April 27, 2008
last post from South Africa...
Hi everyone, i had a great blog and some great pictures to post for my last blog from S.A. BUT, i didn't upload it to my flash drive. So, it's still on my laptop at the house. bummer. Well, i leave on Wednesday and arrive at JFK on Thursday. An 18 hour flight all by myself. I'll be sleeping a lot. :-) Please continue to check my blog as i will be letting you know what i will be doing for the rest of the year. (Plus i'll post pictures of new paintings) Thank you all for your prayers and support!
April 20, 2008
sorry, no pictures... just read...
Monday.
Sometime after 9 am.
I had just gotten back from community worship and prayer. It happens every Monday. All the YWAM staff and students show up. This week was a little different. We didn’t have a speaker; it was a week for outreach prep. Which meant the outreach team would be on their own schedule. So, right after prayer and worship, most people went either back to their homes or to the office. I went back to the house. I had only been there a few minutes and I turned around to head back out the front door when I saw something that I didn’t know how to handle. A long, gray SNAKE sliding it’s way into OUR HOUSE! It just kept coming and coming. (It was a little shorter than arm’s length.) I was completely stunned. I just kept saying, ‘There’s a snake coming into our house. It’s in our house. The snake came into our house.’ I didn’t know what to do next. Lynn came closer and so did Heidi but still we just kind of stood there. Thank God that our maid was there. Nomsa had been outside and must have seen the snake heading for our door because she was not that far behind it. Her English isn’t that great but she was telling us to get back. But she was also handing me the broom. Now I had seen one of the guys kill another snake that was on our property and that snake was fast! So, was Nomsa wanting me to kill this snake with a broom? WHAT? But I didn’t even have time to ask her because as soon as I grab the broom she started whacking the snake with the mop! WHACK! She hit it about 7 times before it looked like she finally killed it. Then she picked it up with the mop handle and carried it off, probably to the edge of the property. Crazy! Later that day she showed me that she had killed another snake heading for the front door, it was a lot smaller than the other one. But that’s 2 snakes in 1 day trying to come into our house. We had been told that since the weather is cooling off that they would go into hibernation. Right.
Now as shocking as that whole experience was, the biggest shock didn’t come until Thursday. Another family that live on our same property (and they’re on staff), came to our house and showed me a picture of a snake that they got off the internet. They were asking me if it was the snake that came into the house. I told them that I didn’t get a good look at its face and they should ask Nomsa. Which they did and she said that it was the same kind of snake. A black mumba. The second most deadly snake in the world. In our house. A black mumba bite can kill you in 20 minutes. There is an anti-venom, and thank goodness there’s a clinic on our road (about 10 mins away) that has some. Can you believe it? A black mumba was it our house. I totally believe that God was watching over us. Black mumba’s are usually VERY fast but because it was in the morning and it was still pretty cool outside, it was moving slow enough to kill. Plus we think it was a baby since it was only arm’s length and they can grow to 7 feet. Crazy!
Sometime after 9 am.
I had just gotten back from community worship and prayer. It happens every Monday. All the YWAM staff and students show up. This week was a little different. We didn’t have a speaker; it was a week for outreach prep. Which meant the outreach team would be on their own schedule. So, right after prayer and worship, most people went either back to their homes or to the office. I went back to the house. I had only been there a few minutes and I turned around to head back out the front door when I saw something that I didn’t know how to handle. A long, gray SNAKE sliding it’s way into OUR HOUSE! It just kept coming and coming. (It was a little shorter than arm’s length.) I was completely stunned. I just kept saying, ‘There’s a snake coming into our house. It’s in our house. The snake came into our house.’ I didn’t know what to do next. Lynn came closer and so did Heidi but still we just kind of stood there. Thank God that our maid was there. Nomsa had been outside and must have seen the snake heading for our door because she was not that far behind it. Her English isn’t that great but she was telling us to get back. But she was also handing me the broom. Now I had seen one of the guys kill another snake that was on our property and that snake was fast! So, was Nomsa wanting me to kill this snake with a broom? WHAT? But I didn’t even have time to ask her because as soon as I grab the broom she started whacking the snake with the mop! WHACK! She hit it about 7 times before it looked like she finally killed it. Then she picked it up with the mop handle and carried it off, probably to the edge of the property. Crazy! Later that day she showed me that she had killed another snake heading for the front door, it was a lot smaller than the other one. But that’s 2 snakes in 1 day trying to come into our house. We had been told that since the weather is cooling off that they would go into hibernation. Right.
