Missionary Moments
Lately I've been having a lot "missionary moments". Earlier this week, Kelly, Aimee and I were watching a movie one night and all of a sudden we all heard an airplane. Without thinking we paused the movie so we could listen to it, jumped off the couch and ran outside. Once outside we immediately began searching the dark cloudy sky hoping to catch a glimpse of the plane. Each of us speculated why it was near us and wondered out loud why we couldn't see it. Needless to say, we all started laughing once we realized what just occurred.Labels: Humor, Life
Frost in November
What's so wrong about frost in November? Well, techinically it is summer here in South Africa. Last Saturday it was about 90 degrees and then four days later there is frost. I had even packed up all my winter clothes and had to pull out scarfs, gloves, and my winter coat. Luckily, the cold weather only lasted a week and the next Sunday it was back to 90 degrees!Labels: Humor, Life
How Old Are You?
I was eating lunch at a local restaurant when I snapped this picture. Can you tell what's funny? There were only two people sitting at this table.
If you can't tell, those are two beers and two chocolate milkshakes. With the drinking age being lower here you get teenagers that want to be tough men, yet don't want to grow-up quite yet. It's a strange site to see.Labels: Humor
Toaster Issues
Having four people making dinner at the same problem poses some problems. Especially when the only two of the four burners work when the oven is on. But I guess our biggest issue is the toaster. Where to plug it in? We found a solution, although it may not be the safest!
Labels: Humor, Life, Memories
Disco Party!
Birthday parties in the middle of no where are more fun than you would imgine. This month Jenn turned a year older and we celebrated by having a disco party. The night included a disco ball, costumes, strobe lights, (wii)bowling, music videos, dancing, pie, and a jello lava lamp. It was amazing. Just see:  All of us staff (back row: Kelly, Jenn, Aimee, ME, Charlene; middle row: Amanda, June, Matt, Jill, Marc, Katie, Abram; floor: Dave)  My roomies! Aimee, Kelly, ME
 Matt, ME, Dave And yes, I did win best outfit! Which means I got to keep the disco ball. (At least till next year's bash) Labels: Birthdays, Fun, Happiness, Humor
Watch Out!
 You are probably wondering why the weird face. Well what you really can't read is the sign in the reeds. Here it is blown up:
 That's right. It says, "DANGER HIPPOS." Although Hippos eat plants, they are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. They are very territorial. I don't know what the little fence is supposed to do behind me, because it definitely won't keep out a charging hippo. But hey, I guess you have to hang the sign somewhere!Labels: Humor, Life, Vacation
We All Scream for Icecream!
Ice cream here is completely different than it is in the States. Really the only good kind is vanilla. I'm the type of person that likes chocolate and then a ton of stuff inside the chocolate. My absolute favorite is cake batter from Cold Stone, but I can only have that in my dreams here. The other day, Jenn and I were driving a team for ministry and we stopped for lunch at our local One Stop, which is just that. One stop for everything: gas, quick groceries, antiques, crafts, a few restaurants and so on. Well we had just finished lunch and had a craving for a snickers ice cream blizzard type thing. Nothing like this really exists here and so we had the idea of buying a snickers from the gas station and asking the fast food place to put it in the ice cream.
So we tried it. We explained that we wanted it mixed in the ice cream, but they put it on the bottom and top of the cups. It actually turned out nicely. Next time though we will definitely be using the word "blend" so that it can actually look more like a DQ blizzard. Not bad for a first try though!Labels: Fun, Humor, Life
God is in the Radio
The greatest possible thing happened to me today. Well, not the greatest, but pretty darn good. Today I went back to the same school that I got stuck in the mud while delivering books. I decided to go a different way, for obvious reasons, and again there was a mud puddle. I wasn't alone this time and Kelly emphatically encouraged me to go through it and so I began.
Just then, like God was cheering me on through the radio, "Chariots of Fire" began blaring through the speakers. I felt empowered and able to drive through any mud puddle that was before me. There was nothing that could stop me from reaching the top of the ever increasing hill. It was glorious! I don't think I could ever have a better driving experience in my life.
Thank you Jesus, for making me laugh, smile, and take on the mud!Labels: Dreams, Friendship, Fun, Humor, Life, Memories, Spiritual
Too Late For A Bath?
One evening I came home from work to hear one of our baths on. It was coming from our spare room so I was a little intrigued. I turned the corner and this is what I found:
Kelly, giving a wildebeest's skull a bath. Sometimes questions are better left unanswered. Labels: Humor, Life
Playing Dress-up
Not having anything to do can be boring, but out here, we see it as an opportunity to find something creative to do. In the past we have cleaned a swimming pool, looked for dinosaurs (don't ask), hiked the same mountain countless times, picked flowers, steal coasters and put them up for ransom, and the list could go on.
