tearful goodbyes& visiting friends

HI. How are ya'll surviving the cold? Its very very warm here so for those of you who would rather escape the cold, feel free to come visit me! haha :)

Friday was not such a fun day for me. It actually wasn't a fun day for many people on campus. On Friday, one of the older boys went home to live with his aunt and uncle in the mountains. Though reunifications can often be wonderful things, I didn't really enjoy this one as much. This boy had been at Beautiful Gate for 3 years. I am not sure how much of his story I am allowed to share but I will just say that through the whole process his uncle and aunt gave us many reasons to think going home was not the best option for the boy. On Thursday I overheard the boy saying, "I want to go to Canada." At that point he knew he was going home the next day desperately wanted to go to Canada where many of his friends have been adopted to. It broke my heart to hear him say that. All day Friday he was all around campus helping the staff, walking his "siblings" to and from school and just being plain silly. When the time came to go to the office to meet his parents he seemed to be doing pretty well with all of it. We all gathered in the office to say a prayer over his before he left. I watched him during the prayer and he seemed to just be taking it all in. He wasn't sure what was going on and he wasn't sure what to think of it all. After the "amen" was said the staff and volunteers started saying their goodbyes. As Anita came up and gave him a hug you could start to see the tears roll down his face. And as I saw the tears roll down his face it took every ounce of my being to hold it together. I knew if I went up to him to say goodbye I would lose it, so I waited. Finally, his aunt and uncle started to walk him out the door and I came up behind him and gave him a quick hug and whispered, "I love you and God loves you more" in his ear. He looked up at me and all I saw in his eyes was fear. That look of fear is one I will never forget. I quickly looked away as I started to feel the tears roll down my own face. I didn't want him to see me cry. All the way back to my house I just cried. I was angry there was nothing we could do to help him. I was angry at his aunt and uncle. I was angry he couldn't be adopted like all of his friends. As I spent most of the rest of the day praying for him, I felt a sense of peace come over me. The Lord reminded me that even though the boy was out of my hands he was never out of God's hands. And though I may never see him again the Lord will be walking beside him every day of his life. Our God is a good God and I know he will be faithful. Please pray for this boy as he adjusts to his new home in the mountains.

On Saturday, my friend, Thato, took me to her house to show me the thrift store she is starting. Thato is a volunteer at BG and she helps with fund raising. When she told me about the store she was starting I was SOO excited because if you know me, you know I am a bit of a thrift store addict. That day she picked me up from BG and we took a few taxis to her house which is outside of town. Her village was very nice and the view from her house was amazing! That is one thing I love about Lesotho: wherever you go there is always a beautiful view. Right away she walked me up to the building that her family had purchased for Thato to start her thrift store. There was not anything in it yet because they still had some painting to do, but it was a really good sized space. We spent some time there fooling around and imagining what it will be like when it is done. On the walk back to her house I got talking to Thato's sister who I found really enjoys baking things and wants to open her own bakery one day. When we got back to their house she showed me a folder she had filled with recipes and ideas cut out from magazines. I loved how both Thato and her sister had a dream and their parents pushed them and helped them to make those dreams come true. That is a rare thing in a country like Lesotho. For the rest of the afternoon Thato's family and I just sat on the lawn and talked and laughed and educated each other about our own cultures. They fed me some traditional food which was actually pretty good! After a couple hours of talking Thato's mom went inside and when she returned she had a beautiful Basotho dress in her arms. When she came over and said it was for me I was in shock. This woman hardly knew me and she wanted to give me this beautiful dress that probably was expensive to make. I tried it on and it fit perfectly. They braided my hair a little and before ya knew it, I looked Basotho. That afternoon was perfect. Even though we were from different sides of the world and grew up in different cultures, we still had so much fun talking and laughing together. Their whole family drove me home and as I was sitting in the bed of the truck dancing and laughing with my new friends, I just took a moment to praise and thank the Father for bringing me to Lesotho.

"I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most high!"  -Psalm 7:17

Thato's sister, me, Thato

Welcome to my Thrift Store!

vicky the kitty

FOODFOODFOOD

a "Lesotho Smoothie"

my new dress!

