change a life... NOW!

I have taken on the challenge of raising $1,600 for Christian Surfer's Africa by March 20th.

CSA is an organization that has been functioning for over 18 years, they are an organization that seeks God and seeks the lost. This organization may look different from others that you tend to donate to, we don't focus on the widows, or the sick, or the poor, or the orphans; we focus on those individuals but within the surfing community. CSA seeks the surfers and the skaters and they love on the surfers and the skaters and they shine God's love to them.

We may look different than most Christian NGOs but maybe thats because we are not a set, systematic organization; we are more of a organism. We grow everyday, everyday were changing and were molded in accordance to God's will and in accordance to the needs of the surfing/skating communities.

Do you want to empower a ministry to advance God's kingdom in South Africa? Do you want to get involved in changing the life of the youth and communities that live along South Africa's coast line? Well, you can!! Maybe you can't buy a plane ticket and come over here and help out first hand and see the miracles that are happening daily, but just by clicking on this donate button you can donate a dollar or a thousand dollars, anything is appreciated!!

So... DONATE NOW!!! EMPOWER SERVANTS AND CHANGE LIVES!!

i miss you

I've been in South Africa for 37 days now. So here's where my heart lays...

I love this small holiday town that has a feel all of its own. There are locals here that everyone knows, there are locals here who were born here, locals here that will thrash you if you get in the way in their waves, there are locals here that moved here long ago from far away and never found the exit.

Every place in this world of ours is made up of it's unique culture. Their lifestyle, customs, traditions, heritage habits, discernment, discrimination, education, art, philosop

hy, humanities. Jeffreys Bay's culture, their environment is made up of an assortment of multifariousness and diversification (in other words, a variety of things). But beyond the wooing waves and the melodic mountains, beyond the scrumptious shore lines and the enticing edibles; J-bay's environment has captured my heart because of the people.

There are cities out there that play my heart song much louder and harmoniously. There is nature out there that my soul yearns for in ways this sea will never be capable of. But the people have captured me. I adore them. I already cherish them. I have met a handful of characters here, people from all over South Africa - and then some from other parts of our world. Characters of contentment, of sophistication, of dedication, of hospitality. People who know how to be themselves, all of them, the good and the bad - people who know how to love God with every beat of their heart, who know how to love people with every fiber of their being.

So my heart has met me in a place of peace here in this town. Can I call it home? no. Maybe someday. But today I still feel like the outsider looking inside the fish bowl, sometimes knocking on the glass, sometimes even putting my hand in the water. No matter how long I will be here for, I am thankful.

Just as much as I love this location and their culture. I must be honest, my heart does indeed lay here but not fully, I lay here to rest my head every night, but my head does not entirely rest pacified; because in America there exists hearts that I love, there are individuals there and communities there that I have thought of every single day since I arrived here. I'm realizing how much Joplin influenced me, how much my parents originally molded me.

I moved away from home when I was 18, never being back there for longer than 2 weeks at a time. I've traveled to 4 continents, to over 9 countries; meeting people from every place, from every background. But I'm here learning more and more on how different people are, how different people think, how different people are raised, how different people develop (and even in the midst of our differences how alike we are). My heart has longed for the people I left behind, even though they have moved on or will. I cannot fully clarify how deep this minor hole in my heart runs, how much I long for those familiar faces and similar humor and comfortable companions; those deep conversations, those reliable processors, those people who understand you a little better than you understand yourself, merely because they put the hours in.

I'm curious. I'm curious what will come of this year, what next year will look like, what will come of me. I'm curious what relationships will form, which ones will last and survive, which ones will die. A very important person to me once said, "You live and die on community." Never in my life has it been more true than it is now. [I suggest you read Acts2:42-47 for an amazingly skilled community]

I plan on writing about intellectual controversial issues, about systematic structures in the NGO world, about the doctrine of man and sin. I would love to write on music and fashion and photography. I intend to write on lessons learned and challenges accepted and unexpected ordeals tackled, some conquered - some lost.

But

today (like every other blogging day) I decided to write about the things that make my heart beat in the night when all the lights go out. relationships, people, circumstance

s, situations. I'm thankful God never leaves us and that he travels this journey by our side so we'll never be lonely. But as my heart finds itself in a peaceful calamity between longing and contentment I have to practice patience of one more mature than I, in order to wait upon the sight of the webs that are being woven in the seasons of my life.

