hippityHIoh

we're hur. after a 9 hr flight from dallas to amsterdam then 11 hrs from amsterdam to cape town. oh wait... my twinsie 'bobs' as we call each other, decided to contract a stomach virus and began yacking during our flight to amsterdam. once we landed in amsterdam we had a 2 hr layover that was miz, because of lack of sleep and smell of barf. we began boarding our flight to cape town where hannah proceeded to yack as we boarded our flight. AKA disaster of a lifetime. love you hans. (pray that her tummy starts to feel better!)

we pulled into cape town at 930 pm (3:30 pm ya'lls time)- full 24 hour day of traveling, rar. Alicia picked us up from the airport where we met Ethan, rachel, & justine (housemates) obviously, rachel is a fellow Sister, duh. and the pledge trainer for her chapter (typical, we've already swapped ideas, chi omega. it never escapes me.) we journeyed back to the house, and crashhhed once we got to our rooms. our house is beautiful and only 6ish minutes from our community. we woke up and went to the living hope base where we got a tour and breakdown of expectations. my other roomies are Stuart (from the U.K), Loise (New Zealand), Ronnie and Brock (Alabama). they are all hilarious. Stuart and Loise have accents that are to die 4.

i am in the community of Ocean view with fellow housemate, Josh. he is from D.C, sweet angel. basically we are in the community morning and afternoons playing soccer, loving and sharing the gospel to these little hooligans. i am exhausted and it's only day 1. but that's prob just jetlag.

tale from 2day: so as we are waiting for some of the group to finish up today i am sitting outside on the gravel getting my hair corn-rowed (naturally) and this little girl walks up and hands me a baby baby (2 months old max) as i'm sitting there getting my hair 'did' and hanging with the group of children that has engulfed me i hear someone yelling at me. i look up to see a motherly figure in the distance loudly saying "you can keep him, you can keep him. take him to America." this caused me to feel 2 ways.

1. YES! finally i have my very own african baby.

2. she is probably dead serious.

the things i have seen already are heartbreaking, and there is nothing i can do about a lot of it. but i'm here and there is no use in being sad about it. God is good, and BIG and i've only been here a day and i realize this more than ever. poverty such a real thing and it's hard to face this reality when i know i have so much.

i'm sitting here in our kitchen while everyone plays games and is fb'ing. we just bought tickets for the world cup and we are going to road trip 8 hours to see the game in a few weeks! it will be grand. i'm trying to fight to keep my eyes open to beat the jet lag, but i think i may surrender.

our devotional today was 1 kings 17: to summarize the verse God calls Elijah to the east of Jordan and Elijah obeys, god provides for Elijah every step of the way.

-Follow the Lord's call and He will always provide and will never ask you to do anything alone. Like Elijah we must trust and not focus on the future but on the present. and Follow.

love and miss you all,

Carl

ps. the kids are big into pop here and sang justin bieber to me multiple times. to those of you who understand ;)

pss. the gang is calling me for a round of spoons! love all