Cell!

Okay so Friday was my first night at cell. Cell cell cell cell cell!
Alright. The cell I have been put into is headed by lovely Nicole (I hope you are reading this Nicole; you’re welcome) and the girls in it are aged 14 to 18 or so. Friday night was a really interesting experience.
The cell meeting was held at the church. There were actually a number of cells who all met around 7:30. We did an icebreaker (woohoo!), had praise and worship, and then split off into our cells for discussion.
The evening started to challenge me with the praise and worship. Youth praise and worship at BCI is even livelier than regular praise and worship; kids were jumping, dancing, doing congo lines….all around me, and I was just standing there. Just standing there, in the middle of the floor. It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying or getting into the praise and worship – I have actually gotten to the point where I enjoy BCI’s worship style – it’s just that I still feel that I can worship and praise without it being a big dance party. I can’t dance and that’s a fact.
So anyway, there I am, and after one of the lively jump-and-dance songs the praise and worship leader says “Now if you want God to be in your life – if you love Jesus with all your heart – I want you to shout ‘Jesus!’ on the count of three.” And I swear (it’s possible I imagined it, but I didn’t think so) I heard someone say, very pointedly, “Connie.”
I tried to take it in stride, and go with the flow, and think to myself “Okay, I love Jesus, I want God, so even if I feel judged I can get over it and try to get into things.” But it was so hard, and before I knew it we were into the next song (a more contemplative, no-jumping song that I actually like) and I was crying and just feeling so overwhelmed. I found myself praying “God, please get this church out of my way. I want to see you, please just get this church out of my way.”
So that is sort of how I went into the cell group. I just felt so overwhelmed and tired of being judged and confused about everything. I couldn’t understand what God wanted me to do here, if I can’t even get through a worship service without worrying if this church thinks I am a horrible person.
However. I came out of the cell feeling completely different. The girls in my cell are interesting, interested, and so honest. Hearing them talk (and answering their wacky questions about America), and hearing Nicole’s responses, gave me so much hope for my time here. These girls’ lives are not perfect – far from it – yet Nicole showed them so much love and acceptance. And becoming part of a cell gives me a feeling of acceptance and purpose here (where I spend most of time wondering what to do with myself). So it was a good night, in the end.

P.S. Here are some of the questions the girls asked me:

• [After being told I do not know Beyonce]: “Do you know Chris Brown?”
• “Can you dance?”
• “Do you have any American money with you? Can we see it?”
• “Do American girls like to eat?”
• “Have you ever gotten into a fight at school?”
• “What size shoe do you wear?”
• “What is your cell phone number in America?”
• “Are the phones in America normal?”
• “What do you want to do with your life?”
• “Do you have mixit [a cell phone chat room type thing] in America?”
• “If a South African person went to America, would you think they had an accent?”
• “Will you take me back with you?”
• “Can I take a picture with you?”
• “Do they put growth hormones in the food at McDonald’s in America?”
• “Do they have KFC?”

Office Work! Kill Me Now...

If only they had warned me!

So today, I had nothing to do again.

Surprise!!

So I went to see Thandi, who Gabby works for, and she told me to help Gabby with filing.

Oh. My. Goodness!

What a thrill. What a wonderful, exciting way to spend the day.

Actually no. It wasn't really fun. However, the worst part was that I was really, really bad at it. I could not figure out where to put things, and I spent most of the time saying "Gaaaabbyyyy....I can't do it!! Where do I put this? Where does this go? How do you use this hole puncher?" Yes, I really could not figure out how to use the hole puncher.

So. That was my day. It wasn't really that bad. I made pineapple upside down cake, and it kind of failed, but it still has pineapples in it. So that is good.

Mmm yes.

Top Trip-to-Hilton Moments

Grandma Greta! Happy Birthday! love, Connie :)

Ok so we went to Hilton Gardens today. Hilton Gardens is the area outside of town where Phil and Christine live. They recently moved there, I think because the pollution in town was driving them crazy. So yay! We went up for their housewarming party after baking some maple pecan scones – oo la la – and it turned into quite an adventure! Below are nine fantastic reasons why (plus one non-related yet interesting tidbit):

• Getting lost: we ended up missing a turn somewhere and driving all the way out, past Hilton, into the beautiful countryside. Let me tell you, man, South Africa is lush! It is gorgeous…everything is so green and beautiful and hilly. Just like a picture! And there we were, hurtling down the N3 (aka freeway) at 120 kph, going completely the wrong direction.


