a much needed update

So, yes, in case you were wondering, I am still alive. I'm so sorry to not have posted in a while, but I guess you could say I've been going through an extended period of writer's block. And apparently time flies when you're a struggling writer. Next monday will mark the fifth week of our outreach, which is insane considering that we only have 11 weeks total here in South Africa. We are nearly halfway through?!? Honestly though, this is the first week where I've really felt clarity about things, so at least you ALL didn't get dragged along through the emotional roller coaster I've been riding on these past couple of weeks. Also, if it makes you feel any better, I realized today that I also have not plucked my eyebrows in the past 4 weeks either, so it's not just posting I'm terribly behind on. Maybe it's inevitable that things just fall to the wayside when you live in a foreign country. But not after today. I have already plucked my eyebrows, and now that my vision is no longer impaired, I'm writing this post. (Sorry, I'm shamelessly using sarcastic humor to try to win back my blog followers)...

Okay! So you're probably all wondering what in the world I've been up to for the past month. It's sort of a lot to condense, so for now, I'll just fill you in on why I've been hesitant to write, and then for the next week, I will post blogs about each of the ministries that we're working with. After explaining everything we're doing, I'll conclude with some of the things I've learned so far on the trip, and after that I'll get back to "normal" postings just updating you on anything exciting that happens! It's quite a lofty plan I know, but I want to just commit to doing it so that everyone gets the full story.

The story goes like this:

Last year, an outreach team from Auckland came here to Muizenberg. Because they had been here last year, we all felt really confident about our time here and what we'd be doing. We thought things would already be rolling, and we could sort of just pick up where that team left off last year. But, when we got here, we hit a few roadblocks.

First of all, the team last year did a lot of investigative work about brothels in the area, but it was too intense and they made a decision that we definitely wouldn't do it again this year. So, I think we underestimated what a difference that would make in our schedule. They were doing it multiple hours per week, which left us with those hours to fill with something else, which we didn't do before arriving.

Secondly, the communication between us and our contacts here was not the best in the world. We thought we'd be getting trained for the anti-human trafficking demonstrations right away, but it turns out many of the Justice ACTs staff were on vacation, so we just got it - - yesterday. And the van we were supposed to rent was broken indefinitely... leaving us with no vehicle for the first 2 weeks we were here.

Third, the first 3 weeks we were here was summer vacation. So we couldn't call schools to set up the anti-human trafficking presentations because no one was there to answer the phones. And again, most of our contacts weren't back to work yet. So we just struggled so much with finding things to do for the first few weeks. We had all the desire - every day we were eager to get out and do something, but it felt like there were just impediments everywhere we turned - we needed training to do this, or we had to wait a week to start that... and all I could think was "We are a group of 9 able-bodied missionaries who REALLY want to help people. And we can't find anyone. In AFRICA." and the irony just killed me.

So, we spent a lot of time in the beginning trying to fill up our schedule. And it seemed like each thing we did just felt much less awesome than I had expected it to. I will go into more detail about each one when I describe them in my next posts, but in general it just felt like, what's the point of what we're doing? Is this worthwhile? Is this what being a missionary is like? Am I accomplishing anything? Lots of questions in my mind. And I am a thinker, often an over-thinker, so my brain was just fried for a while. Not to worry though.... some answers have come through! Follow along these next couple of days and all will be revealed!