May 11, 2010 | Travel..ling Tuesdays
Well, we’re still pounding the African pavement — but only figuratively speaking, Mr. Potato Head is doing all the hard work. And so far we’ve travelled from Gordon’s Bay to Jeffrey’s Bay to East London to Durban to the Drakensberg to White River. And since I have a feeling that doesn’t mean a whole lot to a whole lotofya, I will also say that’s 3,000 kilometres. And in case that doesn’t mean a heckuvalot to a lotofya, I’ll translate that to about 1,864 miles, repacking our suitcases and car 5 times in 7 days, and encouraging the Bear to nap in the car a lot.
The good news is we’re taking a break on this bright and shiny Travelling Tuesday to hit Kruger National Park. The Bear will hopefully see a lot of firsts, but I’m especially excited for him to see his first real live zebra, because he can say zebra, (yes, it sounds like zuh-zuh, but it’s zebra, I speak baby!) and I can’t wait to see him point out the car window and say Zuh-zuh!!!!
We are tired from the adventures so far but excited for what’s ahead, and I’ll let that conclude the Notes from the Road so we can get on to more important matters, namely the Travelling Tuesday at hand.
This is a slice of our brief tour of Jeffrey’s Bay. There is some special and important ministry happening there, but for now I’m just sharing a bit of scenery with you. It’s scenery worth sharing!
Allow me to first introduce our dear travelling companion and YWAMer extraordinaire, Abel.
Abel is Brazilian. I must now digress to mention that I never met a Brazilian I didn’t like. What’s not to like? They eat lots of meat, they have zeal for life and when they know the Lord, their passion for the Lord is inspiring. They’ll take any excuse for a party, play “the beautiful game” (soccer) like no other country on Earth, and their awesome presidente was one of time’s 100 most influential people this year. Keep up! They’re also an impressively green nation and known for incredible pizza. Like I said, what’s not to like? But me a ticket to São Paolo when you get a chance, K?
Now it was at about this time that the Bear started to look like he was going to bypass three word sentences and bust out with an Are we there yet?
A few minutes later, it became very clear as to why the Bear was ready to get out. (Yes, he is signing “more,” by the way.) I took him out of his car seat for the last few moments and he pooped. All the way down his trousers, and onto mine. Good reason for anybody to be ready to be there!
Now don’t be jealous, but a lovely family hosted us in Gordon’s Bay, and this was the view from the balcony of their lovely guest suite.
The beach just kept on going…
And I must add that I would most certainly enjoy eating breakfast right here every morning. Sigh.
We decided to give the beach a closer look, just for your benefit dear readers. Abel looked at a lot of the beach for you.
There was also a little munchkin who was quite happy to have sand between his toes.
And, saving the best for last as usual, this was the reaction when the aforementioned little munchkin discovered that today was not going to be a swimming day at the beach.
Another day, dear Bear, hopefully a summer’s day in Jeffrey’s Bay!
Well friends, I can’t wait to grab a moment to go through lots more photos and share more with you from our travels at present! In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying your adventure today!
xCC
What was that? You’re keen to link up to Travelling Tuesday with a post of your own? Well it’s your lucky day, friend! Simply create a Travelling Tuesday post on your blog or site, paste the link to that specific post right here in my Happy Link-up Robot, and take that extra moment to be a dear and link your post back here so others can join in the fun! Whether they’re yesterday’s shots from your backyard, or pics from a fifth-grade field trip, we’d love to see em. Probably. So join up here!
May 4, 2010 | Travel..ling Tuesdays
Happy Tuesday! How’s it going this week? A couple weeks ago we visited an area called Mfuleni, not too far away from Cape Town, where we shared a a few gifts with some kids who live there: a message of hope, a foot washing, a moment of prayer and a new pair of shoes. And though we keep giving, we keep receiving, from an un-outgiveable God.
Would you like to enjoy a photographic review of the day, mayhaps?
We were on top of Table Mountain last Tuesday. Here’s a different view of Cape Town’s most famous peak, from Mfuleni, near where the shoe distribution was hosted:
As always, the joy and exuberance and spunk of the kids tugged at my heartstrings. This little one is sooo sweet.
Getting ready for their big moment…
So much beauty in a water basin waiting to clean some feet.
Hero Hubs has candy!
Today, as I unwrap the joy of giving alongside an un-out-giveable God,
I’m starting to think the gift isn’t just all that we have,
it’s all that we have to give away.
xCC
Keen to join in the Travelling Tuesday fun? Woo-hoo! Just link up a fresh slice of good blogging including some Travelling photos of your own! Whether they’re from a trip last year or a backyard shin-dig last week, we’d love to see them. Make sure you link up to your post (not your blog’s home page) and that you add a link back here so everyone can join in the fun!
This post might be linked up to Chatting at the Sky’s Tuesdays Unwrapped, if I find a way to link up this Tuesday!
Apr 27, 2010 | South Africa, Travel..ling Tuesdays
You already know it if you read the potty story last week. We ventured up Table Mountain last Tuesday, and a mountain as cool as this one deserves its own Travelling Tuesday. For sure!
