Saturday, January 28 (Cc)

     On Monday Becca and Jonathon headed off to Grade 6 camp, where they spent a couple of days doing teamwork activities.  They were in the same group, which was named the Hectic Hikers.  "We would be woken at 7, have breakfast at 8, and then do a few activities.  After that was lunch and then tuck shop (snack store), followed by activities.  At 4:30 we would swim for half an hour or so, then we would have a little bit of free time before dinner, evening activities, and bed," says Becca.
     Also on Monday, I got to learn to tie a tie for the formal awards assembly being held that morning.  It took a while, a while in which the tie was winning 9 to 1, but I tied it properly.  A fact which I'm glad for because presenting yourself to the headmaster to receive an Academic Commendation without proper uniformis a guaranteed detention.  :P



     Friday evening I had my first field trip with the school (there weren't any for me last term) and went to see the protest comedy Woza Albert.  It's a play that was originally written and performed during Apartheid, protesting white power.  In the comedy, Jesus (Morena, in Zulu) is coming to South Africa during Apartheid and protesting along with the blacks for their rights.

Sunday, January 22 (Bb)

Becca: “I miss you all so much, and I really miss the country.  Here it’s hot and there are lots of thunderstorms.  We live right next to a farm which has a couple of peacocks. In front of us is a game reserve. We can see the zebra.  I normally see them in the morning, but there are also blesbok which come out often.  At school I have a few friends.  Their names are Kate and Isla.  Two days ago my upper left molar tooth came out during the last period of school.  I was just about to take a test.  Yesterday we got to talk with the Taylors and I learned that Will’s upper left molar tooth also came out two days ago.”
Books: Recently, Skyping with my friend Malea, she suggested I read the series the Hunger Games.  I'd also received this suggestion from a couple of girls at school, and so I borrowed it from a friend.  It turns out my Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Amy had also wanted Mom to read the series.  I devoured the book in less than 24 hours, and can't wait to borrow the next one.
Blueberry Pancakes:  This morning for breakfast, Dad's making blueberry pancakes.  Oddly enough, frozen fruit isn't very popular around here.  Mom buys the blueberries from a Fruit and Veg store because you can't find them in most grocery stores.



Bout: It took me a while to find a synonym for "meet" or "competition" that starts with 'b'.  Last Friday Teresa and I had our inter-house swimming gala, with mandatory attendance.  We're in the Hawks house, which is green, and our theme was superheroes.  Hawks won, even though we're the smallest house, and we got the most distinctions.






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Thursday, January 19 (Aa)

     With the school year having started, everything is falling into a normal routine, and not many new things are happening.  So I've decided to take my Grandma Joy up on a suggestion and do shorter posts about smaller things - according to the letter of the alphabet.  Today's letter: Aa.
     A is for animals.  And apricots. And atlas.  
Our dogs, Minnie and Max, are doing well.  They run a lot and love chasing bunnies and chickens.  They also love to snap at dragonflies around the pool.  Both of them, but Max especially, are petrified of thunder and he is right in between Mom's legs whenever there is a thunderstorm on the horizon.
     The fruit here is wonderful, and the dried fruit is just as wonderful.  Tomorrow for snack (we pack our snack bags the night before to take to school) we're having dried apricots.  I especially love the dried mango, as well.
     Some fun atlas facts: The distance from Seattle, Washington, which is an hour north of our hometown, is 10231.1 miles.  10231.1 miles is also 16465.4 kilometers and 8884.7 nautical miles.  The approximate flight duration time from Seattle to Johannesburg is 21 hrs, 15 mins.
Seattle's latitude: 47° 38' North
Seattle's longitude: 122° 20' West

Johannesburg's latitude: 26° 08' South

Johannesburg's longitude: 27° 54' East

     

Saturday, January 14 (This Last Week)

