a little bit of change...

As some of you know Thrive is rebuilding/expanding the restaurant and conference center that was damaged by fire back in April. On the 4th of August we moved everything out of the building and on the 6th of August the builders started taking down the building to start anew. That means we no longer eat our meals in the restaurant, rather they are now in our own "living room". It is exciting to see the progress in just a few short days. Here are a couple pictures of 'week one' of construction/demolition....




Haha....these pics make me laugh. Josh hoisted an American flag up the only reamining pole in the old restaurant this weekend. It makes me smile....

busy busy busy

So much has happened the past few weeks and I will do my best, with as few words as possible, to fill you in.

On July 30 we packed our bags and hit the road, headed back to Mabalingwe, the safari lodge we went to earlier in July. This time we went for a three day retreat. We had some awesome times of praise and worship and sessions that helped us to refocus and regroup for the 4 months we have left here. We also had the chance to have a little fun and relax. Funwise, my favorite part of the retreat was the fact that we got to go on a horseback safari one morning…something I have always dreamt of doing. It was so much fun! I had a crazy horse named Okane who ran a lot and had a mind of his own, when all the other horses went through bushes, Okane found an alternate path that did not involve going through bushes and trees. Smart horse. And he loved running….he hated when other horses tried to pass so he would take off running to avoid it. Fun times. We didn’t see many animals on the horseback safari but we did see a giraffe which was pretty cool. Here are a couple pictures of my horseback adventure…I don’t have many cuz it’s not easy to take pics while riding a horse. ;)

Here is the shadow of me and Okane... Some of my fellow interns on horseback...
The giraffe we saw on horseback safari...

We also got to go on another game drive. We didn’t see elephants this time but we did see lots of hippos and rhinos. I was rather excited that we got to see the baby rhino this time around. He was so adorable!

Hippos!...

Baby rhino. Isn't he adorable?!

Rhino butt shot...

I love monkeys... Even when they steal my breakfast...

The day after we got back we did assemblies to promote our rural discipleship class called Launch Pad. We went into four different schools and do five assemblies. In the assemblies, we the opportunity to do a skit that presented Launch Pad in a fun way. We also played games with the students and had a short lesson about integrity and how God sees the real us. The assemblies were a lot of fun and I’m glad we got to be a part of them.

Here are some of the students at one of the Launch Pad assemblies...
Then, Launch Pad started this week. This term Ashley and I will be teaching a curriculum called “Ordinary Day with Jesus” which talks about how to have Jesus in every moment of every day. I’m so exited to be back in class and spend time with my students and they seemed to feel the same way.

Here is Kelly with some of our Launch Pad students...

This week I have done a lot of fun stuff in the mornings. Yesterday morning, before breakfast, Josh took me down to see the new baby pigs we have here on base. We breed them and sell them to help make a little but of additional money to run the ministry. They were so adorable!

Me and one of the one-day old piglets...

Some of the older pigs...
Then, this morning I headed up Mount Everest at like 5:45am so I could get to top in time to see the sunrise….and it was a gorgeous sunrise.
Then we headed to Lion’s Rock, a lion park about an hour away that Niel and Alece wanted to check out and see if we want to start taking mission teams there or not. The lions were cool, but the game drive that accompanied was not all that great. Anyways, here are some pics I got of the lions (and the leopard)…




Then, on the way home we got a flat tire. We made it home safely though. Here’s a pic of the rather flat tire on the Pajero…
Well, so much for a short post. Haha ;) Have a wonderful day everyone! Well, now I’m going to go have dinner and relax this evening and chill with some friends. God bless!

This one is for Kylie...

I promised Kylie I would put a picture of a zebra on my blog, so here it is. I got really close to this zebra the other day on my way back from climbing Mt. Everest, the smallest of the 3 mountains on the base....

Christmas Day!

Christmas in July was amazing! On Christmas day we had an awesome Christmas breakfast of pancakes w/ fruit topping and whipped cream. Then in the afternoon we decorated lots of sugar cookies. Here is me with one of my cookie creations. He looks a little funny, but he was delicious...

Then for dinner we had red and green stuffed peppers with chicken and rice. We invited Niel and Alece over and had an awesome Christmas 'family' dinner. Then Niel read us the Christmas story from Luke 2 and we opened our Secret Santa presents and stockings. It was so much fun! Then we were surprised by some Christmas carolers AKA the staff. They joined our Christmas party after singing to us and we had a rocking time. Dave had a Santa hat on so we all took pics with him in froint of the tree. We took a lot of other fun pics too, so here you go!

Here is me and all my fellow interns (and Alece) in front of our Christmas tree...

Me and Santa...:)

Me, Roo, and Hannah w/ Santa Dave...

Me and Joshua...

Me and my girls...

Me and Josh...

I love Christmas time!!!!!