Elizabeth's Birthday

We had lunch at a beautiful resort called Sommerfield yesterday to celebrated Elizabeth's birthday.

Winding walkways led us by pools, under canopies and past wild animal statues to get inside the resort restaurant.  The place was magical, and the food was great!

 Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!! We ate and then each shared something we appreciate about her. She loved that. 

 Left to Right: Olivia, Clever, Dwane

I had Thai green chicken curry. (Miss you, Ay!) 

What we do here...

So what exactly are we doing here?

We follow Jess and Elizabeth around to their various activities.

We had lunch with their team at a place called Swazi-Candles

We visited with a discipleship home for women. While they had sewing class, we played with their kids  and took photos.

We enjoyed this super cute kid. He taught me how to say "rain" in the local language. It started sprinkling while we were there, and he points out the windows repeating the word, "Tulu!"

Basically, we are getting to know Swaziland from Jess and Elizabeth's perspective.

Next Stop: Hawane Farms

Entering Swaziland on Tuesday, we arrived at the farm as the sun was setting.

The farm is in the higher elevations of the country, situated on rolling hills, and the stars are so close at night.

Here are some photos of us arriving at the Farm!

Turning left to head up the hills towards Hawane Farm.

 Beautiful countryside...

The guest cabins, where Jessica and I are staying.

Unloading our luggage. 

Left to right: Clever our team leader, Jessica, Liz, Jess.

Entering Swaziland

We drove from South Africa to Swaziland on Tuesday. 

We passed by lots of farm land. Saw zebras and ostriches at a rest stop.

Here are some photos of the arrival trip.

Here we are getting our passports checked for immigration.

 Jess is NOT driving. 

Cattle by the road side.

Next stop: Atlanta

I am on the plane.

This morning we finished packing, and pretty much everything fit!

I picked up a bunch of little boys' clothes for the kiddos that live there. Liz said one of them wears pink pants and gets called a girl - because that all he has.

Surprise visit from the Howards. They brought us some delicious cookies to take along. I've already sampled them. Amazing!

Quick trip to the book store. Picked up my dad's new favorite book and an art journal.

The plane door just closed. We are rolling. And they are going to make us turn off all electrical devices...

Next stop Atlanta!

Going to Swaziland

 

Tomorrow we head to Swaziland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaziland

Land of Fairy Dust

Some people call it pollen season.

Learning to Lead

Earlier this month, I moved up to Fundamentals 3 as a lead at Paso Dance Studios! Considering the fact that I was terrified to lead a Salsa dance earlier this year, this was a big accomplishment for me. The community at Paso is patience and really supportive of my growth as a dancer.  


I wanted to share this video with you -- It's a pretty cool turn pattern we learned last week in class: Jruss dancing with Yoko. Yoko is a huge encourager of trying new things -- I love dancing with her! 

Natasha sings Ring Them Bells

Thank you, Kate!
(of Life in the Layers)

GUEST BLOGGER: Finding Virtue through Pain

Greetings, JAR readers! 

My name's Josh.  To those of you who don't know me, I'm jruss' little brother.  Let me preface by saying that jruss requested that I do a guest post on this blog for some time, and I've been putting it off for one reason or another. I told her that she would have her post by January, and January came and went.  Now that February is almost over,  I'm finally sitting down and writing said blog post.  Why did it take me so long to fulfill a simple request?

Originally, when asked by jruss to make this post, I planned on doing a piece on Shalom, or the hebrew word for peace.  Then I figured I would write on my time at Passion 2012, a conference where 45,000 twenty-somethings all traveled to Atlanta to learn more about Jesus.  Neither of those posts ended up being written. 

Again, for those of you who don't know me,  I'm predisposed to being lazy. If I'm not careful, that laziness can consume whole days, or even weeks of my time.  Because of my sluggish nature, over the years i've crafted scores of excuses for why I don't get things done on time.  I'm too tired.  My room needed cleaning.  I'm not good at time management.  There's too many other things on my plate.  I forgot.

Which brings me to the nature of today's post:  The topic I'd like to discuss is the process of manning up. Allow me to define the the phrase "to man up."