Glimlag Vir Jou Foto!

Day 4 - Friday July 30th, 2010; used 7 pages, but they involve venting/observing/never filled in so this will end up only being the first 2

"Matt Damon is waiting for me in my room, don't call me anti-social, Lyz!" - Cathy in regards to her Bourne book

PHOTO SHOOT DAY!
Up around 7 to leave at half after, head to Freedom Park to set up (the clinic side was our initial place, but then we had to move over to the OCV area) electrical cords, power switcher-outlet things [just remembered these are called "converters" haha], and 2 off white tarp/cloth back drops. We started taking people for groups (which increasingly grew as word got out even after Lincoln drove around with some care takers spreading word since 5:30a apparently!) at 11:30a, took one break, then kept going till about 3:30(we shut the gate by the police department to cap the line.) After packing up to come home, we did. Then showered, started laundry, read Ezekiel 27, sorta took a nap, moved the laundry, layered up then went to the campfire for dinner (salad w/ sun dried tomato basil dressing and carrots, cheese/hamburgers (grilled by Charles), and chips), then chilled by the fire with Kathy, Jenny, and tea after everyone else went inside, then after a bit moved into the common "chill area" in the main/guy's flat where everyone (being Kristy, Chris, Deb, Sean, Janelle, Charles, Jon, and Jeremy) decided to go out "on the town" & the rest of us (Jenny, Taylor, Kristy, Cathy, Dave, and myself) opted to stay home - thus I'm writing this and checking email/vegging on Facebook, then after a couple hours everyone got back from unwinding which was good timing because Jenny and I had already devoured a package of cookies and were moving onto chips :P

     Dave has a good heart for Johannes, specifically, and missions work (not so much kids at all - which A. is apparently totally different from his experience here last year? B. fine by me because that's exactly what Jenny, Murdock, and I came here to do!) I'm thinking good plans could come from Dave over this next year as far as fundraising....

How we ran things this morning at FP for the photo shoot:

1. People would come sit and wait to be escorted over to the line - via Janelle or Jon - with their number in hand (small slip of paper that Deb, Kristy, and I made with scratch paper + crayons) - we'd only take pictures of those with a "ticket," even though the whole shoot was free for them, because then we would be sure to keep them in order 
2. Be positioned facing towards the sun to avoid shadow-y faces from hats/etc
3. We'd shoot the picture: the awesome part about this is that almost every picture was taken by 3 of our photography students from yesterday that showed up this morning to help!
4. Mark each person's thumbnail with a smile face (via a sharpie)
5. Then they'd go back to the waiting area and wait patiently talking to one another while we (the photographers) kept shooting the rest of the group -- always ending on an even number of pictures on the memory cards (because each page printed 2 pictures/page and when you have a limited supply of ink and paper, half sheets is how it is done)
6. The cards were then taken to Kristie & uploaded to her computer
7. Printed & framed (plastic sleeve like in a photo album)
8. Match & cross off their numbers 
9. Hand over the picture
10. Then they each would walk home with joy that somebody was was willing to take time from their day to take their picture for them & giving it to them (when they were the ones who [some] gave up half their day just for this one picture).

Deb making numbers -- This is the one picture I actually shot on my own camera the entire day!

Anyone who knows me knows how crazy that is... haha -- but it was great having the boys there!! (below)

People waiting to have their photo taken; Johannes (our translator) who is basically awesome!

Delivering the memory card to Kristie and Maddie so it can be printed then cropped and framed by Kristy!

ps - awesome tan... ha.

Our photography team & supervisors :)

"Oh, How He Loves Us"

Day 3 - Thursday afternoon, wrote 7 pages

     So far on the trip I have decided the two three things I've enjoyed most are:

1. Playing with the kids!
2. Showering after playing with the kids & washing off the "dirt +/ pee" smell, as well as any remains of being sneezed on
3. Finding bruises all over my legs from said children - 11 so far

     Today looked like: Up at 8 to leave at 8:30. Got to Freedom Park + wait (then go on) home visits split into two groups (our group was 2 of the "Sisters"/clinic workers, Chris, Kristie, Kristy, Taylor, and myself). We went DEEP into the Park and were gone for like 4 hours meeting people, taking some care packages of food + jugs of tap water -- SUPER hard to come by for any of them -- to as many people as we could, then we kept going and prayed with everyone we could. We gave kids candy & took their pictures and showed it to them -- Kristy and I were scolded a few times by Chris to stay closer to the group because we kept getting distracted by good photo op's/sweet children. We got to hear summaries of almost every care-package-receiver, which was really cool!