You take a cable car up to the top (well you can hike it if you want but uh…with a 20 month old Bear…nuh-uh).
It’s pretty cool to watch the mountain approaching as you ride up in the cable car.
The view is really impressive from the top… There’s Lion’s Head, that next hill is Signal Hill, and the island out there is Robben Island! You can even see Cape Town Stadium where some of the World Cup games will be played this summer!
How tiny does the Bear look next to Manny? (The founder of Samaritan’s Feet who was visiting last week!)
Hold hands when you’re crossing a bridge, Bear!
You can see so far in every direction from the top. This is looking south toward Cape Point.
Isn’t it wonderful when you have moments in life like that, where you get a chance to look up and get some good perspective?
Our new friend and work colleague, Courtney, enjoying the view… (Just so you know we weren’t taking pictures of random strangers.)
And look, a mongoose like Rikki Tikki Tavi!
Remember how I told you about the Cape Region being a unique floral kingdomwith lots of species of plants that are found here and nowhere else in the world? Well, that might be some of the unique stuff right there, but I’m no botanist. And we’re heading towards winter, so the foliage was a little sparse.
But, look, here’s a dassie! Like the ones we saw in Hermanus, but better behaved.
We tried to get a family photo at the top, but the Bear just wasn’t cooperating.
This one’s better. Well it makes me giggle anyway. HH got the Bear to smile!
You may have seen this view around these parts before. 🙂 We took a picture at this exact same spot a little over three years ago, when HH and I visited South Africa, just a week or so before he asked me to marry him! I should tell you that story sometime.
So, that’s a slice of life atop Table Mountain! Lovely, hey?
Hope your Tuesday is going great, and you’re enjoying your adventure today!
xCC
Want to join in on the Travelling Tuesday fun? You can share some shots from your back yard last week, or a trip around the world you took ages ago. Just be sure to link to your Travelling Tuesday post (not just your blog’s home page) and please add a link back here so others can join in the fun!
Apr 20, 2010 | Travel..ling Tuesdays
Once again this Travelling Tuesday is filled with a gift I’ve been eager to unwrap. The gift of giving, and finding again and again, that you cannot out-give God. Even in giving, you find that you receive more in return — and my cup is overflowing.
As I shared last week, we visited an area called Overcome Heights on Thursday. We had the awesome privilege of teaming up with a ministry there called Living Hope, and we put shoes on the feet of close to 70 children. Many of those children arrived with bare feet and left with perhaps their first pair of shoes.
I’ll try not to wax on too long about this special moment since Travelling Tuesdays are about photos, but I have to say that it was just such a wonderful gift to give away shoes in Overcome Heights. When you come face to face with the reality of poverty, you find yourself newly aware of how very, very much you have to be thankful for. How very, very little cause you have for complaint. How very, very privileged you are if you have a roof over your head… a few changes of clothes… more than one or two pairs of shoes for your feet.
It is a gift to come face to face with the reality of poverty, to let it become more than just pictures on TV and in magazines, to let it become the faces of children that you pick up, touch, hold, talk to — it becomes more than just an idea. It becomes real. And if you let it, it will change you for the better. You can’t have the same outlook you had yesterday. Contentment, and joy, should be easier to grasp.
I hope that as I take a moment to share these realities with you, that you’ll receive this gift, too. That you’ll unwrap it, think about it, hold it in your heart for a while, and maybe even let it change the way you look at life.
As always, saving my favourites for last, check out this awesome wagon!!! These boys were having a blast.
The little one going for a ride received a new pair of shoes, but I think he took them home and kept wearing his old worn-through ones because he didn’t want to mess up his new shoes.
These boys were looking at each others’ shoes for ages. So sweet.
My prayer is that Overcome Heights will be a prophetic name. That these children, who are being ministered to by the awesome volunteers at Living Hope, will overcome heights, and will grow up to change the world for the better.
This is what it’s all about.
I hope you were encouraged this Travelling Tuesday! May you enjoy your journey today, and out of all that you’ve received, find ways to give!
xCC
Would you like to join in the Travelling Tuesday fun? Just create your own Travelling Tuesday post on your blog or site, and enter the link to your Travelling Tuesday Post below. Your photos can be from a trip around the world a year ago, or from your backyard yesterday. Just be sure to put a link back here on your site, so others can join in the adventure!
This post was linked up to Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.
Apr 13, 2010 | Stories, Travel..ling Tuesdays
Hey guys and gals. You are probably aware of the sad state of affairs regarding my MacBook. If not, just read the previous couple of entries and you’ll be up to speed. The jury’s still out on its survival. And now here it is, Travelling Tuesday, but without my MacBook, my iPhoto library … my crutches, I am in a poor state to create a beautiful and exciting TT for you! However next week, I should have some awesome shots from the shoe distributions happening Thursday and Saturday to share with you. And that will rock! And I will get it on this website if I have to drag it through cyberspace!