One afternoon this past month, Kelly and I were a little board and decided to go see a friend. Unfortunately no one was home, so we decided to try on her clothes and take pictures. I guess you find new and interesting ways to have fun when you live in the middle of no where!Labels: Fun, Humor, Life
Life As A Rock Star
Last year Brian's Circus came to town, but this year we were treated to an even smaller circus, Dream Catcher. A one ring, 10 man circus complete with two and half hours of pure entertainment. We arrived 20 minutes early therefore receiving front row seats, giving me the opportunity to be pulled up front by a clown that spoke through a whistle. As part of the act, I jammed out on an imaginary keyboard along with a guitarist, drummer, trumpet player, and violinist. I will not easily forget my debut!Labels: Fun, Humor, Life, Memories
Half Way Down and No Way Out
Today was one of those days. It started off good, really good. God woke me up and we had a good time together. I should have known then that I would need a little extra to get through the day. The morning was spent delivering books for our AIDS prevention program. Everything was going relatively stress free. I had to drive to 5 different schools in about a 4 hour time period and drop off 2025 books. I had accomplished 3 of the 5 schools by 1:45 and was headed to my 4 with a smile on my face. The next school, Sebabatso, is situated on top of a hill, quite beautiful when you're up there. Well there aren't any paved roads that take you up there and so I was taking dirt roads, that can hardly be categorized as a road. Well a car was parked on one side so I had to go around it and saw some mud. It didn't look deep, but oh was I wrong. As soon as the front tire when in the mud it sunk half way up the tire. I tried everything I knew to get out of mud: reversing, going forward, putting rocks under the tires, and having people push and pull, but nothing happened. I was stuck. To top it off, the area I was in was fairly remote compared to the other village areas and so no one really spoke English. In my broken Sesotho and their broken English I could barely explain what a little white girl was doing driving books to the school down the road. They were very helpful until they realized I had no money and couldn't pay them for their help. (I had to show them my wallet. Luckily I didn't take any cash today.)
I did eventually get out. Francois came to my rescue! During my hour of waiting to be rescued the schools in the area let out and at one time I think I had about 50-75 students (grades 3-9) surrounding the car all trying to talk to me at once. I felt like a famous actress or something, but a little overwhelming.
I'm going to sleep well tonight!Labels: Humor, Life, Memories
Praying For Sunshine
Our technology is fairly dependant on the weather. If it's too windy or raining our phones don't work. If it is cloudy for a few days our internet doesn't work (solar powered). So for this past week we have been without internet. Which isn't bad until you need to send e-mails for ministry. So today after dropping off a mission team in a nearby village a few of us staff car pooled to the local Internet HotSpot. It's nice to be connect. Now all we need is the sun again!Labels: Humor, Life
More Please!
Do you like icecubes in your drinks? I do, most of the time, except in my juice, but that's besides the point. The other day I went out to lunch/dinner and asked for a coke with ice and this is what I received:
It has three icecubes in it. It made me laugh. Three icecubes in the summer's heat isn't going to last long, but at least it was cold for the first few sips!Labels: Fun, Humor, Life
Ouch!
 A couple weeks ago I dropped three cereal bowls on my toe. Although it put me out of comission for a week, my toe won! The doctor had to drill seven holes in it to release the pressure, but I'm back to running and driving again. It still looks purple and I think I'm going to loose my nail, but it does neat tricks when you paint it like changing colors. Luckily it is becoming colder and so I'll won't be wearing open toed shoes for too much longer!Labels: Humor, Life, Memories
Falling Ice
 Have you ever gotten stuck in a hail storm? Well after doing team building with the interns Kelly, James, and I got into a two-seater car to take the 3 min drive down to our house. Unfortunately, right after we began to drive it started hailing. At first it was neat to watch the hail bounce around the ground, but after 15 mins of being squished between the two of them I was ready to get out. The ground was too slippery to drive to the front of the porch so eventually we just ran. The pile in front of our porch was about 4 inched deep in the middle! You never know what kind of weather the day will bring. Labels: Fun, Humor
No Dry Eyes
 Over Christmas I stock up on all the valuable American goodies I can. At the end of my collecting I had an eye doctor's appointment and was explaining to him about what I do in Africa. Like a concerned doctor he asked me what kinds of contact solution I can buy and by the end of our conversation he donated 24 boxes of his trial solutions! I was not expecting him to do that at all, but I thank God for his generosity. As I was packing with Corrie I just could not help but make a tower of the boxes. I made a couple towers that day, but this was by far the one with the most boxes. Labels: Fun, Humor, Vacation
Cassie, Fishing?!?
 I went fishing for the first time in years. Some of the staff decided to go fishing this last Saturday and I went along to sit in the sun. The plan was to catch a lot of fish and put them in another pond so that they could grow bigger, or something like that. Somehow I decided that I would throw the seaweed looking lure into the pond a couple of times and in 15 mins, caught two fish. Apparently having three brothers fishing all your life, teaches you a thing or two about fishing. Once we arrived at the second pond James decided to make us, girls, hold the fish and take a picture. Well, as you can see the first picture looks like I'm enjoying it. What you don't hear or see is me squealing the entire time or the picture that happened before:  Needly to say, I probably won't be doing that again! Labels: Friendship, Fun, Humor
You Know You Live In Africa When...
Look closely at the picture. Do you see what is strange?
 There have been so many funny instances when I realized I lived in Africa over this past year. I wanted to share a few with you: - A company packages both soap and rice in the same warehouse
- You have to plug the toaster into the plug next to the sink
- You boil water just to hold it in a mug to keep warm
- All the stores close at 5. How do you shop if you work? Who knows?
- You buy the whole grocery store out of tortillas when they have them
- You scream and jump up and down at the grocery store when they have tortilla chips
- The power goes out and it does not faze you
- You cannot for the life of you remember which side of the street they drive on in America
- You go to the movie theatre and have not heard of anything playing
- You go to the city and are overwhelmed by all the cereal choices they have
- You determine how windy it is by how much straw is coming out of your roof
- The cow in the middle of the road doesn't mean it escaped
- It is normal when it takes a few minutes to download a picture
Labels: Fun, Humor
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