All Aboard... Unicorns, Penguins and Dolphins!

Successful days are my favorite… and today was one of those! A flyer for Princess Shine was posted to local church newsletters, five more dresses came in, I finished hand-writing all the girls invitations, a camera was purchased, and we bought paint for girls club next week. We are planning (hopefully the weather is nice!) to put colorful handprints all over the entrance of CATCH. There are 120 girls in girls club, and I think they will enjoy painting their palms and plastering the walls. There are about 5 million ways this could get real messy, but, life’s messy anyways! Why not have fun in the process?

I spent this morning with a very special crew– the children at Women’s Empowerment Group. These 1-4 year olds have become very special to me. Every Thursday they come running down that brick path and jump right into my arms. We laugh, I attempt to speak Xhosa, they look confused and I feel even more confused, we play soccer, play with my phone, have pillow fights and many piggy back rides. I act completely insane with these kids, using plastic tubes as mock antennae’s and loading a plastic container aka Noah’s Ark with unicorns, penguins and dolphins. Not your typical Noah’s Ark, but we make it work.

On Friday, I spoke to the girls about the upcoming event and handed out invitations! I spoke about the theme of Princess Shine which is Psalm 139:14, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made”. We also talked about how the enemy tries to take away our identity in Him and how to stomp all over those ugly lies! Psychology Masters’ students from Fort Hare University also came to observe because they will be taking over once I leave!

I told my housemates, “I could stare at that wall for 7 hours straight and be completely entertained because so much is running through my mind right now”. After youth, I had an encouraging conversation with Frank, an older grounds man. He wanted to learn some more English, so I gave him my Bible and helped him read his favorite verses. This lead to a whole conversation about the man he used to be and how God has transformed his mind and changed his life. In Xhosa culture, the men are very superior to women. Frank told me that after he gave his life to Christ, he saw things differently. He said, “I no longer sit and say ‘I’m the husband, you do everything for me’, no, I help my wife and we work together now”. I was jumping around excited for this mans testimony. He is so full of joy! Every day I see Frank, I ask, "How are you??" and he smiles a large toothless smile and with a thick African accent, holds up his pointer finger and says, "Number one, not number two, number one!!!" I interpret this as having champion outlook on life. He sure does!

Mom comes in 11 days and I will be on American soil in 23 days.

xoxo