So many whitiessss!

So these past two weeks have been literally insane but amazing!  A couple Thursdays ago, we picked up a team of 21 high schoolers, college students and their chaperones for 10 days of work here at the center!  As always, we had a beautiful plan laid out for them including a Kids Club in the morning and English clubs and pr walking in the afternoons..  Well, that didn't work out as planned because the kids are still in school.  Monday morning rolls around and we have 15 kids trickle in one-by-one.  However, the word spread and by the last day we had 350 kids come through the doors to hear the story of hope probably for the first time in their lives!  I was personally challenged by and I'm so thankful for this crew that took the time out of their lives to come here!  They were a blessing in so many ways... including the 144 pieces of bacon they left me ;)

Loved this gal!!!  

In this middle of this, Mel came to visit!  It was a fun time showing her around!

Our guide hopped up on here like it was no problem - I get the brilliant idea to do the same..  with a lot less gracefulness than he had!

We went to the Bandia Reserve - aka West Africa's fake safari place..  My favorite quote of all time:

Mel (to tour guide):  How many of the animals in here are native to here?

Guide:  Four.  The rest are from South Africa.

So.. I wasn't expecting anything fabulous but it was fun to ride around and see the different animals not native to here.  I am positive that my new favorite animal is a giraffe...  They are absolutely stunning.

Eating at the restaurant there was quite the experience!  I had heard that the monkeys would literally come steal food off your plate and being the animal lover that I am the idea of this thrilled me.  Well, for some reason which is beyond my explanation, these monkeys terrified me at first.  They just came in swarms.

So Mel feeds the monkeys while I throw peanuts at them..  Mel says that they needed to have boundaries so she would shoo them back if they got too aggressive to which they would hiss at her and I would freak out that she needed to give the monkeys what they wanted... LOL!

Eventually I came around.. :)

But my guard was right there with the water gun waiting to save me from the insane monkeys!

Our last night together..  with the lack of sunset..   Miss her already but so grateful that she came to visit!! 

Amanda's Post Dinner Entertainment

This song had been stuck in my head for about a week..  I started singing a portion of it after dinner and Patty was so surprised that I "knew" it...  So we decided to record it for laughing purposes.. We will be putting out a CD next month :)

Hangin with the kiddos!

During the month of May, we have a Kids Club on Saturday mornings.  During my summer in SE Asia, we taught a Kids Club 6 days a week so this is one of my favorite activities!

We went out into the neighborhood and passed out tickets to different children that we ran across.  The idea was that you needed a ticket to get in.  We had to do this for population control.  Also on the ticket was a place for a parent signature.  We passed out 40 tickets because that is the maximum number of children we felt we could accommodate and keep our sanity.  We really didn't have high hopes for the children actually coming with the tickets signed but miraculously about 9 came with signed tickets.  In total, we had about 30-35 children every Saturday morning.

We taught them a little bit of English, sang songs, did a craft, stories (the last day with puppets!) and played silly games.  It was ALOT of fun!  It was also very stressful - kids will be kids in every country but in this culture, there is no concept of a line or much discipline.  Kids do what they please.  So it was definitely a challenge to incorporate order while still being fun.  Each week we seemed to get a little bit better.

Some highlights:
1.  Listening to the children recite stories.  So incredible to see how focused they were and that they were actually paying attention!
2.  Driving up to the center on the last day 30 minutes before KC started to see about children already there and waiting.  They ran up to the car, shouting our names and ready to go!  Loving these guys is what this is about!
3.   Playing Duck-Duck-Goose.  I was it and I chose this little girl to be the goose but little did I know that she was a sprinter and I was genuinely surprised when she caught me!  Into the mush-pot I went.
4.  One week, I couldn't be at KC because I had an eye infection..  The others informed me that the kids were asking where I was..  Super sweet!
5.  Watching Amanda and my supervisor tell a story with puppets - I almost wet myself laughing so hard.
6.  Each week, I would act out different animals and let them guess which one I was.  I scared a little boy because I came up to him quickly and started barking..  The look on his face was hilarious as pure fright!

I hope to add more pictures and videos later but I may not be able to..

Insert Fun Title Here

Amanda and I are no longer creepers!  The little girl absolutely loves us! :)  We can say about three things to each other - one of those is candy - but it's not the quantity that matters..

BTW, you can tell the heat is here..  we (at least I) look a hawt mess!  But isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen???

One night, we went up with some of our students to the lighthouse here to overlook the city, hang out, eat cookies, dance, etc..  These girls are an absolute mess.   

