Good Days...

As many of you know from my newsletter and other correspndances, I have had my share of up and down days since being here. I wanted to share with you how good God really is. I have had a wonderful week and it is all because of the people here who God allows me to spend time with! Last Saturday we had a "Ladies Tea" at our house. Tea time is a new thing to we Americans, but is something that I will be bringing home with me! We invited all of the ladies from church to our home Saturday afternoon for tea and biscuits (cookies, cakes, etc). I would say about 15 ladies came and we had a ball! Judy had baked almost the entire day prior to the tea and we had an amazing array of sweets. The ladies simply enjoyed being together and one another's company. Transportation is a huge hinderance for the members of Gelvan Park as I would venture to say only about 20% of the congregation have a car. This prevents people from spending as much time together as they would like. That afternoon we proposed and established a "Ladies Day Out" that will occur on the first Saturday of every month. We will meet and simply spend the day together. 3-4 ladies will rotate turns organizing the day. Everyone has expressed how excited they are about this time we will get to spend together. On Sunday we had our regular meeting that morning and then a city-wide sing a long that afternoon. It was a busy day as our team was invited to Auntie Jayne's home for her birthday. We went directly from church to her home for a braai and then spent the afternoon with her family until the sing a long. African gatherings often include tea and sweets and the sing a long was no exception. After singing I believe we served about 150 people tea and sweets. The coolest part of the whole day for me was after all was said and done. As you can imagine, a pretty good mess was left afterwards and we jumped in to help clean up. The young kids from church also joined us. Together we did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen allowing the ladies who usually do it a chance to sit and enjoy visiting with each other. Africans love to sing and boy did we sing! We sang everything from church songs to Christmas carrolls while cleaning that kitchen! At the end, the kitchen was sparkling and a good time was had by all. Times like this with our family make me wonder how I can even acknowledge the bad days that come. God is so good to remind us how much He loves us through those around us if we'll just open our eyes and see. After three months the new is wearing off and I finally feel like I am getting to know my family here. This to me, is what I am enjoying the most. I am so looking forward to sharing the next year or so with people I am falling more in love with every day! I would encourage you to spend time with the people around you, not simply in passing or for an hour twice a week but really make time to share in one another's lives. I promise, you won't be disappointed.