My apologies.....

Well, I must admit that I am very embarrassed that it has been nearly a month since I posted anything. It is certainly not due to a lack of things to write about. Actually, I think there have been so many things swirling around in my head that it has been difficult to organize them and logically present them. Also, I think part of my struggle has been that at some point I realized that people were actually reading them, and I became a little self-conscious. I like my thoughts to be private and personal, but after all, I find myself baring my soul on the internet. So, at least in my mind, I am just going to pretend that this is my journal and no one is looking at it. 

I will give a somewhat brief summary of what I have been doing over the last few weeks. I have been spending time with Tapiwa and assisting her with exercises and strength training. Also, I researched her condition(s) and prepared a report of my  findings and recommendations for the Country Director as well as the National Board. My hope is that this will prompt serious consideration of much needed therapy for her. 

Also, I have been regularly visiting the girls' home in Mtsiliza. There are nine teenage girls who live there who are home from boarding school for their summer vacation.  I have really enjoyed just spending time with them and getting to know each of their unique personalities. I brought my photo album from home to show them, and they just loved looking at it. They squealed at the sight of wedding photos. One of the girls, Doress, just loved the pictures of my hair and would get so excited and pet the pictures of my hair because she thought it was so nice. I guess that is an obvious sign that my personal grooming standards have decreased somewhat since I have been here.  

I have also spent time at the widow's program in Mtsiliza as well. I guess I am naive, but when I was going to visit them, without really thinking I was expecting a group of elderly women. When  I walked into their meeting, I saw a group of women in their twenties and thirties, almost all of them with very small children. Several had small babies that were still breastfeeding. I began to try to do the math in my head to figure out how they could have babies that young and be widowed already.  Many of their husbands died while they were pregnant or soon after the baby was born. I just cannot conceive of the agony that it must be to lose your spouse when you have small children, and you are left with a family full of mouths to feed yet no way to provide for them. Through the widow's program, they learn to sew, knit, and bake to sell items for their income. I am interested to get to know these women because I suspect they are women of great strength and character.

 The rest of my time really has been spent reading, studying, and planning. Michael and I laugh because we brought all of these books from school that we thought may be useful for our work here. What we didn't realize is that we never really read these books in school. Now, I am reading these books and realizing there is some wonderful, insightful information that will help us tremendously in our respective jobs. I have thought to myself...wow if I had known how useful this was going to be, I would have studied a little harder in school. Today I was reading a book that I thought was totally useless in school. I looked through it and couldn't believe all of the great information it had. I guess God provides for you even when you don't even know it.  I also feel that we are both getting a better education than we could have dreamed of getting in any school. I am really excited to see what God will do with that after these two years.