Participant Blogs

This is the song that we could not get out of our heads the whole time that we were in the Cayman Islands and we will definitely never forget it! We learned this song from the Caymanian people and seeing how they sing it with so much joy, made it irresistible to us.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qTsP2tV5U&feature=youtu.be 400x300]

I found a picture with these words quoted: and it helped me to realise what 2012 should be about. My whole life, up to now, I almost always got everything I wanted, but not always what I needed. I am at a point in my life where I am beginning to understand a lot of things, but the more I understand, the more I feel like nothing makes any sense. I feel like the more I learn, the less I know. I believe the reason why I feel this way is because I am learning from the wrong sources... Institutions...

What are the first things that comes to mind when you hear Jamaica? Rastas wearing the colours Red, Yellow, Green and Black? Bob Marley? Weed/Marijuana? Or that Walt Disney Movie "Cool Runnings" with the four Jamaicans who trained to enter the winter Olympics with bobsledding? Some people might think about the sprinters that broke some world records in the Olympics, Usain Bolt. These are some of the prejudices that have been set up in most people's minds about this Island. This is also the picture or idea that was stuck in some of our minds when we first came to Jamaica, but we were pleasantly surprised to see that there is so much more to this country and God's goodness and light is shining through the darkness. I can honestly say that our team's initial ideas about Jamaica was completely changed and we will definitely think differently about Jamaica from now on.

 

  Oh God, how You have blessed us by being able to go to Jamaica and meet some of Your wonderful people! How lovely it was to experience You in the beauty of Jamaica. We as a team will always remember the great time that we spent there and we will never forget all that we have learned from the Jamaicans. Here is a short summary of each team member's Jamaican experience: [video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu7i0HipneU&list=UU3A8KS5f6WFU3zG2OSxVV_A&index=1&feature=plcp 400x300]     Linel Coming from the Cayman Islands to Jamaica, felt like we travelled all the way back to the heart of Africa. I never thought...

  I apologize for taking so long to put this blog up. The couple of weeks have been quite challenging and we as a team experienced a lot of ups and downs. This made it difficult to look back on this time and to put everything that happened and everything that we experienced into words. From being in Padang, on the Island of Sumatra with our visitors (Arthur and Ashleigh's mothers and Paul and Clara from Global Challenge leadership), to flying to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and doing a Challenge there with the Work Your Way guys. Then spending little over...

    After all our adventures in all the different parts of Indonesia, we had to leave the country for a while, before returning to come to Bali and Lombok. We couldn’t stay in Indonesia, because our Visas were only for 30 days. We were planning on going to Papua New Guinea, but there is currently a lot of unrest there. Tourists have been shot by snipers on the boarder and it sounds like a civil war is about to break out, so we didn’t have peace from God to still go there. We looked for the cheapest flight tickets...

We all had the same experiences in the Cayman Islands, as a team, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we all experienced it the same. God works in different ways and we are all on different journeys in our walk with God. Here are the thoughts of each team member on how they experienced our time in the Cayman Islands.

 

What an amazing journey it has been so far. We cannot believe that we have less than three months left of travelling. God keeps guiding our steps amd keeps blowing our minds by His perfect plan and will. Here is a short summary of what every team member experienced in the Island of Penang in Malaysia. Arthur Arthur is not with us at the moment. His passport got stolen about a month ago in Yogyakarta – Indonesia and so he had to get a temporary passport. He had to travel to Jakarta to apply for a new passport and to...

 

 

After spending three weeks in Cuba, two weeks in the Cayman Islands and three weeks in Jamaica, we were planning on ending off our time in the Caribbean by spending one last week in the island of Curacao, before we start travelling to the other side of the world for the second leg of our journey through the Pacific. God however surprised us, because He had other better plans for us. God always knows best.

 

 

 

Even though our time in Hong Kong was very short, it was very powerful and impacting. Like we would say in Afrikaans "dit was kort maar kragtig." We had the great privilege to stay with Albie's aunt and uncle, who are South Africans that moved to Hong Kong about 9 years ago. They were such a big blessing to us. They impacted every one of us so much, through their unconditional love and their way of giving and sacrificing so much of themselves and their time to us, without expecting anything in return. They opened up their home to us and made us feel part of their family, even though they never met us before and didn't really know us. We were completely undeserving of their love and blessings. We learned so much from them, just through the way that they live and do things.