In the meantime I was hoping to ask you to do a little travelling for me this Tuesday. You see, my friend Arlissa is in the running for a Pepsi Refresh Project grant for $25K. Yes, $25,000. Whoa. I lived with her for a while at university and we ministered to international students together and I think she is awesome, and her artwork and her vision for ministry are fabulous, and forgive me for the run-on, I just think if anybody’s gonna use that $25K to the glory of God, she will!
So. Will you travel for me today to Pepsi Refresh Project and vote for Arlissa’s project, Visual Overture? You’ll also get there by copying and pasting this address into your browser: http://www.refresheverything.com/visualoverture. The grant will help develop her magazine, Visual Overture, and she’ll also use it to offer scholarships to other emerging artists. (That was a really basic synopsis, but you can read more on the site.) Way to pay it forward, Arlissa!
You can vote every day until the end of the month. If you decide to connect via Facebook, make sure once you are signed in to Facebook you click the vote for this idea button again. It should say Bam or Rock On or something. I think I might’ve missed two days worth of votes because of that little hiccough! I think you’ll hear the sound of a Pepsi can opening, too. HH and I had a discussion about that, because it sounds different from a can of Coke opening. I digress.
I hope to be up and running with some more deep thoughts and sweet shots soon. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying your journey today! Thanks for travelling for me!
xCC
Apr 6, 2010 | Stories, Travel..ling Tuesdays
For months and months now, Travelling Tuesdays have brought you the beauty of South Africa. Well a small slice of the beauty anyway. I really hoped you’d get a different perspective on Africa. There’s more than one story to tell. More than one picture I hope will resonate in your mind. There is indeed devastating poverty. There’s also great beauty. And I’ve been hoping to share both.
I unwrapped an unexpected gift this Easter Sunday, that I thought you might enjoy seeing and hearing about this TT. I didn’t wear a dress. The Bear didn’t munch any peeps. And we didn’t have a spiral sliced honey-glazed ham. Sigh. But we did enjoy something really special this Easter. We visited a church in one of the townships nearby, and I measured up the feet of some kids who will be receiving new shoes in less than two weeks.
We are really excited about our first distribution taking place this month. About finally getting to do some of what we came here to do, after months of paperwork and fedexes, P.O. Boxes and charity-registering-signatures, and lots of heart-tugging tough moments, we’ll finally be blessing people with a message of hope and a new pair of shoes.
What unexpected gift have I to share this Travelling Tuesday? Don’t worry, first the photos and then I’ll explain!
Before we visited the church where we’ll be hosting a distribution, the pastor gave us a whirlwind of a bumpy tour through some different parts of the township. These are some areas where some of the children who will be receiving shoes live. I suppose it’s a little slice of the Africa you’ve been expecting to see all along. But I hope you’ll let it touch your heart in a fresh way.
Just for perspective’s sake I’ll remind you these shots were taken while riding along in the pastor’s Kombi. (What South Africans call a big 15 passenger van.)
It’s hard to know what to say. I’ll let you come up with your own captions a little.
Coca-Cola is everywhere.
This children’s centre had brightly coloured outdoor potties that I really wish I could’ve gotten a picture of. They were green and yellow polka-dotted. Just close your eyes and imagine!
This church was very holey — not in the religious sense of the word.
Sometimes unexpected colour brings me unexpected joy.
Where did that horse grazing way back there come from?
And this is part of the group of kids who’ll be receiving shoes soon. Shhh! They’re at Sunday school!
(I’m in the corner getting ready to measure some footsies!)
So…in between the stray dogs and barbed wire, the bare feet and the bright colours, I unwrapped an unexpected gift. The gift was a glimpse of the lovely things God is going to do in South Africa through Samaritan’s Feet — lovely things that I get to be a part of. I received the gift when my hands were tickling the bottoms of rough little feet, bearing toes that had been squished into too-small-shoes for too long. I untied the ribbons when the Sunday school teacher told me some of these kids borrow a pair of shoes just to have something to wear to church. I gently pulled back the paper as I came face to face with the scenery I’ve been riding past for months, concerned that my heart might be growing insensitive as these months have worn on. I peeked inside as I lifted these precious children onto a chair, removed and replaced a shoe, and gave and received sweet smiles.
It was a gift to be reminded what all these struggles have been about. What I hope to be a part of doing here. The hope of having a great impact in the lives of even a few children — that’s the hope I’ve been missing for a while. And along with the gift of the Resurrection, a constant remembrance for an Easter Sunday, there was the gift of remembering that Jesus lives in me. What a gift and a privilege to be hands and feet to a world in need.
Was that the Africa you’ve been expecting all these Tuesdays? I hope it still touches a spot in your heart, to make you grateful for what you have, perhaps moved to do something for others who don’t. We can find unexpected gifts all the time, if we’re willing to look.
I hope you’re enjoying the journey of today this Tuesday!
xCC
I shared this post today over at Chatting at the Sky’s Tuesdays Unwrapped. I recommend a venture over to enjoy some more reminders of the giftedness of life!
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