 I gave her candy then took this with her -- oh my gosh, sooo shy! Well, that is until she came around multiple times later with some friends scoring more candy off of "the white people" haha

 Taylor & a precious baby girl... :)

 I do not know if we ever picked up on the joke, but I loved to see them laughing and having a good time amongst how we percieve their lives to be.

This is Timbi: his mom got really sick receintly so we are going to pay for her to go to the clinic on Monday (because it is close for the weekend)... Hopefully they can do something.

Home visit's group! :)

Then we went back to the vans where we had our pb&js, then Jenny and I waited for Jacki (OVC contact)then waited for our photography class teenagers [5 guys (pictured below), 1 girl (not pictured) - they were all somewhere around 18 years old]. While we were waiting for them to show up for our little OVC class, Jenny and I'd take turns popping over to the arts & crafts room/building/boxcar, then swung by the Cresche (daycare) and shot a few pictures in each of those places.

 I love how much personality was captured in this shot!

To see their reactions in a video Kristy took (then uploaded to Facebook) when they got to see this picture on my camera click here!

 Word of mouth makes this little room even smaller!

Imangine cramming 30+ children into this room for daycare all day every day, only leaving for the "bathroom"/a few minutes on the jungle gym all week... Insaine.

We eventually made it back to the teens and got things rolling.  Holy crap were they into it! Some of them were all over the place with the (donated digital Kodak) cameras! They all spoke English - which helped SO much. We started with the camera operating basics: on/off, review, delete, etc. then let them at it. Starting in the class room, then opening their options by heading out front near the police station, then to the clinic + playground, then behind our classroom to where arts and crafts just got out and they went wild - finger shutter trigger happy! SO COOL!! ( => especially since only 1 or 2 of the teen had used a camera beforehand. We taught most of them how to zoom and use it...)  [For the rest of our visit to FP, we collected the cameras so we could upload their pictures and print some for them. Every time we went back, if they were hanging out waiting for us (basically every day) we'd just sign it out to whichever ones were there then ask them to have it back around the time we had to go for the day.] On our last visit to FP we left a bag with the 6 cameras for them with Jackie that they can borrow from her while she is there.

Then we went over to the construction site to wait (only 5 minutes) for the guys to pack up/finish the 2nd shack (which only took 5 mins because they'd just run out of battery power when we'd pulled up so they'll finish it tomorrow) then we came home and showered & here we are just chilling (dinner is going to be beans and rice). We are having deep, reflective talks later on tonight it sounds like!

     Personal devotional time fits now and this is what stood out to me:

Job 25:5 - If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in His eyes, how much less a mortal man, who is but a maggot ^- a son of man, who is only a worm!”

     I'd just like to say (in a not creepy/weird way) that Charles & Sonner win at harmonizing + playing together for their first weeks ever... even without everyone singing, the contemporary swing that is released through their fingers would make anybody cry, fall asleep, or make for an awesome soundtrack/score to a drama. I, for one, could listen to them for days - not kidding! Of course I'd fall asleep once or twice but the dreams had would be indescribable! oh, PS, Charles apparently knows some Creed... ^-^

     Johannes calls "coffee & cereal" "coffee & complex" -- we all think that is neat....

He (Johannes) is such.... a neat man. His work ethic blows us away! People back home feel like they "work so hard for such little pay" -- they need to meet this man....

     Dave would like to help people SO badly. He has ideas, but I haven't heard them/can't hear everything he is saying from the other side of the room where is over there talking to Lincoln. I can tell its really serious by the tone in his voice & the doubtful/realistic tone coming from Lincoln.