     First off, my sincere apologies for not posting sooner.  I did  mean to post on Wednesday, but that was the first day of school, and it just didn't happen... then we had the wireless router knocked out by lighting, and things just happened so that I didn't end up posting until now.  Anyways, all's well that ends well.
     Monday and Tuesday were filled with school shopping and preparation - who knew 6 kids could lose so much stuff in one term?  We also had my new classes to prepare for, and shoes/clothes to buy for those kids who had grown.  Honestly!  They just don't stop growing!  After 3 hours of shopping, we were, needless to say, a little grumpy and ready to get home.  Then, Tuesday, we had to sort all the new supplies into kid's piles.  New calculators, new books, new pencils, new, new, new.
     And then came waking up at 5:30 on Wednesday.  I had gone on Youtube and found some good Christian Wake Up! songs to add to our playlist, but it was still hard to force myself out of bed an hour earlier than I had gotten used to over break.  After the typical morning rush of getting into our uniforms, finding our bags, packing our lunches, eating breakfast, and clambering into the car, we left at 6:35 - right on time.  That is, for a normal weekday.  But this was still holiday, and, lo and behold, there was hardly any traffic.  We arrived at school at 6:45, 45 minutes before we needed to be there.
     Better early than late, however, and, thankfully, lots of other kids get to school early as well, so we just socialized for the next three-quarters of an hour.  At 7:30, everyone made their way down to the Assembly Hall, and we had our start-of-year assembly.  There was a lot of reminding of school rules, a couple of new rules, some announcements regarding sports, and general year-beginning jabber.  The rest of the school day was meet the teachers, meet the class, get papers on the lesson plans for the rest of the year, and socialization.
     Thursday and Friday we started in on the actual learning, and so far, I'm loving all of my classes.  I took a pretty heavy class load: Biology, Natural Sciences (Chemistry and Physics), History, A.P. Maths, as well as self-studying Art and Spanish, but I'm loving the subjects after only a couple of lessons of each, so I have no regrets.  Teresa has moved up into the College as an 8th grader this year, and has started off her year (as all 8th graders do) with Orientation.  That's a big word for showing the 8th graders that they're now little fish in a big pond (whereas the year before they were big fish in a little pond) and that they need to respect their new teachers and matrics (seniours).  Teresa headed off to Orientation camp on Friday and just came back today after 30 hours of building team unity.
     Last night we had Stan Doer and his friend David over for dinner, and, since they were from the states, they brought Christmas along with them!  Well, it seemed like Christmas anyways, since they brought along stuff from the states that Aunt Amy had been holding onto for us.  My phsyics book, our Rosetta stone Spanish program, our photo books, my shoes... Christmas!
     Today, I got to try out "normal" Church of Christ youth group for the first time, with their every-other-Saturday teen devotional.  This week they had a "leftover" American speaking about Courage and It's Role In Our Lives - I say leftover because most of the Americans left on Sunday, but he hung around for another week.  After the devotional was socializing time.  Most of the youth from Church of Christ that I had met over the last month were their, back from their holidays and also prepping for school.  Overall view: I loved it.  I'm so glad this is the church we picked to attend.
     Now that we're out of the "start-of-school" phase, I should be able to continue with my Wednesday-Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday posting.  If anyone has any requests for posts, post them in the comments!

Sunday, January 8 (Home from Camp)

     On Tuesday, I left for camp and asked you all to pray for a spot to open up for Teresa, Jonathon, and Becca.  Tuesday afternoon, Teresa showed up at camp with Dave and Beth Pocta.  God just keeps showing Himself!
     After arriving at camp an hour and a half late - amazing, since the actual bus didn't get to the church until 11, three hours later than we were expecting it, we all gathered and sorted things out - cabin groups, teams, and the all-important lunch.  I was in cabin 4 with a bunch of other 14 and 15 year olds and a couple of counselors, Maranda (American) and Joyce (Angolan).  Joyce was a Portuguese translator for the girl in our cabin, Natália, who only spoke Portuguese.  Natália and I hit it off, with her bit of English, my bit of Spanish, our mutual handsigns, and the help of Joyce.
     Every day we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, had a Bible Class, an evening devotional, and worshipped around the campfire.  Food was typical South African camp food - lots of meat and bread and potatoes, but not a lot of vegetables.  I came home and had carrots and tomatoes and litchis and bananas, and Mom's good food.
     The weeks "Theme" was The Righteous Path, and we talked about how to start on it, how to stay on it, and why the Righteous Path existed.  Friday we listened to the Cross Study: Jesus' final words on the cross and what He went through as He suffered for us.  It was a very impactful, in-depth study, with a large focus on forgiveness, and we were challenged not to walk away without forgiving those who we felt had wronged us.
     Of course, camp would not be camp without games and contests.  Splitting the camp in half, one half played Swamp Ball while the other half did sack races.  The next day, the halves switched games.  Swamp Ball is essentially pushing a big ball around.  Three people from one team push one way, and three people from another team push the other way, and the first team to get it past a designated line first wins a point.
     Every day, teams issued challenges to one another.  Girls 1 (Teresa) challenged Boys 8 to limbo; consequence: love letters.  Surprisingly, Boys 8 won.  Boys 1 challenged Girls 1 to dodgeball; consequence: marker makeovers.  Not surprisingly, Boys 1 won.  Teresa got a marker makeover.
    The only challenge my team issued was a flamingo contest.  All the girls in team 4 and all the boys in team 4 started with standing on one leg.  The last person standing, boy or girl, won for their team.  My team won, just barely, with Shelly standing on one leg for more than 45 minutes.  Consequence: love letters.  The boys from team 4 had to get down on one knee, in front of the entire camp, and read a love letter to each girl.  Two girls were read two love letters because there were two more boys than their were girls, and they had been the last ones standing.  I was fifth to get out... ok, that's not much to brag about.
    The last day, during the closing ceremony, as well as having a lot of thank you's and all that, a couple of teams preformed lip syncs.  Teresa and her team preformed a sync and a dance to Justin Beiber's "Baby".
     All in all, Teresa and I had a great time at camp.  We built relationships, learned more about the church and youth, and met new friends from both the states and southern Africa.  There were campers in attendance from 18 congregations, and multiple countries.  The camp was a huge success overall!




