Day of Rest and Reflection

Hi Everyone! This is Brittany writing (finally). Today was our second and final free day of the trip, and it was much needed as we are about to gear up for the second wave of campers to come. We had the opportunity to go on a safari in a private game preserve called Aquilla. It is about 2 hours from where we are staying, and Eric drove us there and back (he's getting really good at the whole left-handed shifting!). The preserve is 11,000 acres big and full of really cool African animals. We drove around the perimeter in open-air jeeps for 3 hours, and managed to see 12 different types of animals (including an African Dung Beetle... despite the fact that they hang out around piles of dung, they really are quite cool to look at.) Even though the place was pretty touristy, it was neat to be able to see so many animals close up!
After the safari we drove back and spent the afternoon relaxing and reflecting on what has happened and what we have left ahead. I managed to have a solid hour of quite time walking the Bridges campus. It was nice to have time to thank God for the great things that have taken place so far. Last camp I really connected with a few of the kids and enjoyed seeing changes that took place in their life over the course of the camp (both big and small.)
I was in a cabin with four other 12- year-old girls and a fellow leader from the after school program the kids attend during the school year. One night, a girl in my cabin was unusually talkative. She was conversing with the other girls and leader in Xhosa, when all of the sudden the leader doubled over in laughter. When she caught her breath, she translated for me and told me that the first time the little girl saw me she was shocked to see how white I was; apparently when she saw me take off my shoes that night I was wearing white socks, and she thought that was the color of my skin! The second day I had a handful of kids come up to me and pet my hair; they called it "soft" and wanted to brush and braid it. It's so funny to see what the kids think of us!
Anyway, it's been a great experience so far, and I am so glad God paved the way for us to come on this trip. I can't wait for the next group of kids, although I am nervous about the number of kids that will be here. There will be almost twice as many as there were last time. We'd appreciate your prayers for continued strength and energy as we gear up for this next camp. Most of the members on our team have experienced some form of illness now, and are trying to quickly recover before the kids come in two days. Please pray especially for Denise who is battling a cold and has pretty much lost her voice. She'd like it back before camp starts!
Well, I think that's it. Here are a few pictures from last camp and our safari today. Enjoy!

Denise and I with some of the other leaders. We all had a lot of fun together!

The girls in my cabin loved playing with my long hair!

We saw an elephant on our safari!

And a giraffe too!

camp pictures

Hey -- here are a few pictures from camp! I'll put up more when we have some more time to upload.


These kids have rhythm! And they dance too! More than we (normally) do.

These are some of the facilitators that helped with the camp.

halfway

Well, the first camp ended today. And we're pretty tired, so we'll update more later. (Hopefully I'll convince Brittany to write something -- but she's asleep right now).

And it finished great. Nobody got seriously injured, the kids had fun, and more importantly, the story of God's unconditional love was well received this morning. I did that talk. It was a little intimidating when I signed up for it a few weeks ago, but with all the practicing that I did it wasn't so bad. Even good. Which is cool, because it's quite plainly God working through me to speak into these kids lives. I used an analogy of a pot -- which breaks to pieces because of sin. And though it is broken, it still belongs to and is loved by its creator. Good stuff.

And as Dennis mentioned to us before we left, the first group of facilitators was really, really great. They were great with the kids, were nice enough to interpret for us, and were good role models for the kids. I just wish they would have gone to bed earlier :)

But camp is not about rest. That's what the days between camp are for. And that's what i'm going to do now.

camp is on!

The bus showed up yesterday morning, and since then it's been non-stop camp action. They have so much energy it's crazy. The boys in my cabin stayed up until well past 11 chatting and being noisy boys -- and somewhere during that process I threatened to wake them up early the next morning if they wouldn't go to sleep. But that didn't work out at all because they woke up (all of them) at just after 6am.

And I think I'm learning that Xhosa is a very loud language. Aside from all the clicks and tones, the people that speak it are just very verbal and like to talk about things. The male facilitators that were sleeping in my cabin the night before seemed to be like this. They stayed up watching music videos and talking about... basically anything... until about 4am Thursday night. So all that said, this week is going to be an exercise in staying energized and staying awake!

Camp food is great. I just had to throw that in there. There's just something about it that I love. Even in fI have to spend two hours washing every single cup and plate-holder that we used for dinner.

And, well, the kids are on an unorgaized free time right now. Most of my guys (we have 6 'rhinos' + Mike (the smaller) + 2 facilitators) are out playing soccer. Something makes me think my guys could play soccer until the end of time. They just don't get tired! Or maybe I'm just getting old :)

So pray for energy, and for connections with the kids!

Prayer updates

Hi friends,

Just a quick update.  The facilitators arrive in 30 minutes and then we start camp planning.  The kids come tomorrow.  Please pray for our connections with both.

Brittany and Ted (BOH staff) have both come down with colds.  Pray for quick recovery and that no one else will get sick.

Thanks!

Denise

Philippi + Penguins

Time for some more pictures!



Here's a suitcase full of the stuffed turtles that we brought down from Santa Barbara. Thanks everyone for writing all the notes! In case you're wondering, there are somewhere around 170 of them?

Now on to Philippi. We drove over to meet up with Mama Lulu and see what the bridges ministry was like in the township. These wonderful women were downstairs making lunch in the soup kitchen. (PS, it smelled fantastic down there)

Then next door we saw CHE training in action! These are all CHEs learning about influenza.

This is the inside of St Paul's church. We got a group shot with mama, who made sure that we got the lettering in the picture (in Xhosa, it means "glory to God").

Then later on in the day, Ted took us on an adventure. And we found penguins! Just hanging out near the beach. Quite a place, South Africa.


