Sawu bona! More! Ashe!

Hello! That's what this title is in Zulu, Afrikans, and SePedi - 3 of the 11 official languages in South Africa :) Dana, our wonderful fearless leader in various aspects of this trip, and his wife Sibongile gave us a talk a few days ago about customs in South Africa and various things of that nature and then taught us how to conduct a basic greeting in those three languages so that we can start to dig more into the culture and have a good jumping off point with people (English is also one of the official languages, but it is nice for people when they hear us trying to embrace their native tongue). It is pretty great - Zulu is my favorite so far - "so far" meaning "from the greetings we've learned because we haven't learned anything else yet" haha. And a typical greeting is not just "hello", but also asking how the person is doing and having it reciprocated. Nothing is done here so much in a rush that you do not first say hello and how are you. I love it :)

The past few days have been a whirlwind of getting to know South Africa. We met the administrators and teachers at the school where we will be working in the township of Mamelodi - our first day of tutoring is tomorrow and I am so excited and nervous and all a-jumbled with feelings about it; I will probably be helping with biology class and tutoring. On Friday night we drove for about 45 minutes out into the middle of nowhere and participated in an African drum circle, witnessed some fire-dancing (and a couple people tried it out - that was a "heck no" from me, haha), and had an awesome dance party to the amusement of our South African contemporaries there. Saturday we drove to Johannesburg, or Jo'burg as it is called here, and visited the Apartheid Museum and then went to a traditional craft market (let's just say that everything is AMAZING and I wish I had unlimited funds and was decorating a whole house). Today was our Sabbath. The leaders are wonderful and very intent on us driven crazy college students to understand that REST is an essential part of being able to serve well and of abiding in the Lord who bears our burdens, so they work hard to make the schedule one where we have at least a few hours free for exercising, journaling, reading, playing games, sleeping - whatever it is that recharges you and brings you back to the joy of Christ. The Sabbath today has been wonderful: church at the Methodist church that Dana attends (he has two PRECIOUS sons, ages 5 and 3), lunch at the center where we're staying, ultimate frisbee and kickball at the High Performance Center (this is where the U of Pretoria teams practice and national athletes train here - on our tour of it I was 3 feet away from an Olympic gold medal winning South African swimmer who was working out and we saw the rooms in which the Argentinian soccer team stayed for the duration of the world cup), and now a brief stint at the humongous mall with the internet cafe.

I can't believe that I have only been with this group of people for a week and that we have only been in South Africa for 5 days! It feels like so much longer. It is all so amazing and interesting and heart-breaking and life-giving. God has been stretching me as I am reminded to find myself solely in Him and His loving grace, rather than in relationships or skills or anything else that is totally fallible just like me. It's a lesson I must learn over and over again, but He's so faithful and patient to remind me :)

A thought that spoke to me that my small group leader, Kat, shared with me last night, has been on my mind so I wanted to share it as well. This is taken from John Piper's "Desiring God" and is a quote from George Muller:

"While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now...more than forty years have since passed away.
The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit."

As I am such a fixer and one who just constantly wants to be helping while not needing help and serving while not being served, it really struck me that these actions miss their true mark if I am not at peace and joyful in the truth of Christ's sacrifice and love for me. So I have been taking full advantage of our opportunities to rest and my time to spend in the arms of my sweet Savior Lord :)

One of the things that I am looking forward to is making a list of my God-given passions and then reading over it to see who it is that I have been designed to be, where my uniqueness and individuality lie, and how I can pursue those areas. Yay for soul-searching :)

I'm so thrilled to be here. I can't wait to report on how our first week of tutoring goes. Please keep sending thoughts and prayers our way.

I love you all!