FIRE!!!!

Last night was a crazy night to say the least. On the last night a team is with us here at Thrive, we usually have a bonfire to celebrate their time here with us and fellowship together. Last night due to the windy and blustery conditions we decided to have the fire in the restaurant around the fireplace. The fire was started around dinner time, and just as the team was finishing their meal, a real fire started. No, I don’t mean in the fireplace…THE BUILDING CAUGHT ON FIRE!!!!! The roof was on fire (here at Thrive most roofs are thatch/grass). Not exactly the bonfire we were hoping for. Anyways, everyone got out of the building and immediately started efforts to put out the fire. We grabbed every bucket we could find and started a bucket brigade. Many people went up on the roof and the rest of us formed and assembly line, passing buckets of water up to them. A group of us went into the part of the building that was not on fire and removed all electronic equipment and anything else we could grab. Water alone wasn’t working so every fire extinguisher on base was tracked down and utilized. Even that didn’t quite work. We also used water tanks with hoses attached to them. We have a couple here on property for if anything like this ever happens, but a nearby farmer also brought another one. As water in the tanks ran low, we formed an assembly line to refill them. The windy conditions, although much calmer than earlier in the day, made efforts to put out the fire that much harder and kept kicking up embers. Early on, the fire department (fire brigade here in SA) was called, but since this is Africa and Harrismith only has one fire engine, it took them quite a while to get there. When they did get here, they didn’t do a whole lot. What firefighter is afraid of heights?!?! The ones here apparently. They used their hose and helped to quench the fire a little bit but would not go up on the roof where the fire was. So, our guys did most of the fire fighting themselves. With harnesses and ropes, a couple guys latched onto the roof as they ripped off and drenched burning thatch. After about 4 hours the majority of the fire was put out but there were still burning embers in the roof that were sparked up by the wind every once and a while. But our guys worked hard and didn’t give up. Everyone definitely came together last night and did their part. There were people filling and passing buckets, holding ladders, fetching blankets for those who were wet and cold, making tea and coffee to warm people up(it was freezing, literally the temps were in the 30’s), holding spotlights and flashlights, and doing whatever needed to be done. Eventually the fire was completely put out and contained to the restaurant’s roof. Praise the Lord!!!! And praise God that no one was injured!!!

Here is a picture of the outside of the restaurant this morning. Thank God it was contained mostly tothe upstairs and the roof.

Please keep Thrive Africa in your prayers, as we begin the long clean up and rebuilding process.

I'm back!!!!

Well, once again it has been a long time since I have updated this blog, but I have been rather busy this past month. A lot has happened since my last post. I’ll try to include as many pictures as possible in this post, but it all depends on how well the internet is working today.

First of all we went to Botswana for about a week and a half, which was absolutely AMAZING! After a long 17 hour drive we arrived at the mission base of Love Botswana Outreach Mission (LBOM) which is the organization we worked with while we were in Botswana. Our goal for the trip was to go in with no agenda of our own and serve them and do whatever they needed to be done. Some of the jobs we did were cleaning out and reorganizing an outreach container and warehouse, making room for and stocking Samaritan’s Purse boxes, helping to organize a book sale with all the books we took out of the outreach container and warehouse, slashing grass, and cleaning the Village Church tent. Our group also had the opportunity to lead small groups at a local adult Bible study, take part in Fire by Nite (LBOM’s youth group), and lead children’s church for about 150 kids. Working with LBOM was great! They have been around for about 20 years and it was great to see their ministry and imagine what Thrive Africa could grow to be.

We got back from Botswana on April 5, the day before Good Friday, which meant we had a long Easter weekend to relax and recover. On Easter Sunday, we had a braai at Niel and Alece’s house after church, complete with egg coloring, an Easter egg hunt and Easter baskets (bags). We even got Peeps and other American candies. Super exciting!!!

After the Easter holiday we got back into the swing of things and started our term 2 classes. This term we have a couple new classes; Intro to World Mission, Culture Compass, and Leadership Lab. Intro to World Missions explores the true meaning of missions throughout the scriptures. Culture Compass teaches about how to minister in a cross-cultural setting and Leadership Lab teaches us how to be the Godly leaders that God has called us to be. We also have a few continuing classes; Girl Talk, Soul Stirrings, and Language Lab. In Girl Talk we are reading “Captivating” by John and Stasi Eldridge. Girl Talk is more like a discussion group/ book discussion than a class. In Soul Stirrings we are currently watching a DVD series by Louie Giglio and in Language Lab we are continuing to learn Sesotho. Along with our classes we also have all of our behind the scenes work to do.

Behind the Scenes is where we are assigned to a staff member for the year and do anything they need us to do. My staff member is Kelly, and since she has been in the States for the past 5 weeks, I have a lot of projects to do before she gets back. Two of those projects included moving the donation room and the resource/outreach room to their new locations. Some of the other interns helped me out with this project and we had quite a good time trying on clothes and playing with the toys along the way. It was definitely a lot of work but they look great now that they’re done. I’m still trying to find ways to make them look better and organize them so that things are as accessible as possible though.

Launch Pad and Leadership Summit started back up after a 3 week holiday break. It’s great to get back to teaching. I missed my students so much and I never realized how much I missed teaching until I went without teaching Launch Pad for about a month.

Being an intern isn’t all work and no play though. We know how to have a good time. Last weekend we climbed Mt. Everest together!! No really, we did! One of the mountains on our property is called Mount Everest. Ironically it is the smallest mountain on the base. When we got to the top, we were surprised with a mountain top picnic. It was so awesome!!! And the view was beautiful. It was a great time of bonding and enjoying each other’s presence. We do a lot of hiking here around the base. After all, the base is 2500 acres and is surrounded by 3 mountains.
The other day we went to the animal graveyard where all the bones of animals that are shot here on base are thrown. We made some pretty cool finds.

Josh took us to the shooting range the other day and we did archery and shot cans with the pellet gun. It was a ton of fun!!!

Sorry for the longevity of this post but a lot has happened since my last one. I know I probably left a couple things out, but those are some of the highlights of the past month. I will try my best to keep you more up to date in the future, but with my busy schedule, that is no guarantee.

Have a WONDERFUL and BLESSED day! I love you all and miss you lots!

New phone #...again

Hey y'all! Once again, I have a new phone number. My phone wasn't stolen this time...there was just something wrong with the sim card. So, here's the new number 011-27-76-036-3404. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to update my phone number.