Then we had to make sure that they weren't under our car.


Here are a couple shots from Cape Point -- very close to the very southwest point of the continent.

On the way out of the park, we saw baboons! Even a little baby one.

The Reality of Race

Today we got some of our first exposure to the community around the retreat center.  We went into two nearby towns to purchase food and supplies for the camp.  Beyond the major things that stand out in a new country (clockwise round-abouts, signs in Afrikaans, prices listed in Rands), the one thing that really struck me today was just how deep the racial divide continues to be.  Yes, Apartheid itself has come to an end, but the cultural and socio-economical boundaries continue to create much of a divide.  I spent a lot of time today talking to Ted about the reality of racial relations here.  We talked about the fact that churches remain largely segregated, that "colored" (mixed race) and black people living in the same community might not even speak the same language, that someone like Ted who wants to minister in Phillippi must live out side of the community in a white neighborhood lest he become a target for thieves.  I am still processing these facts, but am struck with the reality that history leaves its mark.  And cognizant of the fact that the issue is far from simple: race, economics, history, theology - all are are deeply intertwined. I imagine I'll have a much deeper understanding of this complexity tomorrow after having visited Phillippi and Robben Island.

day of rest

So today, much to my surprise, is basically a day off. There's very little on the schedule other than buy some groceries and go out to eat later tonight. I'm not sure if the lax schedule was intentional or not, but I think it's a good things. Partially because we're physically still a little bit wiped out from traveling (whether we realize it or not), and partially because it's a chance to connect with the rest of our team and prepare ourselves for the week ahead. So much of the trip up to this point has been go go go go -- it's quite a relief to have a chance to spend good quality time in the word, or read a book, or go out and take pictures, or just grab a nap. Way to plan things, team!

Also, today I had my first experience driving on the left side of the road. And sitting on the right side of a car while doing it. Really it wasn't too bad. The driving itself is pretty straight forward, and there's pretty good motivation to stay in the right (left) lane (eg, oncoming traffic). The part that probably confused me the most was the turn signal. It's on the right side instead of the left, and the windshield wiper control is also switched. Something in my brain just wants to reach out with my left finger when I'm turning left to hit the signal. Bah. But I only messed that up twice, so I think that's pretty good :)

This time we just went to a grocery store in a mall to get some food for the week, but I'll also be driving to our mini-safari and then into Philipi to pick up our facilitators. It's a little unsettling after signing a waiver today that mentioned getting mugged and robbed at gunpoint, but you know, that's what faith is for. Faith that my God is bigger than all the sin that goes on in this world, and that he "works all things according to the counsel of his will". How cool is that.

we made it!

After some shuttling to and from LAX, three flights, and a 45-minute vanagon ride, we finally made it to Bridges of Hope in South Africa! And because we're all jet-lagged to pieces, we're up writing updates to our blog.

And what better updates to add than pictures!? So here we go.



(lots of luggage)




(excited about flying?)


(arrived in Amsterdam)

(our ride in South Africa from the airport)



(woohoo! made it to the Academy)

leaving soon!

Hey everyone!

Wow. We'll be in the air in less than 5 days. Things are really busy during our last week of preparations -- here's some of what's been going on.

Last Friday we opened up the church for a showing of the movie Red Dust. Wow. It's particularly violent (not so great for kids), but also just gripping and powerful. If you want to get a sense of what apartheid did to SA, this is quite a movie.

And during the movie we had some of the kids (with Carolyn's help -- thanks!) stuff over 150 turtles that we're bringing over. Each turtle gets a note to go with it, and the entire congregation helped out on Sunday writing notes to the kids. I think we have most of those covered now. It's been amazing to see how many people have been willing to help out with all the details on this trip -- a huge blessing when your team is only three people and has six weeks to prepare.

Oh, and there's all sorts of other trip prep also. Let's see... where to start... This weekend we printed a cool informational and prayer update for those of you that want to know some more details about our trip. There are some in the mail, but if you're itching for a copy, I put it online too.

All three of us are signed up in one way or another to give a short talk to the kids during one of the nights of the camp(s). And yes, that includes me :). Surprisingly, between taking typhoid pills and trying to learn Xhosa, I've been able to spend at least a few good hours getting things together. But I'm sure I'll be stewing over it at least through the first plane ride.


Ah, and here's a helpful hint (since I got stuck on this a couple weeks ago). The Bridges of hope website doesn't work very well with Mozilla-based browsers and newer versions of Flash player. So if you do a reasonable job of updating your computer and you use Firefox, you're out of luck. Have to use IE for this one. Now you know!


And no, this picture has nothing to do with South Africa. But when we get over there I'll hopefully be posting pictures from Bridges. So I'm just testing it out.


(bonus points if you can tell where this was taken!)

Online giving

Hi friends,

We've noticed a small error with our online giving function through the church website.  For some reason funds that were designated to our Africa account have been showing up in the "general" category and thus have not been correctly credited.  If you gave online and received a notification that said "general donation" please contact Denise (dbogard@comunity-covenant.org) so that the error can be corrected.  Sorry for the mix-up. 

Getting closer...

We are now 12 days out from our departure from LAX. Things are coming together quickly, but you can pray for all three of us as we tie up ends at our jobs and work out final details for the trip. It seems hardly possible that the trip is happening so soon!

One huge blessing is that we are no longer concerned about raising funds.  We've had such an overwhelming response of support that all three of us already have all of our travel expenses covered. At this point, any funds that come in are being used to cover the cost of the camp itself (i.e. pay for food and supplies for the kids).  To be able to even consider giving funds toward the camp is amazing given how quickly this all came together.  Thank you to all of you who made that possible!