Participant Blogs

We just came back from an Indian tribe in the forest, just outside Ubatuba.  What an experience!   As Gehta said:  “They all look like Pocahontas!” We played soccer with the boys in the rain, told the creation story to the kids – for the first time – and helped bake bread.  But a story shouldn’t start at the end, so let me jump back a few days.

 

A Life Like No Other!!!  This phrase truly explains what I am feeling.  My life is like no other!! I have been sooooo BLESSED to experience God's world.  I came to South Africa expecting to be sitting in an office preparing for the upcoming 80 Days Trip.  To my surprise, three days after I arrived I was asked to join a group of adults on a journey through AFRICA.

We visited the West Saharan dessert where a Berber friend, Mohammed, went with us for a picnic and made us some traditional mint tea. We enjoyed it so much and it was one of those times where you wish​ : " if time could only stand still " . <!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --> After that we went to Marrakech and stayed with workers from whom we learned a lot, considering GIVING UP ALL FOR THE KINGDOM 'S SAKE. T he famous market there is filled with practices such as witchcraft and drug...

Two families living in our valley were very interesting and probably eccentric. But as it is with true eccentrics, they would be the last to realize that. The children of these families attended the same farm school where we were, four lovely girls of the one brother and four cousins, the sons of the other brother. At some stage our parents took us out of the farm school and sent us to the city, probably concerned about the level of our education. This was where I first noticed that when I told people about the ordinary life where we grew up, they gave one another a knowing look. As if I was exaggerating.

    We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place. We stay there even though we go away, and there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. Kenya is such a place. It is truly like Narnia.  There is something beautiful  about Kenya that is thousands of years old. Too old to be truly captured by poems and songs. Loved by everyone, loved so very deeply. Kenya is everything real in a world of make believe.    But even though I left some part of me behind, I also found...

I went walking this morning. To my right was an open sewerage channel, a haven for malaria and other diseases. Following the channel it led me to an open field. Supposedly the soccer field. Plastic bags lay scattered all over the place, and along the rim burning heaps of garbage. The smell of burnt plastic in the air. The smoke dwindling from the garbage lazily drifted up past the palm tree till it faded in with the morning mist. A cow stood idly on one heap, munching happily away at the junk- plastic bags, old mango peels anything it could...

As I am planing the next 80 Days for November I reflect on God's faithfulness in my life.   Last year me and Francois were blessed to host the first 80 days around the World journey.  this morning my heart rejoiced over the places we've, seen, new friends that we have made and the wonderful team that we've shared our lives with.    The essence of this journey is to discover God and His world,  and to get myself out of my own little world.   "What have is the main thing that you've learned on this first 80 Days trip? " I...

Anafora   Just a quick thanks to the guys i saw in pretoria before we left for Egypt it was awesome to hear how you all where doing and seeing some of you.   Anafora is a beautiful retreat and we spent a couple of days there receiving teaching on the old testament (read genesis again guys its awesome) and blessings from a bishop. Also we had our first taste of Egyptian food and must say not bad thanks mom for feeding me lentils!! And who knew the desert could be absolutely freezing, i had all my clothes on with...

AFRICAN EXTREMES 10 Jun 2009 In a week's time I've experienced so many different African Extremes... From Niger's desert-villages to the city of Abuja in Nigeria, nearly nothing is the same. Here are some African Extremes: Last week we couldn't find one ATM in the former capital of Niger, this week we can pick and choose between 6 ATM's that's standing next to each other in the foyer of a hotel. Last week I woke up in my tent in the middle of the desert, with the sound of Fulani-women discussing the white people whose visiting their well. This morning...