Pen Pals and Service Sites

Hello everybody! So much has happened in the past few days, but I’ll try my best to keep this short and concise!

I’ll start by updating you about the Zulu happenings in my life. First of all, last week our teacher Wynn gave all of us Zulu names. She wanted to wait until a couple weeks in, so she could get to know us and give us a name that is appropriate to our personality. So last week, we got our names! Everyone’s were all really neat, but for the sake of time, I’ll only share mine with you. My name is Siphiwumusa and it means, “We are given kindness and mercy.” I’ll take it :)

Also, on Monday we got to meet our Zulu pen pals!! We’ve been writing to them for a couple weeks now—with our very limited conversational skills—and on Monday, we got to go to their school and hang out with them. They attend Grace College, which is actually a high school and is surprisingly really nice. They made us lots of traditional Zulu food, including Zulu bread, which is becoming one of my favorite foods. They also had this “mystery meat” that they wouldn’t tell us what it was but kept saying, “Just try it!” We found out later that it was COW TONGUE. Yup, I ate cow tongue. (Dad and Michaela, has anyone ever eaten cow tongue on that “weird foods” show you guys watch???) It honestly wasn’t that bad. It had a good taste to it, but the texture was awful. It was really slimy and chewy, AND you could see the taste buds! And feel them while you chewed on your piece of meat. They were like these little squishy spikes coming off the meat. I don’t know if you can see it in the picture but it was kinda gross. Hey, it was an adventure though!

My pen pal’s name is Siphesihle (Sips for short), which means, “Gift from God” and he was absolutely hilarious. He is 16 years old and totally the class clown. He was always making jokes and making everyone laugh. My favorite things he said:

• I asked him his favorite food: hot dogs. "My birthday is June 16th, and if you sent me a pack of hot dogs, I would be the happiest man in the world!" I had to break it to him that they would probably be nasty after 2+ weeks in the mail
• Calling another girl in the class an "unknown species" because of her haircut (they're friends so it was funny, not mean)
• When he introduced me to his friend, he put his arm around me and said "This is my new girl" Hahaha so funny

It was such a joy meeting them. They showed us around their school, talked about their culture and growing up in South Africa, and even did Zulu dancing for us. It was one of my favorite experiences here so far. We’re hoping to have all of them come to AE so we can cook American food for them and hang out more! But we’ll see.

Other updates: I found out my service site!!! I get to work at Ethembeni, which was my number 1 choice! I’m honestly so excited to start. Now that I know where I’ll be and can start praying specifically for that program, I really just want to go! Be praying for energy in long days, humility for my heart, that I could not consider myself better than anyone else but to put others first, that I could learn from these people, and that God would just change and heal lives. Once I know more about exactly what I’m doing, I’ll let you know, but all I know so far is what I posted in my earlier blog (It’s called “Blessings” if you didn’t read it). And here is the website if you want to check it out! After I found out, I was reading my Bible and the first verse I read seemed so applicable. It says, “O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” Isaiah 25:1. I am just so excited to see what God has planned for my time there, in my heart and the hearts of those I am blessed to be able to serve.

And lastly, I got another package from my Nana and Papa. It was a box of Sees!! Haha like mother, like daughter! It was so fun though. Getting packages, letters, emails, comments on this blog…all of it makes home not feel as far away, so feel free to keep ‘em coming! :) Thank you all so much for your love and support. Knowing people are praying and reading this blog and looking at my pictures and everything is so encouraging and I appreciate you all!

With love from South Africa (and with cow tongue in my stomach),

Alex