Icicles, Icicles

This pitiful flower stopped me in my tracks on my morning run. I can totally feel its pain, even though I don’t have icicles hanging from me. The new year has brought an unexpected temperature drop that not even the bright sunshine can make up for.

An Uncertain Sort of Stability

Signing that lease was the scariest thing I’ve done all year. Granted, the year is only four days old, but the terror will no doubt linger throughout the rest of 2010, springing up at the most unexpected of moments to make my heart skip a beat.

But after I shove the terror out of sight, it is replaced by something that, in all of its trepidation and expectation, resembles excitement.

This gypsy won’t be living out of a suitcase this year. Who would have thought?

Jade

I brought the ocean into my room today. It’s called Jade, is smeared all over my hands and feet, and smells of paint; but in my mind it’s the crashing waves of an ocean that will allow my restless heart to feel a bit more at home.

Home. I feel like an alien stuck in the midst of a mess of boxes and dust and chaos. I’ve come to the realization that I dislike moving, unless it involves simply packing one’s belongings into a suitcase and skipping continents.

Too cluttered.

..A Change of Scenery..

Today, the three of us chicas pack our lives and dreams into a frightfully large truck and move across town to a little street called Lakeside.

No more running to catch the sunset from Pitt Street Bridge.

No more boasting of being "just around the corner" from Sully's.

But we will still be close to the beach.

There will still be a palm tree outside the kitchen window.

So, it will be alright.

Project 365

I only have one formal goal for the year.

[Besides learning to surf and being able to make my rent payments every month.]

A Picture a Day…all 365 days of 2010.

I’m off to a rough start, thanks to an injury suffered by my camera on our flight to Indiana for the holiday that has resulted in him being out of my life for the next month. However, that complication simply makes way for greater creativity and ingenuity.

It will be called Project365 and you are welcome to come along for the journey, or to sit out until 2011 when the picture frenzy has passed. Either way, we will be here, my camera and I, capturing snippets of life as we walk out the year.

They may occasionally be great. More often, they will probable be completely random and sometimes even quite horrid. But rather than a project of artistic precision, it is to be a project of documentation and seeing.

My days in Africa have been flying by, and an update is long overdue. The internet connection that I regularly use is too slow to allow for blog updates, so today I set out determined to find an internet cafe with a better connection. 

Random excerpts from my life the past month and a half:

• I spent my first week(s) back in Cape Town in bed, thanks to a bacteria I picked up from some sketchy drinking water in the TransKei. 
• I have snagged three illegal first-class train rides, all of them accidents
• I have grown accustomed to sleeping in four layers of clothing, hat, and mittens
• I've forgotten what it feels like to be consistently warm
• I eliminated peanut butter as the core of my diet (and my existence)
• I've visited the place where the Indian and Atlantic oceans join
• I've discovered the best banana pancakes in the world
• I've determined that my hair, at its current stage of growth, resembles a shaggy dog
• I've learned that being a missionary doesn't miraculously transform you into some sort of "Christian Superhero"

Since returning from the overland trip on July 27, I have been staying at a hostel near the YWAM base in Muizenberg. Getting "plugged in" has seemed like a rather long process--there are so many needs and opportunities to get involved with various ministries in the larger Cape Town area that it has been overwhelming at times.  My daily activities have varied widely and taken me to all different parts of the city, whether it's to do street ministry, interview fishermen about pay inequalities, speak to a youth group about sexual purity, sort bags of donated clothes to be distributed to the community, or tutor students at an orphanage. 

The other day I was thinking about my last-minute decision to do the DTS and my preparation to leave for Hawaii. It is crazy to find myself at the other end now, with only ten days of ministry left and the six months almost gone. The past months have seen times of learning and growing, ministering and having fun, challenges and triumphs. The most valuable thing that I will take away is a new depth in my relationship with my Creator, and I hope that out of that, I will have left something behind in Africa, as well. 

At the beginning of the month, our team split into smaller groups, based on the areas of ministry in which we wanted to be involved. My group has been focusing on raising awareness about human trafficking, which is a huge issue in South Africa and is becoming an even bigger one because of the 2010 World Cup. We have spent numerous hours researching, talking to organizations that deal with trafficking, hanging awareness posters around the city, and talking to people to raise awareness. As we have delved deeper into this issue, it has been heartbreaking to see the dark reality of trafficking in this country...

• Most human trafficking is done for the purpose of sexual exploitation
• 27 million people have been victims of human trafficking
• Most trafficking victims are girls between 5 to 15 years of age
• 1.2 million children are trafficked annually: 1/2 of those children are African
• Trafficking is a $33.9 billion industry
• The U.S. State Department estimates that 100,000 people will be trafficked into South Africa for the 2010 World Cup
• Between 28,000 to 30,000 children are currently being prostituted in South Africa: 1/2 of these children are younger than 14
• Children as young as four are prostituted

I cannot look at these numbers as just statistics; each number has a face, a name, a life.  Not a single one goes unnoticed by the Creator. "Slavery" is often talked of as a thing of the past, but there is more slavery in the world today than at any other point in history. I wonder, in our modern world that boasts of freedom and equality, how has this been allowed to happen?