Dawn Run

The sun’s rays had barely hit the sky when we walked out that wooden paneled door. Tristan and I made our way down the broken pavement that wound through the homes and bush of this South African village. Eventually we met Bradley and Heinrich; all of us decided we were going to start off our morning with a run. But we weren’t keen on running through town, running through the paved roads. So hidden inside of Jeffreys Bay is a Nature Reserve, so we decided we would run through there instead. So we all stepped confidently into the secluded trail tucked away in the calamity of vegetation and greenery.

The run started out fun, like any other trail run. With our feet light and our breathing in rhythm we all stayed close as we ran through the dirt, and puddles and stones. Bradley, displaying his sleeve of tattoos led the way displaying his wisdom and faith along with his confidence in leading anyone into any forest. Right behind him trailed Tristan, all 6’6” of him, with leadership and mercy filling up his entirety he is always close behind any person who made need him. In front of me was Heinrich, the one who is so willing to take any spot in the group, the leader or follower and fill that position to its fullest, the one who doesn’t have to speak as much as the rest of us because his actions claim your respect. And then I, the lone girl, brought up the rear of our little train.

So we hiked and we hitched, we hopped over, leaped over and pranced over numerous things. We soared and hurdled; we jolted and jumped, as we made our venture through this woodland hidden in a hole in J-bay. All was well; all was fun and games until…

We started to slow down, just a bit because the branches were getting overwhelming and overbearing. As I heard a slight commotion to the east my head whipped around, thinking it must have just been an animal I continued on my way following the boys’ lead. All of a sudden our entire atmosphere changed, each one of us felt it almost instantaneously. One moment the flavor of the mood was full of a giddy frolic and then in the next you could cut through the tension weighing the humid African air, as our hearts began to pound a little faster we couldn’t hide it. Our breathing was giving us away and we could see it in each other’s eyes; a worry, a confusion, an anxiety. We all knew someone else was in the forest with us.

All of a sudden I remembered sitting at dinner the previous night with Roy (a mutual friend of ours) as he asked the question, “Don’t people live in there?” When we told him where we were going for our morning run. As that same moment of remembrance, I thought now there was no way we weren’t noticed by our fellow forest wanderers. My heart was pounding so loud within my chest I thought my rib cage was going to break, if not my legs from the shock realization that we may not make it out of the forest the same way we made it in.

We all circled around with a concerned look in our eyes each of us told the other not to make a sound and to try to stay calm. Brad headed east, in the direction that that first initial sound came from. All four of us crouched down behind the green walls of the reserve. We crouched down, my feet burning on the hard African soil poached with natural riches and my skin burned with the spiders crawling towards my scarlet sunburn, and my face was planted right in the hard thorns of that green wall. This natural reserve’s vegetation isn’t like that of America’s. It’s almost as if each branch of each tree held a grudge, holds a resentment. It feels like the entire forest is holding in an anger that it gathered in the depths of its soul during a mourning centuries before we even stepped onto its heart broken soil.

As all eight of our eyes peered through the thorns and shrubbery we saw something none of us will ever want to remember, or forget for that matter. You hear stories, but never know if they’re true, or how much of the legends are true. I don’t know all of the South African stories that have been passed from generation to generation but this legend I am confident will grow past our band of characters.

We watched an old man, one of fragile, one of decay as he stood stirring, making some type of brew. Instantly we all knew he was a medicine man, at the same time we all smelled the aroma of decaying human. I had to catch myself quickly, I thought I was going to vomit; the stench was so strong. As we all covered our noses and mouths we heard the footsteps coming. More people; loyals, rebels, hunters, we didn’t know and I don’t think any of us wanted to stick around to find out. Bradley reached through the bush grabbing a machete that lay on the ground. At first my objection suggested we not steal the deranged witch doctor’s weapons, or killing equipment. But knowing it was our lives at risk and knowing Brad’s skills with the machete that he learned only from his time in prison I knew I couldn’t object.

Slowly we all turned away from what we were watching. The making of a stew, a sacred ritual, a murder; we have no idea. But with caution and heed we all slid our way back to our main trail. And then we dashed for it.

