It's May already?

My, how the time flies.  We have been here in South Africa for almost four months now.  It has been a whirlwind four months.  It's been awhile since we've posted (we promise to post more often from now on!) so I'll fill you in on what we've been up to.

First, we are responsible for overseeing the new church plant, Hope Christian Church, and Matt is the pastor.  When we return home in October, he will be replaced by an African pastor, but for now, he is enjoying the joys and challenges of ministry in another country.  He is learning how to navigate the tricky waters of language barriers and has been getting better and better at preaching sermons that are understandable and hopefully relate to people from a totally different context and culture.  Most of the people that worship at Hope do not speak much English.  The main language spoken in our area is sePedi, which is spoken by only about 9% of the entire population of South Africa.  In addition, many speak Afrikaans either because they learned it growing up under Apartheid or they need to speak it to communicate with the farmers/landowners they work for.  Finally, the Zimbabwean language Shona is widely spoken because there are many Zimbabweans living and working here, as we are only a few hours from the border and there are many jobs in agriculture, hospitality, etc. in this area.  We had an interpreter a couple of weeks, but have not found someone to translate every Sunday.

Easter Sunday at Hope was a wonderful celebration.  Matt purchased some Easter lilies and a new cross for the "sanctuary" (we worship in a small country school classroom), so it looked quite nice to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.  During the sermon, the entire church walked out to the road where the large cross is placed and prayed around the cross.  It was a powerful time of worship and was a joyful day.

Walking as a church out to the cross.

Prayer at the foot of the cross.

Before church, we were able to have a huge Easter egg hunt with twelve kids thanks to the generous hearts of Judy Bertsche and Kacie Rodriguez-Hall, friends of mine from Illinois.  A few weeks before Easter I happened to mention on Facebook how I wasn't able to find plastic Easter eggs and wanted to have an Easter egg hunt.  Almost immediately, these two ladies commented that they'd love to send over boxes of Easter goodies.  They sent their boxes brimming with treats to Iowa and the next short term mission team brought them over to give to us.  (It's much cheaper than mailing packages.)  We had 8 kids living here on campus participating, plus 4 kids on a short term team.  So I stuffed over 100 eggs and hid them before dawn on Easter morning.  It was so much fun to hear the squeals of excitement from the kids when they began the hunt.  I also hid some eggs for Stella around our house and she was crawling all over "finding" them.  We had a little Easter basket for her as well filled with books, toys, and snacks.  We really enjoyed making memories and traditions with our daughter.

Giant bag of Easter eggs

The hunt begins!

We've had a lot of cute but mischievous visitors lately.

Children at the school I teach art at once a week show off their paintings, along with Juliana, a member of the most recent short term mission team.

I teach art to this bunch every week.

We had a farewell braai (cookout) for the other ambassadors, the Bettinger family a couple days before they departed for America.  It ended with a dance party!

Some adorable lambs were born recently at the farm next to us.

A stunning sunset.

Campus has been very quiet lately because Doc, Beth, Dustin and Rene are all back in the States for over a month and there have also been many national holidays so the staff gets the day off.  We've been keeping busy with various small projects around campus.  I've been able to go to the sewing center a bit more lately, mostly helping cut fabric for bags and purses.  I really enjoy spending time with Hilda, Maria and Hellen while I'm there and Hilda's daughter Privilege and Stella are learning to play together nicely.  

I was going for a long run yesterday across the road at Shikwaru Game Reserve and it was really foggy and kind of spooky.  It was fairly early in the morning, and shortly after I got home the sun burned off all the fog.  Anyway, as I was running, I saw dozens of really cool cobwebs that were parallel to the ground, spun onto blades of grass instead of the vertical ones that are more often seen.  I have run past them before but have never been able to see them because the sun shines directly on them and they become invisible.  But the unique quality of light yesterday made them suddenly and brilliantly visible.  Even though it was foggy, I saw something I'd never been able to see before.  It just made me think that sometimes when everything is sunny and going well, certain things are unseen.  It's not until things get foggy and cloudy that those things become visible and show their beauty.  Although the world around is dark, those formerly hidden things give beauty to the darkness.  "How far that little candle throws his beams!  So shines a good deed in a weary world." - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.  Maybe that doesn't make sense to you, dear reader.  Maybe it makes perfect sense.  I just wanted to share those thoughts.