• “How now, brown cow.” As we were hurtling down the N3 we passed a pasture with cows peacefully grazing. Anna appropriately said “How now, brown cow,” and Tim said “Not really, those cows are black and white,” and Anna said “I know, I just really wanted to say that.”


• Trying to make it up a fantastically huge hill after we missed our turn (but before we knew we were going the wrong way). Our little Honda Ballade is weak and sad and we could hardly get it to go faster than 20 or 30 kph! Ugh!


• “The car is going to explode!” In my recent driving lesson with Phil, he told me that if the RPM gets up too high the engine could explode. Me being the innocent automatic-car-driving girl that I am, I thought he was serious, and as we were trying to make it up that huge hill the engine was making scary noises and I told them what Phil had said. However, when we got to his house Phil told us that he had been kidding. So. I am foolish.


• “Squish,” says Kyle, as we drive dangerously close to a huge semi-truck on the N3.
  
• We sang 606 (the Mennonite song) at Phil and Christine’s house!


• “My ears are going to explode!” On our way home, going downhill, Anna really felt that her ears were going to explode. It was great.


• “ENTOURAGE.” Can’t be explained.


• We had some really really good cake at Phil and Christine’s house. It is called Italian crème cake. Oh. My. Goodness.


• Also: this was after we got home, but we had a delightful conversation with our neighbor Christian. It was all about his startling Facebook friendship with Gabby's sister. Who is in Canada. Whoo-hoo!

I Love It!

The past few days have been awesome! I have not loved South Africa so much as I love it now.
So. As previous blogs explain, I was wiped out all weekend, and I didn’t want to go back to work (washing windows and tablecloths and ironing curtains! Yay!) right away, and Phil and Christine read my mind! They kindly and lovingly and awesomely volunteered to take us to the nearby Tala Game Reserve to see all sorts of awesome animals, like giraffes, zebras, rhinosaurs – yes, rhinosaurs –, warthogs, ostriches, wildebeasts, etc (no lions, but that’s okay), and also to debrief after the weekend. And also to have a braai (aka a barbeque)!
Not only was it really cool to see all those animals, it was really nice to talk to Phil and Christine. Sometimes I forget that I am here not to judge (crazy, right?) but to learn. It’s so easy for me to close myself up to different things without thinking about reasons behind the differences or how they might actually *gasp!* be smart! Phil and Christine are very good at bringing me back to Planet Earth and reminding me to not be a snob, although not usually in so many words J.
Here are some other good things that have happened in the past couple of days:

• Basketball! I am no good at basketball and I don’t enjoy playing it because I suck so much. However, Tuesday night I got to play a little with Gabby and Christian (our insane yet great Congolese neighbor), and I found that it is quite fun! Maybe I’ll get back to the States a champion!


• Fake meat! Phil and Christine were kind enough to buy me some fake boervorst sausages for the braai, and they were SO GOOD. Oh. My.


• Cleaning windows! Just when I thought I was sick of manual labor, I did it and remembered that I love it. I’m almost at the point where I can accept doing odd jobs every day, without having one big world-changing focus. It helps that when I cleaned the windows my iPod was good with the shuffling. Sometimes my iPod refuses to play songs that I really like because it is too busy playing songs I only sorta like. But my iPod was good on Wednesday.


• “Third Watch.” We watch that TV show a lot, since Tim has Season One. It’s ridiculous and dramatic and totally awesome. By the way: if anyone has any of the other six seasons, please feel free to send them.


• Learning to drive, all over again. Phil kindly is teaching Kyle, Anna, and I how to drive the crazy South African way (ok, it’s not crazy, just hard). Most cars here are standard, and they drive on the left side of the road…so Wednesday I had my first lesson in our fussy little Honda Ballade. It was awesome, though I am not that great. Phil told me to have dreams about “giving it more gas” so I can be a better shifter. Oh, I’ll have all the dreams.


• We have money!!! Finally, we are no longer broke. Anna and I went grocery shopping yesterday; it was basically the best day of my young life.


• Beautiful weather! It’s been gorgeous since Monday, which was very welcome after a rainy weekend.


• Photo ops! We took a good many “jumping pictures” at the game reserve. We didn’t intend to take so many, but we failed so many times that we had to jump probably 10 or 15 times. Finally we got a good, in-the-air pic, but the failed ones are just as fun to look at. Also. For some reason there is a giant (like, six or seven feet high) KFC bucket sitting behind the children’s church building, so Anna, Gabby, and I went over there and took pictures on it and around it. Awesome.

camp! aaaaaaa

Children’s Church Camp this weekend!
I didn’t really know what to expect going into this weekend. The idea of lots of kids running around was daunting, but I was sort of looking forward to the Camp. I don’t really dislike kids. How bad could it be?
Well. Not horrible, but certainly exhausting. This weekend was much more tiring than I would have ever expected. Not only did we have to wake up very early, there were other elements that I struggled with. It was both physically and emotionally draining.
However. In the spirit of awesomeness, I have compiled a Top Moments list with the help of Anna and Kyle. This weekend certainly wasn’t all bad, and it gave us some things to think about, be grateful for, and laugh at. Here they are!