All four of us began to run faster than we had the first half of our run, we all became a little quicker, a little quieter. My feet were pounding rhythmically up and down the trail; left, right, left, right. Watching every step, knowing there wasn’t room for mistakes. Left on the ground, right on top of the flat stone; push off, pounce across the creek, left on the rock, right back on the soil of the trail. Every step of your foot on target, with your hands synchronized as they push back the branches falling on our heads. Through the tops of the trees, I could see the sunlight breaking through. As soon as my heart began to calm, I heard them again… the footsteps.

Fifteen more steps and we reached the top of the hole, the outer banks of the nature reserve. Eleven more steps and I reached the chained fence that blocked us from our escape. We all climbed the fence, knowing our lives were depending on our athletic ability at that point. Finally, all four of us, a little more haphazard physically and emotionally reached the road. As Heinrich made the last jump over the fence he turned and saw deep black eyes, lost in a world of darkness and death, pull back into the brush.

So we stood there, all four of us, catching our breathe on that desolate road that made the barrier between J-Bay’s civilization and lost encampment; just as the sun’s rays finally stretched across the sky.

We traveled that day through South African’s nature reserve. No we didn’t see a medicine man, or a murder, or any spiritual ritual of the sort. Our run through the reserve was quite pleasant and playful. But I’m sure it could have happened … :)

I suppose it’s time for another blog. Time for another write up on my life here in Jeffreys Bay. Although my life is 540 degrees different from how it was a month ago – I feel as if the words that normally flow quickly and easily off these fingertips of mine are, today, coming up short. Coming up short with words that are suppose to explain the beauty this land captures, ceasing sentences that are suppose to sum up my soul, pausing paragraphs that apparently update you with the props that fill my days.

So here are my words, so few but just for you, because I think your reading this. I was thinking as I walked the other day, thinking about my life. How my life is the opposite of most people living life today. I have money to spend and no plans to accomplish, I have nothing holding me back, and every desire to see and change this world of ours. But the farther my doors open, the larger my wings grow, the more vast that distant horizon grows; I become more grounded, more at peace, more content, more settled.

Maybe it’s because we, as humans, don’t know what to do with our freedom once we have it. It’s like criminals who have been in jail most of their lives, they are released and have no clue how to live outside of those iron, barbed-wired gates. It’s like a soldier who has only known war and his band of brothers, and the mass confusion and loss he feels when put back into our society. Maybe it’s because we, as humans, don’t know what to do with our freedom once we have it.

Maybe it’s because I’ve grown and I’ve seen. Maybe it’s because I have finally reached the point in my life I have always wanted. Living in a foreign country, having Jack Johnson be the soundtrack to my life as we wake up to the sea and walk it’s sandy paths daily, living in the surfing culture, attempting to change the world. Maybe because I have faced my fears and conquered them all.

Hardly. I haven’t even glanced at my long list of fears, and I haven’t come close to kicking them. My list of dreams, is still like my list of fears, growing daily and ultimately endless. The more I’ve grown, the less I know; the more I see, the more I realize how little I’ve actually seen.

The other day I was walking along Jbay’s lagoons, along the eastern side of this surf town. With rolling dunes you would think you were in a desert, but then just beyond those sand dunes, the sea rolled. You would look to your right and you had the unmethodical desert, but to your left was the shallow left over water due to JBay’s drought. The shallow lake closed in with deep green figs and brush that created an adventurous Huckleberry Fin type island. And out of the lagoon came about 40 flamingos, flying synchronized and steady. As if they heard the classical piano playing in the background and knew they needed to dance in tune with the sunset’s rays.

As my bare feet sunk into the sand’s depths and my hair wrapped around in the on-shore wind, I claimed I had found my new favorite place in Jeffreys Bay. No thoughts came to my mind, no worries to my heart, no longings of my soul. Nothing. …Hardly.

Because in that moment, in this freedom, in this surf town hidden away in a bay; my heart has been meeting God, hearing how this is where I am meant to be, seeing how this is where He is. My heart, my mind, my soul; is mummified in longings and desires today. My heart, my mind, my soul; is incased with the abundance God is trying to teach me.

My few words are actually not so few. Unorganized, cluttered, and confused; yes, but few? Not really. I mean I’m an American mid-west girl chasing God in an attempt to change the world from the African surfing culture. A wealthy writing, yogi, studying philanthropy and how to be poor in the spirit, with the hopes to be rich in Christ; functioning off of fruit, fun and mix-matched fashion. At a loss for words? You wish. :)