Thato being a model :)

more cool people

peace and love. 

proud mama.

I know I just posted yesterday but today was just too good not to blog about!

Today was probably one of the best days of my life. When I walked into my house this morning and saw my little boy, I am pretty sure I screamed and started dancing around the room like a fool. I did this because my boy was wearing a school uniform! He started school today!!!!! This is the boy that is 6 years old but looks like a 3 year because he was so malnourished. When I got here in July he couldn't walk and he hardly talked. I have been working with him A LOT and he has kind of become my favorite. I know, I know, I have favorites...I am a terrible person. Anyway, he now walks, feeds himself, laughs, and is talking more and more. Seeing him in that uniform today was the most rewarding thing ever. I felt like a proud mama. He was so excited to show me his fancy striped tie that he nearly tripped over and his shiny new shoes. As I helped him put his back pack on and tighten the straps he was all smiles. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and waved goodbye. As I watched him walk to school I was nearly in tears and I just wanted to shout at the top of my lungs, "SEE HOW THE LORD IS HEALING THIS BEAUTIFUL BOY! WE SERVE A GOOD, GOOD GOD!"

that's all I got for today. 

remember all the things the Lord has done in your life and take time to thank him and praise him for those things. 

peace and love. 

names, vacation, and college!

I am back! And I am sorry for the lack of blogging. BUT, I promise to make it up to you with a nice blog post today with some pretty rad pictures. :)

Since I usually write my blog posts in chronological order, I will start by telling you about last week Friday. I GOT MY SESOTHO NAME! Pretty exciting stuff. The Beautiful Gate staff always gives the long term volunteers a Sotho name that fits their personality. My house mother had been telling me for a while that she was thinking of one for me. I patiently waited for 6 months for her to tell me my Sotho name. Finally, that week after the Azusa Pacific team left and they all got Sotho names after being here for 3 weeks I decided to ask my house mom if she had come up with one yet. On Friday night when I asked her about she laughed out loud and put her hand to her face. She says, "Oh Ausi Paige! Did I forget to tell you? You are Ausi Ntabeleng!" We had a good laugh over the fact that she forgot to tell me my own name. Ntabeleng means "we are happy" in Sesotho. I couldn't be happier with it and I am glad that when she thought of me she thought of happiness. Feel free to call me Ausi Ntabeleng if you can figure out how to pronounce it :) haha

VAY-CAY BABY! Saturday morning the Geurink family, Kristen (the other long term volunteer), Kim (our friend that is a missionary with MAF), and I left for a little vacation. I will admit I feel guilty for being away for Beautiful Gate for more than a couple days since that is the reason I am here. I have learned though that sometimes you need a break, and you need time to step back from the work you are doing to reflect, spend some time in prayer, and give the Lord an opportunity to speak to you. The travelling didn't start out too well for me when I got sick about 10 minutes into a 10 hour car ride. Nice. I was really close to just asking them to drop me off on the side of the road so I could catch a ride in a taxi back to Beautiful Gate. Thankfully, I stuck it out and words could not describe how thrilled I was to jump in my bed when we got to our hotel in Port Elizabeth (that's like on the South Eastern coast of South Africa). While everyone went out for dinner that night, I took advantage of the free Wifi and watched all of Holland Christian's Spanish lipdubs. Shout-out to everyone in those videos! They were pretty rad and they brought me a lot of joy on a night that I was not doing too well. After that I skyped home for a few minutes. I love that I can always count on my family to give me a few words of encouragement  They are great. After spending some time in the word that night I hit the hay early. We spent the next day at the beautiful beach and the day after that at Addo Elephant park where we saw LOTS of elephants. See pictures below :) We then drove West to Knysna where we stayed for the rest of the week. While we were there, we did rad things like hold snakes, walk with elephants, swim with seals, and thrift store shop. Yes, that is right THRIFT STORES!! If you know me, you know thrifting is a hobby of mine and I must say that I have missed it. I loved having an afternoon to myself to walk around town and do a little shopping without having to worry about it being unsafe. I met so many cool people in the stores downtown too! The elephant experience was amazing. I was shocked at how well trained these huge creatures were. We got to walk with them, feed them, and brush them. It was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. Swimming with the seals was also like that. We got all suited up in our wet suits  goggles, and flippers and took a small boat out in the ocean to where the seals were. There were hundreds of them! We were told not to put our hand out and touch them but to just stay still and then they would often come to us and touch their nose to our goggles. The craziest part was thinking, "these are wild animals, not trained seals that you find at sea world!" On the boat ride back to shore we stopped a little ways away from shore and our guide turned to us and said in her Afrikaans accent, "Okay now you are going to want to hold on really tight because we will pick up speed quite a bit and when we get on shore there will be a sudden stop and then the boat will tip to one side and then you can get out." At first we laughed a bit because we didn't think she was serious, but when she sat down and the boat started zooming right towards shore we were wondering what we got ourselves into. The whole time I was thinking, "I can't even imagine people getting their boats ashore this way in Michigan!" In the end we made it on shore safely and that will be a boat ride I will never forget. All in all, it was a pretty sweet vacation and it was so nice to have some time alone with the Lord too. I am very much looking forward to seeing my kids again tomorrow and getting back into the swing of things. CRAZY to think I have less than 2 months left! Looking forward to seeing everyone again but I am going to miss this place.