• The kids being told, on the first day, “You are not here to have fun.” The teacher went on to explain “You are here to praise the Lord,” which makes sense, but it was still a shock for me to hear that. At that age, all I wanted was to have fun! They were also told “There will be no love letters written," which was just fun to hear :).
• Kyle conducted a play of the story of Jonah with a bunch of on-the-spot volunteer kid actors, and it was really really good! It was funny and awesome and I wish I had recorded it.
• The kids were required (at least on one day) to shower in pairs. Understandably, there were only four showers for about sixty kids. However, even when I was ten (the minimum age for the Camp) I absolutely did not shower with anyone else. Baths with my sister stopped when I was probably seven or eight.
• We were told to wake up in time for prayer with the other leaders at 5:30 am. On Saturday, we woke up as early as 4:30, got there at 5:30, and sat around for 20 minutes doing nothing. On Sunday, we woke up fifteen minutes later, got there at 5:45, and sat around for a solid hour, again doing nothing. In retrospect, it wasn't that bad, but I am not a morning person. I was so tired!
• One child was told “Your friends have to be your own age. So-and-so is not your age, so you two can’t be friends anymore.” It would have made a little more sense (or at least been consistent with previous incidences) if these kids were of the opposite sex; they were both girls. This really made me sad. It was early and I was so tired that when I heard this tears actually came to my eyes.
• Badminton! On Saturday afternoon the kids had a volleyball tournament. There was, for some reason, a badminton set along with the volleyball net, and I took full advantage and started playing with some kids. They loved it! I loved it! We all loved it! Also: there is an abundance of Jack Purcell merchandise here (he was a very good Canadian badminton player in the 1950s, and Converse made a “Jack Purcell” shoe). I loved it.
• Anna almost died! The camp building has a gas oven, and there must be a leak somewhere. One day, after lunch, the ladies were starting to work on dinner while Anna was unsuspectingly washing dishes…and…BOOM! It was so loud, and very scary. Apparently it was some sort of fireball explosion situation. No one was hurt, but for the rest of the weekend we did not use that oven.
• Anna, Kyle, and I spent a good portion of our weekend peeling and grating vegetables, washing dishes, dishing out food, or otherwise trying to be helpful in the kitchen. It was awesome. Not only did we get to exercise our love for food (yay!) we got to skip out on some of the sessions, which left me feeling increasingly emotionally and spiritully confused and exhausted.
• We were consistently expected to know famous people because we are from North America. For example, Kyle was asked if he knew Eminem; when he said no, the kid said “But…you’re white!” Anna was asked if she knew Beyonce, Mariah Carey, and Chris Brown, and upon being told “No” the child was very confused. Anna was also asked if she had ever met any “negroes” or “people with long hair and hats.” She didn’t really know how to answer either question.
• We watched the crucifixion clip from “The Passion of the Christ.” I do believe that that movie can be powerful in helping us to understand what our Savior went through, but I felt it was uncomfortable with it being played for kids who aren’t even all old enough to watch “Batman Beyond.” I couldn’t bring myself to watch, partly because it is so graphic and partly because it made me sad to think of the impact it was having on those kids. There was a lot of emphasis on the death of Christ, but not the life of Christ, and it just made me so sad (another teary moment) to think that these kids were missing out on that beautiful life.
  
  So. It was a crazy weekend. I am glad we went through it, because it gave me a lot to think about and it was kind of fun, but I am also glad it is over. I’m sure I‘ll sleep well tonight!

nickelback! celine dion! and more!

I was going to blog about my evangelizing experience today but I got distracted by Tim and Kyle’s conversation.
They have so far discussed: bicycle jousting; car jousting; other ridiculous made-up sports; Gabby’s English language issues; drive-by paintball; spying on friends; Nickelback = the worst band ever; awkward llama (pronounced by Tim as lamb-a); awkward turtle; Santana; Celine Dion, The Lord of the Rings, Dung Tran, and yearbook quotes (all of which are connected); getting chased by the police; and a number of other things that I cannot remember.
I am so glad that we are all getting more comfortable – not only here in South Africa, but with each other. Even though I always feel like I never ask the right questions, we actually are getting to know each other better every day. In Chicago we didn’t really get to know each other at all (instead, we got to know people who are now in Australia, Paraguay, and/or England), but we have slowly been learning to enjoy each other!
Pretty much every night, for instance, we stay up together and watch multiple episodes of either The Office (best show ever!) or Third Watch (also up there!). We eat dessert together! We even make dessert together!
Another example would be Kyle and Tim staying up till 11:30 to talk about a wide range of strange and wonderful things.
I often catch myself thinking “I can’t wait until I like this place so much that I could miss it when I leave.” I also can’t wait until I like Anna, Tim, Kyle and Gabby so much that I will really miss them when we part ways. I think that will happen sooner rather than later, and that makes me really happy.
Also: I evangelized today! Sort of. Anna and I went to a boarding house with Melaine, one of the youth pastors. I was not looking forward to it at all because it was my night to make dinner and going out meant I had to cut the bread rolls out of my meal, but it turned out to be really good (the evangelizing, that is, although the meal was not bad either). The girls at the boarding house were awesome! We talked to a group of girls from 13 to 18 who go to school in Pietermaritzburg but live all over, in KwaZulu Natal and even the Free State. We invited them to come to church and talked a bit about that, and then Anna and I answered a bunch of questions about America. These questions included:

· Do you have lockers in your school?
· Do you have cafeterias in your schools?
· What is the weather like?
· Are there different cultures there?
· How do schools work? (as in how are they split up for grades and all that jazz)

It was really fun! Melaine is really fun and laid back, and I enjoyed meeting the girls a lot. Not only were they super nice and funny, they were super interested in us (we couldn’t help but be flattered!). We prayed before we left, holding hands in a circle, and the girls actually fought about who got to hold our hands. Then they gave us hugs when we left. I felt like freaking Britney Spears or something. Oh my goodness!

One More Time...Why Am I Here? (and also: yay! i'm here!)

[Pre.P.S. this pic is unrelated i just like it]

I have always considered myself to be an easy to please kinda gal, fine with going out or staying in, equally able to handle fun and boredom. It’s harder here than it was at home, though, and these past few days have been very challenging for me.
My specific job here at Breakthru is working with the Children’s Church. When I found that out, I was excited. I like the idea of working with kids because they are more accepting than adults, and I was looking forward to getting to know the kids better. Also, it’s exciting just to have something to do. However, Sunday was my first day in Children’s Church, and it pretty much killed all my excitement – not because it was a bad experience, but because I felt so completely useless. There are already eight or nine Children’s Church teachers, and the program is run so well! The kids really enjoy it, and they listen, and it’s great. So I sat there for an hour and half and did nothing. It was very hard for me to do that. I don’t like the idea that I am here to be in the way.
At the same time, I really enjoy the manual labor! I think a good part of it is that I love sticking my headphones in my ears and tuning out of the world, but another part of it is that I like getting things done – I like to see results and to know that I’ve done a good job. I like to throw myself into something until it glows! Or shines or sparkles or gleams or whatever the case may be. I like the challenge of dirt and broken things.
So I have good days and bad days, and good moments and bad moments. Sometimes, usually during worship or when getting to know the people here, I feel absolutely great about things. I feel like I could live here for the next nine months and just hang out and go to worship three or four times a week and come out of it a different, better person, not feeling like I wasted my time at all. But at other times I am deathly afraid of getting stuck in this house, seeing nothing and doing nothing – it sometimes feels like a weird, very long vacation that alternately has pockets of inspiration and meaning and dry spots of no money and mice. Maybe it will just be an issue of which I focus on more, or which there are more of. I hope there are more of the former.
P.S. Our Internet ran out. So until now I have been unable to catch up on football scores. That made me SO SAD. I like Sundays a good deal less when there is no football (not saying that worship in itself is not amazing – it really is here).
P.P.S. Also our money ran out. So that sucked as well. However, we have been amazingly blessed when people have either had us over for dinner or brought us dinner! So we have been able to survive, but having no money is no fun at all, especially when it means postponing Canadian Thanksgiving for lack of turkey cash.





Update! We have Internet! Also today was sunny and beautiful, which was nice in itself but even nicer because it meant I got to hang my laundry out to dry. It had previously been sitting in a bag in my room all clean and wet.
And also I got to help Anna with her ESL class today, and it was very fun!
And also! My goodness! We got a microwave! For free, I should add.
And also Anna and I walked to the post office and didn't have to wait in line forever! And I was not confused by the crazy stamps.
And we went to the grocery store and got baking things and oranges!
So today was an unusually awesome day. I just had some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, on top of everything else. So aside from the fact that the Ravens are breaking my heart (seriously? 17-14 against freaking Cincinatti???? really??? ugh!) I am very happy right now. So today was among the good days.

