"Mzansi fo sho!"

I'm in South Africa! Currently in an internet cafe in a gigantic mall/movie theater/amusement park-esque type place called Menlyn Park. And there is a keyboard covering on the keys that is Kung Fu Panda characters :)

It has been a great adventure so far in different places: a great 24 hours in Boston with being commissioned by Park Street Church, having a number of meetings and briefings as a team to get to know one another and prepare for the trip in terms of attitude going in and being intentional about keeping in mind that the down-side to short term missions is that they are short, and some good bonding time at the Wilson House; 7 adventurous hours exploring Frankfurt, Germany (since we had a 10 hour layover) that included the beautiful Kaiserdom Cathedral, delicious gelato (sp?), almost getting bowled over by a man as he sprinted away from a police officer (crime unknown), and a 20 minute ride on a train heading in the wrong direction so that we had a few sprints involved getting to the correct one before it left us; and now here we are in Pretoria!

The man who met us at the airport with a number of volunteers from his church to drive us is an American man named Dana who lived in South Africa for 4 years after college, married a South African woman, they came back to America so he could attend Divinity School at Harvard, and now they have been back in South Africa for 4 years. He is wonderful and so nice and willing to answer our questions. We've already had interesting conversations about politics since Mandela and polygamy in African marriages.

"Mzansi" means 'south' in Zulu and is how South Africans refer to their country, so as we took a group picture in front of the Union Buildings (where the executive branch of government works; anyone who's seen Invictus - it's where Matt Damon got dropped off to have tea with Mandela) he encouraged us to happily exclaim the phrase "Mzansi fo sho" :) We had a great picnic lunch in the beautiful public gardens that are in front of the Union Buildings, after getting settled into the convention center/community center that we are staying at.

We're off to see more of Pretoria. Tomorrow, Dana's wife is going to come give us some lessons in basic languages which I am thrilled about!

Prayers for rest for everyone and joy as we settle in for our month here and learn how to live with, work with, and love and support one another would be greatly appreciated!

Love to all :)