South Africa!!!!!!!

Hello to all our friends and family back home!

After five weeks away from eachother, our Outtatown family has finally been re-united! The flying and travelling time was definetely a great time to test our patience with eachother as were were thrown right into hours of travelling, limited sleep, and jetlag. Nonetheless, we made it to South Africa without anyone getting strangled where we met up with Matt(who had a slightly shorter plane ride...) and Steve Plett. We went straight from the airport to Heronbridge College and Retreat Center which we will be leaving tomorrow to go to Pretoria. In Pretoria, we will go to church and meet the families that we will be staying with for our Afrikaner homestay.

Heronbridge has been a great time to re-connect as a group and have a lot of fun together, as well as get some more serious things done such as an African orientation meeting. This was a great place to start off our second semester as we got lots of time to hang out in small groups and individually, reflect on Christmas break, enjoy the beautiful African landscape and architecture(and weather), and catch up on some sleep.

We have also met some of our South African partners; it was great to meet them and have the chance to get to know them. One of the activities that we did with some of them was playing rugby. I am sure that the South African people who were playing with us and those who were watching us across the river got a good laugh out of it, but it was a great time to experience one of South Africa's popular sports.

We have already experienced a lot of blessings from God and I just want to share a few:
~a safe arrival in South Africa
~Steve and Sandy were able to see Holly because of a mistake in their plane tickets
~flying in an A380 (just ask Raf about that one...)
~the leaders receiving seats beside some of the only vacant seats on the plane which gave them a much more comfortable and relaxing flight
~a beautiful place to rest and reconnect

As we venture into second semester please pray for continued rest(for students and especially leaders), continued safety, and a good homestay.

And if you want to share in our first experience with South African wild-life, please watch the video we uploaded :) Some of us found this experience pretty comical!

Oh, and we are hoping that those of you who are living in the lovely winter weather are surviving :)

By Nadine Frei

Bus ride to HeronBridge

Waiting for flight to Johannesburg, South Africa!