Ikhaya

The base has a 24 hour prayer going on right now. Not sure if every one's familiar with 24 hour prayer so I'll briefly describe it. Basically people can sign up for a 1 hour slot through out 24 hours and pray whatever God puts on their hearts. The point is that for 24 hours straight, prayer is happening (praying for the nations). In the prayer room is a world map and books with facts on countries and prayer points and stuff. I prayed from 9-10 tonight and loved every minute of it. When you get in that mood and have God's heart for a nation, your heart literally is breaking for them and the areas Satan's lying to them. Prayer changes things and I love it. And I also love the nations... :)

My house here (we call it ikhaya-ikhaya means house) is right in the middle of town, really close to the township...about a 5 minute walk. We're right next to the bus stop. Literally buses come and pull up next to our house. So people are always chillin out on the front porch steps or around the back porch at all hours of the night. There have been a few instances where homeless people walked right into our house (and rooms) from off the street. We even had some street kids come in at night and steal food out of the fridge. But since the start of SBS (March) the only things that have been stolen out of the house has been food. Lesson learned though; now we keep doors locked and actually remember to close doors. The point is, the weekends are way worse. Meaning it's 12:30 am right now and I can hear drunk people shouting outside. Very loud, drunk people that are sitting in the yard.

So while I'm on that topic of loud, drunk people and safety and all that... as soon as it gets dark here, it's not safe for girls to walk anywhere alone...or even two or three of us together. We need a boy. Now, for most people maybe this wouldn't be an issue, but being the independent person that I am, I find it annoying. I mean I understand and all, but it's something I've had to get used to. One of the biggest problems is this: The SBS all lives together in ikhaya. We have classes here and everything. However, the rest of the people on the base and the actual base (where we go for worship and prayer and meals) is a 5 minute walk. Not far at all but if it's dark...you're basically trapped here in ikhaya. And when I say trapped, I mean that pretty literally.

I've been in South Africa for about 7 months now, and I'm pretty adjusted to safety issues and cultural differences. I still find some things here odd. For example: They call traffic lights "robots". Apparently you cannot buy white eggs here...they're all brown and have little feathers and "stuff" (it appears to be poop) on them. *yuck* They have a very different accent that I think sounds very British. You can buy milk out of a carton that DOESN'T get refrigerated and apparently stays "good" for over a year. We eat TONS of rice and potatoes...sometimes meals of only rice and potatoes. There are tons of different things but there's a few.

Anyway I'm going to go get some sleep. Good night guys!