Soooooo guess who got accepted to the one college she applied to? THIS GIRL! I came home from vacation to find an e-mail from my dad with my acceptance letter attached. I got accepted to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago which is where both of my older siblings currently attend. I was kind of shocked I got in, honestly. Moody is such an amazing school that is kind of hard to get into. I am so honored they want me to come to their school! It is also strange now having a plan for my life. For the past year I knew the Lord wanted me in Africa for a time and that was the extent of my life plans. It was fun thinking about all the possibilities and opportunities out there I could be a part of. Now that I know I am passionate about missions, I am excited to study and prepare myself to hopefully go into the mission field. My room mate was so sweet and made brownies to celebrate, and her and Bryan and Anita all gave me advice and told me stories about their college experiences. It was a really good way to end my week off.

NOW FOR THE PICTURES:

I think they are out of order, but oh well.

PORT ELIZABETH

Addo Elephant park

NIEKERK....HOLLA :)

me and Ola bonding

Addo

Addo

hanging out with these crazy people

so close!

lemurs 

PILLOW FIGHT!

going for a walk.

love signs like this :)

peace and love.

a powerful prayer.

Just a quick post today. Enjoy.

I don't even know where to start. Well, I guess I will start by saying that "goodbyes" are no fun. No fun at all. Many tears were shed Monday as we said goodbye to the team of 9 girls from Azusa Pacific University. Its amazing how quickly friendships were formed. I was so humbled by this team and how intentional they were with including me on many of their game and movie nights. It was great to hang out with some girls my age. This team helped me feel like an 18 year old again. This team was actually here for a study abroad class so they had a big presentation and paper they worked very hard on while they were here. Most of the girls were Social Work majors. Sunday night we were invited down to watch their presentations. I was so impressed with all of them! The girls experienced first hand many realities of the topic they chose, so they were all very passionate about what they were presenting. I learned a lot from the presentations and I loved seeing aspects of Lesotho through different people's eyes. Monday morning before they left, many of the girls were spending their last few hours in play group with the kids. The play group coordinator asked one of the older boys to stand up and pray for the team as they were leaving. The 7 year old stood up and starting praying this beautiful long prayer in Sesotho. Though we had no idea what he was saying, all us girls were in tears. Here was this little boy who understood the power and the beauty of prayer. At the end it was translated for us and she said he had thanked God that the team could come and play with them. He also asked that God would keep them safe as they traveled and that they would come back soon. That is why I love Beautiful Gate. That is why I love these children. They love the Lord. They love to sing to Him and they love to pray to Him. I am so blessed and thankful I was able to get to know these girls and I have a feeling at least a few of them will be coming back :)

A few pictures from the week.

another one of my lion friends