It's Been A While...

It has been a while since I last posted.
We all attended the Sectional Meeting at the end of March, which is a conference for all of the missionaries and their families in our section of Africa. There we about 350 missionaries there. We had a great time meeting all the career missionaries and the Journeymen and learning what their lives look like and what God is doing through them.
April went by very quickly. The youth were on holiday for the first two weeks, so I got to spend a little more time with them than normal just hanging out and playing games, getting to know them.
One of my teammate’s birthday was in April, so to celebrate we went to the lion park which is like a mix between a zoo and a game park. You drive through different enclosures and the lions are just feet away from you! We also were allowed to play with some lion cubs for a few minutes. After the tour, we were all starving, so we went to eat at the Carnivore where they just bring out slabs of all kinds of meat to cut off onto your plate. We ate chicken, pork, beef, kudu, eland, ostrich, and crocodile. The ostrich was the best.
Later in the month, I was able to go down near Cape Town for a few days in the mountain wine country, and it was absolutely beautiful! We went to Cape Point to see where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean. We went horseback riding through a vineyard, and we toured a table grape and an olive farm and packaging centers. It was a nice vacation from the big city.
This month I also went to an orphanage for the first time. The mother one of our youth owns and runs it. It is an AIDS orphanage so all but one of the babies and only a few of the older kids are HIV positive. It was heartbreaking to hear their stories about how many of them had been abandoned under bridges and near dumpsters, and even one of the babies had been raped so many times that she had required surgery just to be able to walk. It makes you very angry. The orphanage is hopefully going to move closer to where we live in the very near future, so we will be able to spend more time there if they do.

Prayer Requests:
The orphanage and the eventual move.
One of the college youth who is under a lot of stress right now.
The youth who are being entangled in the world and tempted by drugs and alcohol.
Alan, he is currently homeless and does not speak much English or any other one of the 11 official languages here, but he is extremely faithful in attending church. He is a believer and was baptized a few weeks ago.

Side Notes:
A hose pipe is a water hose.
If someone says, “It is brisk,” while standing in a store or the mall, it means that it is really busy.
If someone says, “It is fresh,” they mean that the weather is cool and crisp.