Campfire Notes - God Uses the Common Things

• The definition of a blessing [a favor or gift bestowed by God (dictionary.com)]
• If every Christian were like Johannes
• Everything outside of The Lighthouse Shelter (where we are staying) seems like a movie
• Majority of the time, you can't even look somebody in the eyes if you know they are "in the program" because all you see is pain, all you feel is guilt; when all you'd like to see is healing, all you'd like to feel is sympathy.
• I feel like I have personally misjudged a lot of the people on my team....
• Challenged to live out the love + compassion Johannes has shown us in 3 days.
• Seeing (by the light of the fire) men pray (picture) and get torn apart
• Confidence that we are making a difference, even though we can only physically do so much during this trip

My Blessings:

1. pen and paper literally at my fingertips
2. food on every corner
3. generally, essentially, $ to buy said food
4. music, all the time
5. only clean water access
6. I know approximately where everyone in my direct family is at all times
7. the ability to stand up, walk, dance, or run, etc., without help
8. my life, overall, is healthy
9. I have Jesus
10. I know who both of my parents are, even if I don't have one anymore.

 "Shell Shocked" - just going through the motions

     I'm so lucky and I hate it. Why am I staying here at this awesome shelter covered in blankets while on the other side of the gate there are MILLIONS of people sleeping on dirt or in mud just trying to make it one more night to try to find un-guaranteed work tomorrow to buy their one meal that they'll see, much less taste, for the next three or four days?! I don't understand why I, of all people everywhere, am SO blessed...! To say that "I hate it" was hasty because in reality i still have to be grateful for it and accept God's plan for my life. We've been moved by a gardener, a sick woman, and care takers.

     My bruises don't matter for they were left on my body out of love, majority of bruises on the other side of our gate were given out of hate and left for pain.

Goodnight...

Day 2  - Wednesday night,wrote 1 page

"I think I'm going to get all my stuff and head back to the room..." - Kristy
"Fine then, be that color" - Sonner
"Did you just say 'be that color'?" - Kristy
"Yes... & I can say that because we have a black president now." - Sonner

"Did you pretend you had a girlfriend to go see Twilight? Like a best friend or something" - ?
"Haha of course not - the first time I went with my little sister then the second time was with a 12 year old..."   - Jeremy (29)
*everyone in the room just exchanged a very puzzled look* "Bhahahahahahahah!" - everyone (even Jeremy)

KIDS!!:)

     - gave me bruises up and down my legs from jumping on me today

     - are FREAKING ADORABLE anyways!

-their craft today was coloring sheets & the soft Styrofoam crosses (with stickers)

What today looked like: Woke up at 7:20, got ready then headed out to Freedom Park: did a little digging with the team but mostly got to play with the kids all day =) I helped them work on numbers 1 - 10 and some colors and days of the week in English and did a little mini photo shoot* with those 10 kids, then we (the team) left FP to come back to the shelter for showers(!), bonding time, dinner (grilled chicken & a potatoes/onions/veggie mix - super good), then bed.

*Photo shoot favorites: 

"You don't know how to pee in public, Taylor? Girl, I'm going to take you out camping so you know how to!" - Kristy

Strangers In a Strange Land

Day 1:  27 July, 2010
Tuesday night, wrote 2 pages but made a TON of new little friends and took a TON of pictures :)

"That sounds kinda like Toby Keith!" - Kristie
"I'm done playing. Don't you ever compare that man to Dave Matthews ever again!" - Dave

What today looked like: Woke up, got ready, drove 20 minutes to Freedom Park, toured and saw where we're building + who we're building the new shacks for, split up, started on the garden, lunch break, tried to dig more*, met the children(!!!!) - played and did crafts**, went "home" and showered(!!) then hung out before/after dinner, journaled & had some Bible time (read Jer 9), then went to bed.

THIS is a families HOME?!:

This is one of the houses we're replacing for a family of 5 (all HIV+)

*After lunch we were trying to get back to work when a man came up to us inside the big fenced in area where we were working telling us that the land we were working on was given to him to watch and that he did not like the way we were doing what we were doing. We told him (via our translator, Johannnes) that we were put to work here to help the community and were just doing what we were asked. He marched off to the police station... After a few minutes, our "fearless leader" - Sean - went with Johannes to the police station to try to clear things up we all hung out waiting to get back to work, but we had to wait till the next morning because the person we had to talk to was already gone for the day. Turns out the man was just going to make himself a garden, so one of the caretakers in the clinic (our main contact) worked it out for us to have it.