Now as shocking as that whole experience was, the biggest shock didn’t come until Thursday. Another family that live on our same property (and they’re on staff), came to our house and showed me a picture of a snake that they got off the internet. They were asking me if it was the snake that came into the house. I told them that I didn’t get a good look at its face and they should ask Nomsa. Which they did and she said that it was the same kind of snake. A black mumba. The second most deadly snake in the world. In our house. A black mumba bite can kill you in 20 minutes. There is an anti-venom, and thank goodness there’s a clinic on our road (about 10 mins away) that has some. Can you believe it? A black mumba was it our house. I totally believe that God was watching over us. Black mumba’s are usually VERY fast but because it was in the morning and it was still pretty cool outside, it was moving slow enough to kill. Plus we think it was a baby since it was only arm’s length and they can grow to 7 feet. Crazy!
April 13, 2008
info on HIV and AIDS...
Last Friday we had a man come in from a local HIV/AIDS clinic. We currently live on the same street and have worked with them before. The man came in to share about HIV, AIDS and the work that they, the ACTS Clinic, do here in South Africa.
ACTS stands for: AIDS Care Training & Support
ACTS clinic sees over 20,000 patients a month
H – Human
I – Immunodeficiency
V – Virus
A – Acquired
I – Immune
D – Deficient
S – Syndrome (a group of diseases)
At the end of 2006, 2.1 million people died of HIV. 2.8 million were newly infected.
HIV doesn’t kill; it just lowers your CD4 count so that you are susceptible to worse diseases that your body can not fight.
Under 19yrs– only 5% that are tested are positive. 19yrs to 29yrs – 40% tested are positive.
There are actually 2 types of HIV: HIV1 which is the worst and the most common. HIV2 is a milder virus and is found more in West Africa. Though, you can never just have HIV2 without already having HIV1.
It’s easier for women to catch HIV than men because of how the virus develops. Of people infected 60% are women and 40% are men.
TB is a new epidemic. It’s infecting and killing people who are HIV positive because they have no immune system.
AIDS is the end stage of HIV if the infection hasn’t been treated.
HIV is treatable and you can live a long healthy life if you take the right antivirals and take care of yourself.
ACTS stands for: AIDS Care Training & Support
ACTS clinic sees over 20,000 patients a month
H – Human
I – Immunodeficiency
V – Virus
A – Acquired
I – Immune
D – Deficient
S – Syndrome (a group of diseases)
At the end of 2006, 2.1 million people died of HIV. 2.8 million were newly infected.
HIV doesn’t kill; it just lowers your CD4 count so that you are susceptible to worse diseases that your body can not fight.
Under 19yrs– only 5% that are tested are positive. 19yrs to 29yrs – 40% tested are positive.
There are actually 2 types of HIV: HIV1 which is the worst and the most common. HIV2 is a milder virus and is found more in West Africa. Though, you can never just have HIV2 without already having HIV1.
It’s easier for women to catch HIV than men because of how the virus develops. Of people infected 60% are women and 40% are men.
TB is a new epidemic. It’s infecting and killing people who are HIV positive because they have no immune system.
AIDS is the end stage of HIV if the infection hasn’t been treated.
HIV is treatable and you can live a long healthy life if you take the right antivirals and take care of yourself.
human faces are hard...
here's my (what i would consider) first attempt at faces, and charcoal...
they're not bad until you look at the photos that i was basing them off of and you realize that they look nothing like those kids... oh well... i have to start somewhere...
April 6, 2008
April 4, 2008
last week...
This past week was pretty mellow for me. Which is what I needed. The week before was great just extremely busy. Also, we had a team of 5 ladies from the states, living in our house which already had 8 females. That was 12 females using 1 bathroom (Lynn just shared hers with Rich). Everything worked out alright, sometimes there wasn’t quite enough hot water but you work with what you got. The team that came in was fun and we kept them really busy with local outreach opportunities. The team brought with them a plethora of toys and activities for the kids…
the company that one of the ladies worked for donated a bunch of stamping stuff. the kids really liked it and she left it all with us so we can continue to take it out to the different groups that we work with...
the kids REALLY loved the play-doh that the ladies brought from the states. you can't buy it here...
jenga. who knew you could have so much fun with wooden blocks...
the team brought footballs, soccer balls, and bouncy balls too...
there was a dentist on the team and she was able to give a couple of presentations on tooth care. Plus she had toothbrushes and paste to pass out to the kids...
the company that one of the ladies worked for donated a bunch of stamping stuff. the kids really liked it and she left it all with us so we can continue to take it out to the different groups that we work with...
the kids REALLY loved the play-doh that the ladies brought from the states. you can't buy it here...
jenga. who knew you could have so much fun with wooden blocks...
the team brought footballs, soccer balls, and bouncy balls too...
there was a dentist on the team and she was able to give a couple of presentations on tooth care. Plus she had toothbrushes and paste to pass out to the kids...
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