Just want to show you the view from my front door. I am blessed with a small one bedroom apartment that a New Yorker would pay BIG bucks to have as a vacation spot! Over looking a game reserve, I can wake up and look over the "veranda" to the hills to find giraffe and perhaps a wilder beast herd running through the field. It is an amazingly beautiful and peaceful view from by front door. Sometimes the kids walk down (5 minutes) from their houses to come to my apartment and so I get a nice mix of quiet and company (I also have 3 neighbors).

This weekend we helped the teenagers plan a big dance party, with decorations, a dress theme, and great DJ-ing! It was a blast! they had so much fun! And WOW no one can dance like a Zulu!!!!!

And for all those who know how much I love to bake, amongst all the things I am doing, one project that I am doing is helping some of the teenagers to start selling small cakes at school. They are getting so into it, from scoping the market (there are other kids who sell cakes) to pricing, to the actual baking, it is so fun to see them get excited about this!

Week 2 done! Wow, the weeks are flying by here and every day makes me more and more excited about what I am doing! God is so good because as we struggle with Him, He then brings great blessings. He brings us, in His time, into things He wants us to do that we ALSO LOVE. He is so kind in that way.
This week I really dug into the planning and also did a lot more with the older kids. There are about 30 of them, so it takes time to connect with everyone and it is a bit challenging to know who to focus on. All the little kids want to bake cakes with me, but it is hard to say no.
Amongst some of the activities this week, was a great fellowship group last night with the teenagers. We talked about God's faithfulness to us and ours to Him. Awesome discussion and I was amazed at how the kids are maturing in their faith!
Then, this morning we decided to go on a 14km (9 mile!!!!!) run! I have been running on the road on the property, so a group of staff and older kids, who play soccer and are in pretty good shape, ran out onto the public road through the farmland! At our halfway marker, there were huge fields of sugarcane and the kids broke off a stalk to chew on and get some refreshment. Man, the way back was hard and long and I probably would have passed out if I didn't have the sugarcane stalk!! But I just barely beat all the boys back, except one!!

So today was quite a day! We had a brush fire break out and sweep across the huge fields we have. And there is no such thing as a fire department in these parts so everyone sort of knows how to fight fires on their own. All the staff and children knew what to do, and so the American learned a lot! Take a branch and hit the fire! Who knew that would be the way to do it! It rushed up to the back window of my house, and I had my important things in my hands ready to get out! After about 3 hours of running water buckets here and there, swinging branches, and lots of help and strategy the fire burned itself out. But our nice field is a bit black now. But nothing burned and no one was hurt. Never a dull moment.

I finished my first week here! It involved quite a bit of everything! My time now is mostly focusing on major planning for the teenagers, so I spend the mornings working on that. Then in the afternoons when the kids come home from school, I focus on reconnecting with them, just hanging out. It has been so great to be back in their lives again! I baked a cake with some, watched movies with others, sat in on some hip hop dance practices (the boys are preparing for a competition), and did a few bonfires for the older kids.

This week the orphanage was short drivers, so I drove some of the little girls to a special day camp for kids with serious diseases and they were able to get their faces painted, dress up, get their nails done, play fun games, eat lots of cakes, and meet Miss South Africa 2006!

But now I see why God has brought me back here. For the past few months, I felt His urgency for me to come and the importance of it, but I wondered if it was just my own feelings or impulses. But now I see how clearly God did speak! It is so great to see that and know that as the challenges start to come, He has made it very clear that I am the one for this job, even if I don't feel like I am up for it at times.