The End of Pietermartizburg and Travel Week

I cannot believe it.

The time in Pietermartizburg is over.

The longest I have ever been in another country was spent at this place called African Enterprise. One of the most beautiful campus’ in the world. This place my friends contained amazing landscape but even more amazing people. The staff of AE became a family to us all. They did above and beyond was a necessary to give us anything and everything that would make our stay there the best. And it was truly a blessing.

As my dear friend Francie is always quick to say: we are SO INCREDIBLY blessed to have done what we did.

Let me recap the last couple weeks in PMB.

Highlights:

• · Finishing my Community Health Nursing course
• · Completing my Senior Seminar, Nursing Ethics, course, final paper and presentation
• · Finishing my nursing research course
• · Having a wonderful farewell dinner with our professors and some of the people we worked with at our nursing sites.

I don’t know if I told you all this, but if you watched the blogs that francie and did you would know that we (Emily N, Emily L, Francie and I) had to do a community nursing project. This project needed to engaged the community and revolve around education.

CARE CENTER

The other 6 nurses were in a group and had their project idea with like 5 weeks left in the semester. We as a group did not. All the options we were looking at weren’t working. Nothing was coming together. However, we all remembered that through the grapevine we had heard that Walk in the Light a ministry that worked in Haniville, a town that Mason’s clinic in is which is where we had been working this semester, wanted to start some sort of clinic/care center. We had met Pendile, a dear woman from Walk in the Light, because she takes people to clinics and hospitals if they are unable to. She is truly a wonderful women of God.

So with only 3 weeks left we NEEDED a project. By the grace of God, pendile was at AE on a Monday we were able to talk with her about this rumor of a clinic and she said that it was true and wanted us to come visit the ministry and go on home visits with her. So on that Thursday we were able to go with the APU team to Walk in the Light.

This is when the miraculous occurred. =)

Bruce, the founder of walk in the light, met with us that morning. As we told him what our project was about and what our passions and gifts are this is when it all started coming together. As we asked bruce about this clinic he told us the vision of Walk in the Light and how it is truly a City on a Hill, a light into the community. Bruce and Pendile have been wanting to start a Care Center since the start of walk in the light because there is such a need for a place where HIV/AIDS patients and other extremely sick people within the community to come and be cared for because their families are not able to care for them . So, after talking for a little Bruce goes, “lets go start clearing out the building.” I was in shock. I think I expected that we would talk about it, then wait and then actually do something…but by the grace of GOD it worked out perfectly. We also talked about how we could provide walk in the light with a Basic Care Manual that they could use on home visits and in the care center. . The other “random” (and when I say random I am perfectly orchestrated event that was prepared by the FATHER since the beginning of time) aspects of this project were as follows:

1. We needed to do this project for our class

2. There was a team of 8 Adam W, Byron R, Zach W, Emily G, Megan H, Sarah C, Carrie J, Janelle Y that was going to be working at Walk in the Light for three weeks

3. Pendile was able to take us on home visits so that we could assess the needs of the community in order to better produce the Basic Care Manual to fit the needs of the community

4. Walk in the light had an extra building on the property

5. Carin’s husband Wilfred (a precious couple from the Netherlands who is staying at walk in the light for about a year) is an architect and was able to design the bathroom and layout for the Care Center

6. A retired nurse, Sylvia, has recently decided to volunteer at walk in the light and has committed to help with any nursing care

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So it happened,

• we assessed (the community’s needs)
• we put together (the Basic Care Manual)
• we encouraged (the group of APU people that were there to keep working so dang hard to transform the storage room into a beautiful care center with a veranda, pathway, septic tank, newly painted walls, preparing a place for a garden and doing everything physical for this project)
• we rejoiced (because every week that we went back we saw the beautiful progress)
• we thanked God

We thanked God because we got to be part of something so much bigger then us. It was so encouraging to see the body of Christ working together to finish this project. Though we did not get to see the project come to completion; it was an amazing transformation. I have never gotten to be part of something novel like this and it was such an awesome feeling. Though it was strange to not the be the one “in the trenches” digging, working, sweating, and painting and being the one who is doing the manual labor, I had to realize that my team and I’s portion to this project was to provide nursing knowledge and skills to this project.

This project further confirms that role of short term teams. We were there to reignite a dream. Bruce and Pendile have wanted to do this for years, but due to lack of man power, energy, and nursing care knowledge it was not able to be done. Due to this kairos, miraculous moment in time where we were in the right place at the right time and an AMAZING GOD on our side.

