Day 2 in Fort Wayne

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xq4W-VcZxFE&feature=c4-feed-u

Here it is! A video straight from Fort Wayne, Indian (not Illinois) hope you enjoy feel free to leave a comment about what you want to hear about. Sadly the video will not upload so you'll have to click a button to see it, work I know but it's SO worth it! ;)

35 days till departure.

So I've discovered I'm not much clearer in explaining things over video either.  Oh well. So the communities I mentioned are Olievenhoutbosch and Pomfret. Another thing I forgot to say in the video is that when in Olievenhoutbosch I will have access to Internet once a week so I'll be able to keep you updated but while in Pomfret Internet access will be rather limited so you won't hear from me all that often. Also just to clarify on the part of the video I thought was most unclear in Olievenhoutbosch we will be staying with host families outside of the squatter. The reason why we are living outside of the squatter because of the dangers that are inside of the squatter camp. And other thing to clarify we will start out in the States for a few days then go to South Africa, spend about 4 weeks in Olievenhoutbosch, about 4 weeks in Pomfret, a few days back in the Olievenhoutbosch area, a few days in the States and finally home on the 20th of December. Also I realize that a hospice is not an old age home, oops. Oh and for all those wondering it will be a 20 hour flight to South Africa.  

The first of the Vlogs

Here it is the first of the vlogs...Hopefully this is better than my writing :)

Making Connections

Today my team and I had our first conference call and it was great! I'm so excited to get to meet these people in person because hopefully it won't be so awkward. I feel like when your on the phone and can't see the people's faces it's much harder to tell when people are going to talk, therefore less overlapping voices and awkward "wait for it" pauses. Anyways, got A LOT of information about where we'll be going and what we need to have prepared before we South Africa. Most of the info we were told was about travel and medical stuff. So far their are 10 people on my team, 7 girls, 3 boys. We're all coming for different walks of life, there are 2 married couples coming, a few people taking a semester off from college and others coming straight from high school. In 59 days I'll be leaving and get to meet them all in person and I can't wait! But while I'm waiting I'm keeping busy by babysitting 40 hours a week and working on becoming a certified Lifeguard. In the next few days I plan to book my airplane tickets to and from Fort Wayne. I'll be leaving on the 29th of September and coming back on the 20th of December. That's an 82 day adventure!
More to come when more happens

The Moon in June

As I end my last week of school as a high school student the idea that I'm really going on this missions trip is beginning to become real. I have 84 days until my full amount of money is due and I'm so close! Just a few more dollars and I'll have enough not only the $7,000 for the missions trip but for the added expenses of travel insurance, flights and such as well. What else is there to say? I'm preparing for my final diploma exams of high school and gearing up for the summer. I don't have a official job for the summer and in all honesty I'm so happy. Instead I get to help out at both Salem Acres Bible Camp as well as Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp for the month of July. In August I'll be nannying for one of the kids I currently babysit on a regular bases. A few weeks of summer are still up in the air which is a new experience for me but I'm positive I'll end up where I need to be. Some sad news is that one of my dear friends was planning to come with me to South Africa but she was not accepted into the program. The whole situation could have been handle better by Experience Missions and for the first time I started to doubt whether this missions trip was the right one for me. I even went as far as to look into what steps could be taking for me to choose a different missions organization. But after I took time to calm down, God and I talked it over I know that even though the organization didn't accept my friend and got her hopes up before they told her she couldn't come I know that this is what I'm meant to do. Finding God's will has been one of my big struggles in the past months. I'm the type of person who likes all her ducks in a row. I like to know where I'm going what I'm doing. No surprises. When all my ducks aren't in a row I'm not a very patient person. So when I'm told to "wait and pray" It's often very hard for me. I want to take action and have everything decided and in place. I'm all for spontaneity when it's something that's a small potato like going out for a movie last minute. But when it's a big potato like whether or not to quiet my job I find I often try to give God a deadline. So I'm working on that and God's teaching me some good but hard lessons through it.
No Q&As for this post, but feel free to leave a comment if you've got a question about anything.
-Naomi

Yard Sale

UPDATE: At the Yard Sale today I made $786.04 which is so much more than I expected. I want to give a big THANK YOU for all those who helped out today. As cliché as it is I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you to all those who donated and came out today. It was a beautiful day.

Exciting News

Yesterday I was commended by my church, Northside Bible Fellowship. Basically what this means is that they support my decision to go to South Africa and will be accountable to me just as I will be accountable to them. They will support me both financially and in prayer. Northside has set me up with a prayer partner and expect me to keep them up to date with what's happening in my life in regards to South Africa. At first the reason I was getting commended was so that there would be a way for Canadians to donate to me through Northside and still get a tax receipt since I'm going to South Africa with an American organization, but now it's grown into something much more meaningful. When this whole process first started I googled what it meant to be commended by the church and this was one of the coolest descriptions:

 A commending, which is distinct from ordination to church office, is the solemn recognition of a person as set apart for a particular work of ministry.

I believe that in this description they are talking about commissioning a pastor rather than commending a 'missionary' but it still stuck in my mind. I like the idea of being 'set apart' for something specific. I don't know if I'll be a full time missionary when I get older or not but I believe that all of us are 'set apart' for work in ministry where ever we are, whether that means going overseas or simply going to the office. Everyday we can be ambassadors for Christ representing him in the way we live our lives.

Some more exciting news is that I might have a good friend coming with me to South Africa! She is still in the application process and has run into some difficulties already but hopefully she'll be able to come as well. That would be so amazing. Though I'm fine with going by myself it's always nice to have something familiar with you, that and this friend is such a blessing to my life it would be magnificent if we could share this experience together.

So I know that I'm not following the normal two question format but I really can't think of anymore questions so I'm going for a new format. I will still have questions each entry but they may end up being the same questions each time, so here they are:

1. How far away are you from your goal?
Well, physically I'm 15732.6 km away from South Africa. Financially I'm $2,173 away for my goal. Compared to the original amount it seems small but it's still a lot money left to raise. If I had 217, 300 more pennies I could reach South Africa financially. physically it would take around 82,803,160 pennies laid out flat to get from here to South Africa.

2. How can I pray for you?
Some prayer request would be:

• That my yard sale on May 4th would be successful in raising funds
• That my friend will be able to come with to South Africa as well
• That the team that ends up going to South Africa bonds really when and is unified.  

Well, that's all folks. More to come I'm sure, just stay tuned in.