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. ;)