Estelle's First Northbound GCX Blog

Dear family, friends and all interested!

I safely arrived in Jeffrey's Bay on 12 January 2010! I am in the northbound team and I'm very happy to say that I have an awesome team and wonderful team leaders. I can now also say that they are definitely almost even closer than family at the moment (more about that later…). All the Global Challenge leadership are amazing people and I am wonderfully surprised by their friendliness, helpfulness, how they make us feel so welcome and how pleasant and caring they are.

We are receiving training and preparation for our journey untill end of Feb.

To my delight we are staying in little bungalow’s and sleeping on bunker beds. We receive 3 meals per day and only have to help out in the kitchen about 2/week. The food is good as well! We stay at the UCSA terrain in Jeffrey’s which is only 1 and a half block away from the beach!

We had Island games (team building) which was a lot of fun. We had to piggy back each other on the beach, strategic war games with balloons and defending your base, pool noodle fight where you are a countess on your horse and have to break the egg that is on your opponent’s head and defend your own. I was stiff for 4 days and almost every movement was quite painful! I have to boast that I also went jogging for 3 mornings, which also contributed to the stiffness.

On first weekend we had “story telling”, in which you have to share all the major events of your entire life with your fellow team members. I had quite a lot to share and I’m really glad that I didn’t hold anything back. I discovered that I actually have a lot of “baggage” even though my back pack only weighs 15.3Kg… ;) Please pray for the process of emotional healing that I'm going through at the moment. I also want to praise God for the amazing revelations that He has given me since then.

We are doing the Veritas Bible College Course (Module 1) which is really interesting, insightful and challenging at times. We are also having talks on emotional healing which really guides us to get rid of a lot of the “dirty laundry” that came up during the “story telling” and I’m very grateful for the guidance! We are involved with the Global Leadership Academy, which is part of Global Challenge and also the first High School in Jeffrey's bay. We attended the opening of the school, get to spend time with the pupils and also help out with cleaning. We all have a specific class that will be following our news and whereabouts throughout our journey this year. Some afternoons we help out at Ithemba which is a community project for little children where we interact, play and help with homework. On Wednesday mornings we help with the NG Church's community project where we pack and distribute food and clothing and interact and pray with individuals in the community that are in need.

The previous weekend we had our first excursion outside of UCSA. Terrifying pirates overwhelmed us whilst we were all still sound asleep, Annemarie Franken, our Princess, was captured and some team members were also taken hostage. We had to flee our save lodgings and carry all our belongings with us (between 19-27Kg for some unfortunate ones). We had to search for Golden coins on the beach, build miraculous tunnels in the sand through which 4 people had to climb through. We also had to fill up a 10 litre container with sea water by only using our mouths and hands to transport the sea water. We carried our belonging for about 2 km along the beach, but eventually we managed to free our princess and fellow team mates. We found save lodging in the caravan park, where we had the opportuniry to try out our tents and matrasses, which was a lot of fun. However I must admit that the quality of sleep does not quite compare to the bunk beds from UCSA... ;)
We received our team jackets today! I am so proud and happy, we all look stunning in them!

I would like to conclude by giving praise and thanks to our Lord and Father for all the provision that He has blessed upon me. This year I know that I am exactly where I should be, even though it is quite challenging and overwhelming at times, but the Lord is my strength, courage and inspiration throughout.
Lots of love and blessings to all!
Estelle