adjusting

Hello Friends and Happy Birthday to the King of Lesotho! (I already forgot his name) I hope you are all having as lovely of a week as I am. I am now starting to get into the everyday routine of life here at Beautiful Gate which is nice.  I am also pretty much adjusted to Lesotho time. Lesotho is 6 hours ahead of Michigan time so the first few nights I was up until 3AM and then my day would start around 7....so I did not get a whole lot of sleep.

Saturday, we took a little drive up the mountains where it was SNOWING. Yep, it was. It was so crazy to be driving and then all the sudden be surrounded by snow and slushy roads. I'll tell ya what....I was not looking forward to having to go home to THAT in November when it is going to be warm here.

See! Just like Michigan!

wearing somewhere between 3-17 layers :)

On Sunday we went to a church that was actually held in the movie theater at the local mall. The service was very contemporary and I even knew some of the songs. During the service I kept thinking about how even though I am on the other side of the world, people still worship the same God here with even some of the same songs we use. It was kind of surreal and it made God seem a thousand times bigger. After church we grabbed some groceries and headed to the food court for some good, Sunday dinner KFC. We then decided to so hike up a mountain in the afternoon....no big deal. That was probably one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever been on. Other then the fact I thought I was going to puke up a lung on the way up, it was also a rather enjoyable hike. From the top you could see most of Maseru and even the border into South Africa. We were even kept company by a couple shepherds and their cows on our way up.

view of part of the city of Maseru from the mountain

that river you see going through the middle is the border so the far side of that river is South Africa

 I have been learning a LOT about the culture in Lesotho. That is something I didn't really expect coming here since the country is so small, but Lesotho has a very rich culture...maybe I will share more about that in another post. The language here is something I have been trying to pick up on a little too. Most people speak English as well which is very nice, but on campus people use Sesotho a lot in greeting each other and for titles before names.

I have found here that it is so important for me to invite Christ into my day every morning. There is a noticeable difference when I have him leading my day rather then me trying to do it on my own strength. This is something I tried to do at home when I knew I had a busy day ahead of me, but it wasn't until the first day here that I really realized that there is no way I was going to be able to last 4 months on my own. Another thing I have been praying about a lot is pride. So many people have praised and encouraged me in my decision to come here and I am starting to notice how easy it is to let all of that go straight to my head. I would appreciate your prayers in staying humble through this process.

Another thing I would appreciate prayers for is for me not to get to homesick. So far I have not gotten that homesick but I have a feeling as time goes on this will be something I struggle with more. Please pray for strength for me and pray that when I do have moments that I am homesick that I would know to call on Christ and not try to fight it on my own.

Today, I have also started to do a little assisting of the nurses here. Following in my mom's footsteps :) Right now this just means feeding certain kids who are a little behind developmentally at certain times throughout the day. I will also help take the kids' heights and weights every 3 weeks with the other nurses and they also said they might take me along on some of their hospital runs. I am very excited about this opportunity and I think it might be a nice little break in my regular daily routine.

Thanks for all of your prayers!! I couldn't do this without all of your support!
(also, just so you know, I will not be posting any pictures of the kids on this blog to protect the kids' future adoptive family. thanks for understanding and I will show you my pictures when I get back :)