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I cannot wait to see the finished product and have peoples lives be saved due to the care they receive in this care center.

Please pray for the ministry of walk in the light and the care center. =) I will keep you posted with pictures =)

Every good thing must come to an end they say aye….

Our time in PMB is over…

We had to leave…

After tears and sadness we left…

We left places and people that we love:

• New Life Centre (the church that I have been going to)
• South African Friends
• Dance Fitness friends
• Clinical sites like Ethembeni
• African Enterprise and the amazing staff

=(

So we left on SUNDAY

And we drove

And drove

And drove

And drove

We stopped in East London, Port Elizabeth, and George.

We stayed in the nicest hotels by the ocean that I have ever stayed in =)

And a little adventure occurred on this trip:

I JUMPED OFF THE HIGHEST BRIDGE BUNGY JUMP IN THE WORLD!

It was amazing!

I will put up the video ASAP!

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We are in CAPETOWN!

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A city that I have been to before (for the first time, I am returning to a place that I have been) and it is wonderful

Pray that I can lean in and embrace these last couple weeks =)

God is good

This place is beautiful

And I cannot wait to come home!

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The internet is kinda slow here so I m not going to upload pictures just yet…but they will come ASAP!

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Watch francie and I’s video that we just posted right below this post =)

I love you all and I miss you terribly!

See you soooooo soon!

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Final Video Blog in Pietermartizburg, KZN, South Africa! =)

Procrastination at its finest =)

As we sat in the library late last night working out senior sem presentation (which i just FINISHED and it went great--i think --- ;) ) we decided to create this little video blog!

Enjoy!

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VIDEO BLOG =)

Emily N, Emily L, Francie and I made a video blog during a thunder storm that suddenly interrupted our homework time =)

Enjoy

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I CAN'T BELIEVE IT IS NOVEMBER! =)

Well goodbye September and October in south Africa. Hello November!

We only have like three weeks left in PMB and I cannot believe how fast time has flown by! Life is CRAZY! I have to remind myself every day that "this is real life" and that we are in Africa because i still cannot believe that i have been blessed with this amazing opportunity! Praise the Lord! =)

When we first got here we were leaving South Africa’s winter and are now going into summer. In the Eastern Cape (which is where we are) it rains in the summer season. So when we got here it was brown and dry. NOW, after many many days of thunder, hail, and rain the country has turned GREEN! I love it! It many many times reminds me of beautiful Ireland which makes me miss Ireland even more. It is super funny how many similarities there are between the white South African culture and the Northern Ireland culture! I love it! =)

In the spirit of enjoying the beauty around us we have done a couple of sweet activities like hiking, soccer and zip lining. African Enterprise is positioned outside of the city and up against a game reserve and mountain. Right behind our Chalets is a beautiful 30 ft waterfall that we get to hear and see always!

One of the highlights of this weekend was getting to go zip lining over the African canopy! It was seriously amazingly beautiful! The longest zip was 180 meters!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were going to fast, we were so high, and it was seriously so scary/awesome/wonderful/out of control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here is a picture of what it was like looking over the valley!

Fun Events that Start with H!

Homecoming

The past couple weeks we have gotten to have entirely too much fun! We have an amazing activities committee that plans stellar events! The first one was HOMECOMING! We had a homecoming week where every day we got to get dressed up for in a different way like crazy, twins, and stuff like that. It was everyone else who is here who is not a nursing major finals week so we used homecoming really just as an excuse to get dressed up and have a dance party. It was a vintage theme and the committee did great! We had dance offs, a photo booth to take pics and danced the night away! It was so much fun! Here is a picture of all the girls that live in my chalet! =) Charles Palma! =)

Halloween

Of course, the next H is Halloween! Again activities committee planned a great event for us to have fun and get dressed up! My roommate Kimberly and I were stressing because we didn’t know what we were going to be and while on a weekly mall run she came up with the idea of being an old married couple….so after an hour of getting my makeup done, asking the guys here for clothes, getting a q-tip/cotton mustache I came out looking like Mr. Fredrickson from UP! =) Here is a pic of me and Kim and then one of me and Cherokee when she was dressed up like Russel from Up and I was Mr. Fredrickson! Thanks to Adam, Lucas, Audra, and anyone else who made this costume possible!

=) This is what i would look like if i was an old man =)

RUSSEL AND MR. FREDRICKSON

This is post is all about the fun things that have gone on this past couple weeks! I will have a post ASAP about my last week of clinical and talk about the Community Project that we are doing with Walk in the Light Ministry!