Tomorrow, please don't let me down.

well now

Since we arrived here two weeks ago, I have been struggling with the idea of righteousness. I have never been confronted with a church that is so intent on righteousness before, and it's a bit hard for me to swallow. It's not that I don't think it is important for Christians to be intentional in striving to be upright and holy and blameless; I just don't think it's possible for us to ever achieve that. I, for one, believe in God and have been saved by Christ, but I still sin every single day - I don't expect to ever not sin, because I live in a fallen world and I am human. Maybe it's wrong of me to think this way. Maybe it's an issue of definition - is "righteous" synonymous with "sinless"?

Either way, I find myself unintentionally rebelling against the pressure I feel (whether that pressure really exists or not) to look the part - to lift my hands and to listen to only "Christian music" and to save a lot of souls - even though those things in themselves are good. It kind of scares me. I want to be good! There's a part of me that says "Do what they say and you will be saved!" and another part of me that says "Don't be fooled into thinking that whoever sings the loudest is the best Christian." That second part of me is crying out for the acceptance of JPUSA right now. I miss being surrounded by people who don't look the part, and still are loved. I feel like I'm in the middle of an intense evangelistic competition.

I hope that I will come to better understand this as time goes on. Honestly, I really really like this church. I like that I am challenged in my faith and ideas and that's it isn't always comfortable. I would really appreciate prayer for this as I work through these issues and try to get closer to God in the next ten months.

P.S. I don't completely get the cartoon - but then, that's a good illustration of how I don't really get the whole issue! Yay!

the good, the bad, and the exciting!

Today we got our job assignments!
More on that later.
This past week has been very interesting. Largely we have relaxed! Basically, we have only relaxed. We haven't actually gotten started on our jobs (how could we? we only got assigned today!) so we have spent our time doing the following things:

• shopping! We go grocery shopping at least twice a week it seems, but really more than that. And we have been to the mall four times! In a week and two days! Which is probably how many times I went to the mall the entire summer.
• eating! We eat a lot. A lot. That is why we grocery shop so very much.
• meeting! We meet people all the time, and people are quick to have us over, bring us dinner, take us out...even come over and stay for a very long time. It has been nice! But sometimes it is tiring to have people over foreverrr. But still nice.
• fretting! We worry because there are mice in our house! Also I sometimes have those moments where I go "what am I doing here," etc.
• being excited! About everything! Including: having our car back (only to have it refuse to start, but hey); baking bread; a washing machine and clean clothes at last; a couple of non-rainy days; a super-welcoming church community; badminton rackets and birdies to play with!!

But anyway. We got our assignments today! That is another thing to be excited about. Kyle and Gabby will be working with the NGO, Breakthru Community Action. Tim will be working with the youth. Anna and I will be doing a combination of missions work, children's church, and catering stuff. We don't know for sure what exactly our jobs entail. We do know that we will be working across the board a fair amount in addition to our specific jobs; for instance, we will all end up working with the youth in some capacity. We also know that we will have one day a week of "practical" work, or manual labor. I am actually so excited about that. Manual labor! Yay!

Quick sidenote, not relevant: Also I am uploading my first video evahh on facebook. wooooo!

gospel music

Today a couple from the church, Malcolm and Lindle, came over and brought us dinner. It was a really fun time - they are a younger couple, in their twenties, and they are full of fun and all that jazz. But the evening also gave me some food for thought.
After dinner we sat in the living room and listened to music and played a game called "30 Seconds," which is basically Taboo with a board. At first we listened to my iPod, which is predominantly filled with secular music - we heard some Queen, some Stevie Wonder, some Aerosmith, some Sixpence None the Richer. Lindle commented that our pastor would not approve of it because it isn't "gospel," which is what they call all Christian music here, and that made me feel so sad. I felt sad because I really really love music, and I really really love my music - not because I don't want to glorify God, but because it sounds good and makes me happy! I actually struggle with a lot of Christian music because it seems to underachieve musically. It doesn't make me want to dance or sing, because I don't like the way it sounds.
I don't know what exactly to do or think about this. Music is very important to me. I'm certainly not saying that I don't enjoy any Christian music (I do have some - admittedly only one album - on my iPod), but I just enjoy lots of secular music more. I can certainly understand not listening to music that is derogatory, or violent, or disgusting, but when I think of cutting all secular music out of my life I just get so sad.
I think that it's a balancing issue. I don't know. We'll see!