**Kid time!: We are working with a group of children in an after school program where they can come while their parent/s are still working. The program is Orphaned & Vulnerable Children (OVC). Today we learned for ourselves how in love with digital cameras they are, played cards*, played on the jungle gym, grabbed the small ones by their arms and spun them around (a lot), tried to learn the "move your booody" circle game (-- even though it has some English, I don't know the best way to explain it), and did a couple crafts. The crafts we did were your basic hand tracings with the child's name and age(if we could figure those things out) and jingle bell bracelets*. Their favorite thing to do with crafts is play with stickers*-- they LOVE putting stickers on their hands, foreheads, clothes, where ever there is open space on their craft...! They like stickers as much as our American kids do in Sunday school, but the difference is that these kiddos do not have an endless supply at the tip of their finger.

Food isn't bad because Janelle & Cathy (the moms) & Jeremy do the shopping + cooking while we're here, for the most part. Breakfast = bran cereal + a banana; lunch = 1/4 pb&j on white, some Doritos, and too much water (which while working in the sun, too much water isn't always good); dinner = garlic/cheese bread & spaghetti that had hamburger and peppers (made it sweet) in marinara sauce.

Mental note: pack purell tomorrow and wear shorts- it gets...hot.

Today we heard a story about people who sell their babies for drug money and how more times than not that baby is thrown right into the world of rape and sex. People (everywhere) are sick.

On a happy note, I still LOVE the accents so much...
haha we keep almost speaking to the kids in Spanish - and Jeremy actually did today
"More candies?" - young kids at Freedom Park ~ they may only be learning days of the week in English in school but they have asking for more candy down perfectly
"No mas! =( " - Jeremy who reached into his pockets but came out empty handed to prove he was out
"...hahah, Jeremy, which trip did you sign up for?" - everyone on the team who heard it

July 25th - 26th: Crossing the Atlantic, round 1

Here is the sunrise on the way to DIA the day we left:

(between 8:30a [take off] and noon [landing in D.C.]) -- sat in 28D (yes, I journal EVERYTHING. Just wait haha)

I slept 3 hours last night and I'm trying to stay awake till we leave Dallas Airport in DC, like Lincoln told us to...

The man infront and to the left of me on this first 3 hour flight has gross shoes... dark brown leather penny loafers and one intense leg tan that fades to a pale-pink tone then to a white/winter skin tone. I should stop judging people. He prolly came to Colorado to golf.

United Airlines is showing the new Miley Cirus "Last Song" movie... I wonder if she gets to pick the guys she acts opposite of...

There is a 14(?) year old girl in front of the ugly shoe man (ugly shoes, he is normal haha) who has a crapload of those new bracelets that are shapes when you take them off and she dropped one; it's a cyan-blue elephant and it is really cute & I'm tempted to steal it.

I haven't even been gone for half a day and I already am noticing differences in myself.

• Just since starting + working at Starbucks & Sugar Bowl 2 and 1 years ago, I have become SO much more friendly, outgoing, attentive,  more acomplished, opinionated, a better (improved, not great) leader, "go & git-er-done" attitude. i have already grown so much and,even though I have a very long way still to go, I'm happy with how far I've come so far & I'm excited to see how else God helps/leads me to mature on this missions trip!

The guy who is sitting in 28J has his right arm in a sling... that'd suck.
This is probabally the biggest plane I've ever been on; i dont remember the model they said it is at the beginning... but it looks like this kinda:

xx| |xxx| |xx

xx| |xxx| |xx

xx| |xxx| |xx

etc.

The elephant bracelet is totally still on the floor...

So, I made a playlist last night of songs to try to choreograph, there are 31 songs so far. I'll start a list on the inside of the back binding of this notebook (to kill time) :)
I wonder if anyone else on the team is good at giving massages/going/went to school for it... Landing in DC in half an hour!! 18 hour flight here we come =D

We're landing & the bracelet is still there but now looks more like the Red Bull bull would if it was a unicorn...

