Back at It

After a nice, long, two-month holiday at home, I am back in South Africa! It was extremely lovely to spend time with family and friends. Catching up with all y'all was such a treat! Now I could write about all the wonderful things I got to experience over the holiday: seeing family, snow, being with friends, adventuring, helping my best friend get ready for her wedding, spending time with the youth group, and traveling to see Jonathan in his *top secret location*. All those things were incredible but I'll get right to the point.

YOYL 2016

What an amazing group of young people, eager to be enveloped in God's presence and uplifting each other!! It's only been a week and a half, but we have all bonded as a family. I am just amazed at how this represents God's adoptive spirit for us, and that when we search for him, we will be surrounded by people walking that same journey. Therefore we can lean on each other, and together, grow closer to God.

Tuesday (January 26, 2016): I arrived in Pretoria, South Africa! I got picked up at the airport and we went straight home. Luckily I arrived early in the morning, so by the time I got to my house and sort of settled in my room, I had time to meet people and get ready for class. The first week is orientation/getting to know you. So during class, we just spent time getting to know each other. After class, a group of us attempted to slide down the hill on cardboard boxes. It was definitely a fail, but we had fun trying. We had supper that evening and played some games and there are a ton of musical people here, so there was music coming from almost every direction.

Wednesday: We picked up with "Coldest Moments". An intense session of sharing your darkest moment of your life. (Everyone's story is kept in the utmost confidence). That evening we played the card game, Mafia, for the first time with this group. It was tons of fun once everyone got the rules down!

Thursday: Another long day of Coldest Moments, but also a great day. In the afternoon, I hung out at Emmanuel house listening to all the people play guitar and sing.

Friday: We finished up Coldest Moments and afterwards there was an opportunity to go to Waterglen. I didn't need anything so I stayed at home. I went out, because it was a beautiful day, and laid on the grass to read Dr. Bruce Thompson's book "Walls of my Heart". It is an incredible book! Later there was more jam sessions and chilled vibes.

Saturday: I finally got to sleep in! I didn't think I had jet lag, but I think I was tired from jumping right in to the flow here. For the majority of the day, I hung out with different people, getting to know everyone. Then we had a social. Both houses had supper together, then we went up to the church's Foyer Hall to play Minute to Win It games. My team was the Ocean Basket. We had TONS of fun and totally rocked every game! We even set the record for one game! Then we had duties.

Sunday: Everyone went to church and the message was on Forgiveness, a theme we've been on and will continue to focus on during LTS. After lunch, a group of girls and I went up to sit on the church grounds. We laid out on the grass and read and chatted. Then we had the Young Adults service which was amazing, as always. I signed up to volunteer and serve with the YA services too.

Team Ocean Basket

Monday: Our first day of LTS began! Even though I did it at the beginning of my year (August 2015) I am super excited to go through the course again. I strongly believe a person could go through LTS every year and receive a new revelation from God over their life. Anyway, there are 8 nations represented in this LTS group. Once LTS was over, I went with Nonto to Waterglen, for washing powder and snacks. In the afternoon, I played 4-square with a group of people outside Emmanuel House. For supper, most of us girls sat outside on the grass to eat. After dinner, we resumed playing games outside. Everyone was either playing,  4-square, Ninja, rugby, or just sitting outside and chatting. {Like I said, we are all just one big family :) } It was a really fun day, and a great way to start the week!

Tuesday: LTS was great, I remembered a lot of the stuff from the first time I did it, so it was nice to not be furiously writing notes, but to just soak in the message. Later, we had fitness and then supper and more bonding time. During duties we had tons of fun. Being on garden team isn't bad at all!

Wednesday: LTS was again, amazing. And during the tea-break, we had a quick little meeting with the mid-years regarding our outreach this term. Only two out of the original four mid-years returned (yes, just me and Nonto) so our group is incredibly small. So we were just informed that the typical three-week international outreach has been altered for us. Instead, we will be doing something super amazing! I had lunch from Cafe Andante and then I went to Waterglen with a group of girls. When we got back to the house we sat outside because it had cooled off a lot. *It is the end of summer here now, so it gets pretty hot during the day. Also there is not A/C in the houses so it's a bit stuffy, making hanging out outside much more desirable* I took a short little nap in the afternoon. After supper, a few of us went to the seeking session up at the church. It was an incredible time of worship and opening up our hearts to God's plan. Then we went back for duties, and like I mentioned earlier, Garden duty was lots of fun.

That brings us to today! This is my first blog since being back so sorry that it's not really organized by week yet, but I'll get there. I just wanted to update all y'all back in Texas that I made it over here, and everything is going absolutely wonderfully! Thank you for your continual prayer and support!!



--sea'sadventures--