape Town. My first meal was a delicious taco dinner at a Living Hope worker's house, where I met several of the people I will be working with, all wonderful people! I have my own room and am slowly getting unpacked! I took a trip to the nearby shopping mall today to get a few things, and discovered that shopping malls are pretty much the same in South Africa as their are in Dalton, GA...this one complete with McDonald's and a KFC!

Tomorrow, we will go to the morning church service at 9am, which I'm looking forward to, and then later on that day we begin setting up for the big Willow Creek, USAID, World Vision, etc conference. The focus of this conference is to unite NGOs, mostly faith-based organizations, some not, and form a coalition to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic and come up proposals on where to go from here as a united group rather than individual organizations. SA has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any where else in the world! The conference is Monday through Wednesday and should be a pretty interesting thing to be a part of! After the conference is over I will begin my ministry projects.

Thats all for now, but exciting things to come! Hope everyone back home is great and I miss you all!

PEACE

Comments

Hey Everyone,
I just realized today that this site was set so that only "registered users" could leave comments. Well, I changed that and now anyone can post a comment to me on this site. Thanks for all those who have checked out my blog so far, and again for all the prayers and support!

3 days until I leave!...

Welcome!

Welcome everybody to my blog page dedicated to my time spent in Africa. As I mentioned in the "About Me" section, starting the first week of September I will be spending 9 months in Cape Town, South Africa working as a volunteer at the Living Hope Community Centre. For more information about the Living Hope Center, check out their website, www.livinghope.co.za

I set up this page so that family and friends could read about my time in Africa. I will also be posting pictures occasionally to show some of what I'm doing. I will have access to email while I'm gone so feel free to email me anytime (ryan.wilson56@gmail.com).

Thanks for checking out my page and for your continued prayers and support while I'm gone! I'll be posting often so feel free to check back frequently for updates!

PEACE