 The pictures below are me having fun with my camera, teaching Maddy Pocta to use her Macro close zoom setting.

Tuesday, January 3 (New Years Eve, Dinners, and CAMP!!)

     Normally, for New Year's Eve, we bring the new year in with the Taylors, playing Wii and watching the Space Needle fireworks.  This year, the Taylor's are still back in Gig Harbor, and we're half way around the world, so that didn't work out quite the same.  Instead, our new church, Church of Christ Johannesburg Northwest, hosted a four-hour dance party, where I discovered a love of dancing.  Dave Pocta, the youth leader, has, for the last decade, be compiling a list of clean dance songs for parties, so it was the fun of dancing, without the dirty dancing to ruin it.  After the new year, we all had communion together, at 12:30AM.

     Also at the dance were a bunch of Americans, ranging in age from 11 to 30.  They are here to help start a summer camp program with with Church of Christ South Africa, with counselors as well as campers coming to get the program running.  This was something I really wanted to go on, but it had been full for a few months before we found the church.  The only way I (or Teresa, Jonathon, or Becca) would be able to go, was if there were drop outs or no shows.  So I started praying.
     Sunday afternoon, we had dinner at the Harvey's house with the Stea's, both of whom had kids and counselors staying with them, so we got to meet some Americans from North and South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia.  Camp was a highly-talked-about subject (surprise, surprise) and I got to learn a bit more about it.  Before this year, Church of Christ South Africa really didn't have a summer camp program, so they were teaming up with Church of Christ Americans to start one.  The first year, Americans were leading it, with American and South African campers, and South African CITs (counselors-in-training).  The second year, Americans and South Africans will co-lead, and the third year, South Africans will lead.  The campers and counselors will be driving about an hour and a half away from the church to spend five days worshipping God and building relationships.
     Monday morning, having asked for rain and now preparing for it (an allegory from the movie Facing the Giants), I was working on a packing list, making sure everything could be thrown into a bag if word came that someone had dropped out.  Teresa came into the room as I was mumbling about sunscreen and what-not, and said "You might as well put your stuff in your bag now, since you're going." That took a second to register, since it was not quite what I expected to hear at that moment (I expected something more along the lines of a groan about my mumbling, or something), but I ran out and into Mom and gave her a bear hug.  She laughed at my enthusiasm, and my bouncing, and my "Thank You God", but explained that, yes, a girl from Botswana had dropped out this morning, so there was room for me.
     This little guy was hanging out on our wall  
     Monday evening, we had our Pastor and his wife and kids over for dinner.  Becca and their daughter, Elana, are quickly becoming fast friends.  Pastor Justin and Irene remind us a lot Pastor Jeremy and Diane.
     This morning, my alarm was set for 7am, but I was up and finishing packing by 6:15.  Needless to say, I'm a little excited.  What an answer to prayer!  Can you join us in praying that spots will open up for Teresa, Jonathon, and/or Becca?  We're all old enough, and they'd love to make some new friends.

     Also, would you please consider giving to the Taylor family?  They're moving as missionaries to Swaziland in late March, and they're still working on fundraising.  Go to robandjennifer.wordpress.com to read their full story, and to give.