There is a term here - "jaay fonde" -  Not exactly sure but if you have a larger rear end (which is considered desirable) one of the girls will say tell you "jaay fonde" which is like sell your large rear end.....  all this to say that we took a "jaay fonde" picture..  :)

And this...  what can I say?  This girl is CRAZY..  her dance moves definitely aren't family friendly!  Look at how uncomfortable Amanda looks and the girl holding the cell phone is providing the music for the entertainment..  

Lookie who I ran into:

Love these guys!  I went through a bag of Funyons and an 80 count pack of pepperoni in about a week!  Also, bringing my new Kindle and taking my broken one home to mail...  These guys ROCK!  I miss TRBCers sooo much!  

Easter and Camp!

Spent the Easter holiday with our new "family" here and loved it!!  Seriously, love the people we work with.  Couldn't have asked for a better clan :)  Fun silly games, worshiping together and of course, delicious grub! 

The Easter bunnies hiding eggs... aren't they cute!?

Tug-of-war madness!!

Egg-toss...

We had an English camp with our University students this week..  It was a blast but also extremely tiring!  Here's just a few of the hundreds of pictures taken over the week :)

Eating around the bowl..
Amanda and I want to get shirts made that say, "I survived ceeb five days in a row!" :)

I really do love my job.  During this lunch meal, we were having a conversation that stemmed from the issue of slavery since we had just visited Goree Island.  It's amazing to me how the people here hold no grudges.  Our conversation focused on the idea of forgiveness - is it truly possible?  what does it mean to forgive?  is it a one-time deal or is it a process?  

Teaching the small group Grammar Session.

Some fun gals!

Please can we notice that this fish has TEETH!?

We had a scavenger hunt around Goree Island - this is the "recycled cowboy"  ...can't you tell?

Our group was a little "communication challenged" so we weren't able to do a lot of the items on the list so we decided to make the pictures that we did take fun :)

Our group shot!

In other news, I started driving this week.  I've been practicing shifting gears on the side roads but I had never gone past third gear.  I called our team leader last night to see if he would ride along for moral support this morning on the big roads - he says, "Why don't you come pick me up?"  UMM.. you mean drive on the big, scary road to get you?  Well, alright then.  I was glad though because if I'm scared, I need to be gently forced to do something.  And driving went REALLY well..  A huge blessing.

Classes start back up again this week.  Cannot believe we're already halfway through April.  Time is flying by.  This session will be finished before we know it and then summer will be here!

Lots of things happening now and around the corner!  We're hoping to start a study with some girls that we've met, English classes in full gear, getting a children's club up and running, prayer walking our neighborhood, tons of teams are filing through, continuing visiting the friends we've already made, attempting to improve our Wolof language abilities...  Loving Him and loving lifeeeeeeee!

London: The land of pretty buildings, flowers, and of course, the Queen!

London in 33 words:
The Queen, Les Miserables, Wicked, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Countryside, Stunning Buildings, Flowers, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, London Tower, Trains, Mind the Gap, Tesco (England's Walmart), people waiting in lines, red buses, ENGLISH!


What I did NOT see:
Sand and unfinished buildings.


This was a lovely 5 days!


Here are the pictures:

Tower Bridge!

Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace!

In front of BH Palace.. the Queen was in residence as Monica informed us since the flag was there!

:)

This is the statue of Wesley at some huge cathedral - can't remember the name! haha

Big Ben!!!!!

Obligatory Phone Booth Pic!

I'm seriously in love right now...  I've never really cared so much about pretty trees, grass and flowers but since they are no longer apart of my life, I appreciate them much more!

Big Red Buses everywhere!

Some horse in front of some important building - I think maybe where the PM lives.. I dunno!  I'm such a good tourist.

Well, the people we were with left in a hurry and told me the directions- that was clearly a mistake!  But uncharacteristically, a nice British man stopped to help us which led to him telling us to walk instead of taking the tube... was a hilarious conversation.. would have had to been there..

I was in nostalgia heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is the McD's that fed me french fries every single day! :)

I want you all to make your best Ninja noise!

We had a Pizza/Game night with our two Pre-Intermediate Level English classes.  This started because I learned that one of my students from Chad has never eaten pizza in his life.  I seriously could not believe it so I couldn't in good conscience end classes this session without them having had pizza. 

The pizza was good but what was even better were the games that we played... 
Honey- if you love me, you'll smile and Ninja were the best two of the evening. 

Enjoy these video clips to give you an idea of how fun our evening was.  We really do love these students and most of them are returning in the second session with us starting up in April!

This game was a serious hit!  I wish I could upload all of the videos because they are hilarious!  Brings you back to your youth group days, eh?

I have high hopes that this game will take Africa by storm!

Please continue to lift up our students and ask for opportunities to share more than English and games!  :)