\L/O\N/G\ F/L\I/G\H/T\ N/U\M/B\E/R\ O/N\E/
& here you can see our sunrise on 7/26 after re-fuling in Dekar, Africa - post Atlantic:

1 John 4:10

"Fear is temporary, regret is forever."
           - Someone's tshirt

Us sacraficing 20 1/2 hours of our lives on a plane to "go" serve is no big deal compared to God's Sacrifice...

It is taking SO much self-restraint to not just start singing along with the music like I would normally do anytime I go from one place to another!! (in my car obviously)

"We will never ever ever ever <3 be apart"

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|   I love South African accents & the phraseology! |
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ps- I watched some of "Diary of a Whimpy Kid" & the big brother character TOTALLY reminds me of Eric Semin! haha

Somewhere in these 20 hours on this plane holds a lot of movie watching and sleep... simple enough.

SA Journal Basics & Meet the Team

South Africa Journal Basics

The words I post on these pages are raw; directly from my journal that I've maintained since deciding at the end of May to go on this trip. Since the middle of the trip one of my team mates - Jeremy - was joking about how he would not be the least bit surprised if he were to come across my journal "on the New York Times best seller list within a year." Once or twice I understated what he was saying, and then, when we got back, I literally had friends all the way down in Argentina asking me about my new two week adventure! The second I mentioned that I was keeping a journal they were saying "Ohhh! Tell me when you get it published!" So, this is my "instant publication" of the journal.

I am not going to post my packing list or my notes from the meetings we had before leaving because it is just my list of financial contributors, dates, promos, & fundraiser information and posting all that would be silly.

There were some funky team dynamics, but hey - you can't expect to go on a trip for 2 weeks with 13 strangers and come back being best friends with all (or any) of them, right? Therefore, any pages in the journal where I had to vent are not being published as a courtesy to everyone.

I am not planning on changing any names and will involve as much visual aid as possible :)

Here we go: I left my heart in South Africa...

Meet the Team

"Captains":
Chris - team leader
Jenny - assistant team leader
"Crew":
Cathy - nurse, our "mama bear", cooking beast
Janelle - mother of 1, digging/cooking beast
Deb - I don't know what she does, but she is generally awesome! Kinda "tom-boy"ish, but in a good way... gardening beast
Jon - graduated from Columbine & works at Coors Field in the press boxes, gardening beast
Taylor - dancer, & she is good at staying focused on her projects with the photography days
Dave Sonner (referred to as either) - musician who generally keeps to himself... kinda, shack construction mastermind
Kristy- teaches deaf children/works in public Denver schools
Kristie - engaged and getting married in September, my bunkmate, determined.
Sean - funny punkface, garden "team leader", coke~a~cola adict
Charles - is studying pre-med at CSU, shack building monster
Jeremy - sells reality, shopping/cooking/building beast

Johannes - the head gardener at the Lighthouse Shelter where we are staying, our translator, one stand-up man...
The Smith Family - Lincoln & Jenny, Maddison, Kyler, Kendi, and Isabel (except add almost a year to all the kids). They were our AMAZING host family who told us where everything was and the best way to do stuff!

This is the link to their blog about living as missionaries in SA

Team Dynamics :
*Chris & Charles have been BFFs for years
*Taylor & Kristie are BFFs
*Jenny & Sonner are BFFs
*Kristy & Deb got real tight
*Kristie & Sean are siblings
*Sean & Jon were referred to as "the odd couple" by the end of the first week, but it was funny.
*Jeremy seemed to get pretty tight with Jenny and Sonner
*and I tried to slide in where ever... typically ended up with either Kristy & Deb OR Jenny & Dave

Charles & Jeremy were our two drivers -- and considering the part about where they were driving stick shifts on the opposite side of the car on the opposite side of the road and only backed into one person (who happened to know Lincoln, thank the Lord), drove into oncoming traffic once or twice, and drove into the shelter gate once... I think they did pretty good! :) haha

Chris, Kristie, Taylor, Sonner, & Jenny all went on the trip in 2009 so they were already acquainted/friends and had built great friendships before this trip...

My means of staying awake on the flights at the right times, as you're about to find out, was to just write everything. It may seem obsessive, but I figured as long as my pen was moving on my paper and the product was comprehensible, it didn't matter that I was going on about silly bands or the flight crews' accents.

Enjoy & take nothing with a grain of salt!