Sunday, Feb. 4th: I spent the afternoon at Beauty for Ashes and had lunch with the ladies there. It was my first time in the half-way house and I really enjoyed the day. A young girl who is attending university here and is working on her theses came to interview the ladies regarding their testimonies before prison and while in prison. I sat in on the interviews and was humbled and shocked by some of the suff that I heard. The ladies are precious and I am excited to get involved more here. Grace, who I am going to be mentoring, does not arrive until mid-March, so I will probalby not spend too much time there until she arrives. Grace is not her real name, but I am going to call her that here for confidential purposes.
Monday, Feb 5th: I was very blessed on my birthday. When I woke up, one of my roommates and my house parents both gave me gifts... it was so nice. I spent the day in a high school with Think Twice, teaching the kids about sex, std's and hiv. I mostly observed, as it was my first day. The topics were quite graphic, but I'm sure I'll get used to that.
In the evening, we had some people over - about 20 young adults. I had met them all before, but don't know any of them well, of course. I was so blessed and I had a wonderful evening. Some people swam and many of us just sat on the trampoleen and talked for hours. Some people brought gifts and they sang happy birthday to me in several languages. It was a wonderful evening.
Tuesday, Feb 6th: This was a hard day for me. I just woke up emotional. We had staff prayer at the church at 830am and I cried for much of the time... which was really good. I had Sundshade in the morning and I actually had the afternoon off. I won't typically have Tuesday afternoon's off, but Stephanie said I could have it as I was at Beauty for Ashes all day on Sunday. Starting in mid-March, I will be spending these afternoon's with Grace and, until then, Stephanie is going to find some projects for me. We had prayer at the church in the evening... which they have the first Tuesday of every month.
Wednesday, Feb 7th: My day off! This was a good day. I relaxed some by the pool and in the park, worked on my fyp assignments for several hours, wrote some letters and cards, and read my Bible for awhile. I then had my life group in the evening. I think I am really going to like my life group. There are about 20 of us, which is quite a bit of people, but it's a good group.
Thursday, Feb 8th: Thursday morning I had my life group with the ladies from Beauty for Ashes, which Jo Loizedes leads. It was nice. The afternoon was a meeting at BoA and in the evening I went to the Loizedes' house for dinner. It was a very nice evening - Jo is a wonderful cook. I took some photos and put them on my website. They said that they had Thanksgiving dinner for a couple of years when they got here, but they are not any more. They really miss that holiday. So, we're going to have Thanksgiving dinner at thier house this year. Yeah!
Friday, Feb 9th: I went to the prison in the morning and shadowed some of the counselor's. It was a good morning. It was crazy, sad, humbling.... wow. The ladies were precious. This was my first time ever in a prison... I don't think it is what I expected. The people are so normal. I really am having a hard time putting this in words. I'll be going in the prison every Friday, so I will express more of my experiences to you in the future... and will hopefully find words to explain it. God's just amazing.
Saturday, Feb 10th: I went to Stellenbosch for the day to celebrate one of the girls birthdays here. She wanted something a little low-key, so just about ten of us went. I put the photos on the website. It was a nice, relaxing day. We went to a couple of wine farms, and we did some wine tasting which was incredibly cheap.
Sunday, Feb 11th: It's just the afternoon now. I went to Pollsmoor this morning for church. It was very neat. About 30 of the inmates came to the service there. I got to share a little bit about myself, why I'm here and a small portion of my testimony. I had to talk loudly and slowly, so they could all understand me.
Prayer Requests: Please continue praying that God draws me closer to Him. I have good days and bad days, which I know is normal. The beginning of last week I was having a really hard time. My quiet times have been hard and it's been hard for me to focus. I sent several people an email to pray for me, and this has gotten better through the week, but please continue to pray for me here. Please pray that God helps me to keep my focus on Him all the time, but that I will especially not be distracted in my quiet time and worship time.
Please also pray that God remains my #1 focus in everything. When I got into this, there was a clear no-dating policy. This was removed a couple of months ago, and I just found that out. I know that God's in control, but I kind of liked having that boundary line because I then knew this wasn't even an option.
I love you guys and miss you! Thank you for showering me with e-cards and regular cards on my birthday. You guys are so wonderful!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment