Christmas came and went. New Years came and went. The past weeks, days, minutes, and seconds have all gone in a blur of activity and busyness. Christmas seems to have been a lifetime ago but here's how my Christmas season was spent: Christmas Eve, the verse that I pulled out from my mom's pile was 1 Peter 5:8-9, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering." I couldn't have read this verse at a more perfect time. I was feeling homesick and sorry for myself spending my first Christmas away from home when people do it all the time and I should be celebrating the birth of Jesus. It was a good wake up call and put me in the right attitude for Christmas. I spent Christmas Eve at home taping the advent calendar pieces onto the printout picture my mom and Carissa sent me from home, read some Long Walk to Freedom, watched a Christmas movie and then Long Walk to Freedom, played play station with Justin, opened my two presents my mom sent me, talked with my family, and played a game with Justin.
Christmas Day I woke up to heat and sunlight flowing into my room when my alarm went off at 6:30am. The first thing I did was open a Christmas letter from my cousin Adrienne that she sent with me ahead of time, opened a Christmas popper from Fran that she sent in a package, and then got ready for church and Auntie Pricilla helped me tie my sari. I wrote in my journal, "At church it really sunk in that I'm blessed to be here even without my family; and tears came to my eyes while singing 'How Great is Our God," not because of homesickness, but because God is truly great and I felt thankful to be standing there sweating on this hot Christmas Day belting my heart out, thankful with no care in the world at that present moment." After church we had to run to the grocery store and I got a few strange looks I think because of my sari but it just made me smile all the more. We took some family pictures once home because we were all looking so nice and I hadn't gotten a family photo yet before settling in for a Christmas dinner with just the immediate family. We had an array of meats and some veggies and it was a delicious meal. After lunch I read the birth of Jesus in both Matthew and Luke, watched some TV and relaxed, before we went to go visit a couple from church and then some of Auntie Pricilla's family.
Boxing Day we went to Durban to pick up Pricilla's brother and go to the beach. We weren't at the beach for long but it was fun as Justin and I just played in the waves the whole time we were there (even though it was technically a no swimming beach). On the way home, we visited some more of Pricilla's family and ate supper with them and stayed for awhile before heading home.
Overall the Christmas festivities didn't much feel like Christmas but I was thankful that I wasn't homesick and that I enjoyed myself. Also my Dad sent me some videos of Christmas back in PA so I felt like I got to be there as I watched my cousins perform on their instruments, the Big Buck Award, Christmas games, the Derstine side singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (very beautifully I might add), and even got to see Samuel open a present.
Sunday the 29th, immediately after church, we headed to Port Shepstone for a nice retreat with the Mennonite missionaries in Southern Africa. It was a week filled with sessions on missions and learning about ourselves, worship and hymns from the Mennonite hymnal, camp songs, lots of swimming, a midnight swim to celebrate the New Year (much different from my previous year's polar bear swim) a pentathlon (including the infamous Suderman swim which I tied for last in because people kept making me laugh and broom dancing - of which we broke two brooms and a pool noodle), beach day, late late nights, good company, stories, winning R10 from Andrew in a bet, some theological discussions, a talent show, and lots and lots of games. We played games such as Ooga Booga, Water Polo,Ticket to Ride Europe, UNO, Formula-D, Merchants and Marauders, and Watermelon Water Polo. All-in-all a great week and I didn't want it to end.
With the end of retreat, work started. I began work on Tuesday the 7th and was feeling very tired as I don't think I had recovered from my previous week of going to bed no earlier than 11:00 (including two 2:00am bedtimes. Going back to work it almost seemed like I had never left. It felt good to be sitting in the company of my coworkers that first morning just hearing Zulu all around me and not knowing a single thing that was being said. I didn't mind and it was a comfort of me to hear the tell tale inflections and occasional clicks that go hand-in-hand with the Zulu language. It didn't take much to get back in the swing of things at work and it's nice to be back in a routine schedule no matter how much I loved break. While I love the routine, I miss spending all day with Emily and Lydia and the others that were on retreat as well as the familiarity that came with those surroundings. This past weekend was fun, however, because Emily, Lydia, and I had an impromptu sleepover and then spent Saturday relaxing and hiking Howick Falls. It was a good end to an exhausting week.
