Holiday Club is apon us!

First of all I hope that all you fathers out there had an absolutely fantastic father's day! I texted my dad wishing him luck in getting the rest of my family to take him out for some seafood! If you know my mom at all...I'm sure you know this request probably didn't happen. haha But heres my little shout out to the guy who has always been there for me and showed me what it's like to have a humble heart and be a sneaky prankster ;) lol Love you dad! 

Well my first week back after being gone with the family was good. It was nice to get back into my routine. This past weekend I did absolutely nothing. Now usually that is something I can't do, I am one who can not stay in my house for more than a few hours. Here, however, it's my favorite time of the week. Just get to sleep in...do what I want...when I want to. haha its nice. So this last weekend I didn't really leave the house but maybe once to go to the store. I watched How I Met Your Mother pretty much the whole weekend. I think I have seen every episode but it's one of those shows that you can watch it over and over and will still laugh at the ridiculous jokes. haha love it. Well the weather here has been absolutely gorgeous the past few days! Sunny every day with a cool breeze, winter is starting to roll in. It's actually been very cold in my room at night because these houses are built for summer...so they trap in all the cold air. Which is awesome during the hot months...but now not so much. 

I have been here for 4 months now (weird!) and it still amazes me how pretty this place really is. One of the summer volunteers that is here for 6 weeks took this picture this past weekend. But this is where I spend my every day. Now Im to the point where I don't even notice this kind of view when I'm driving to work. When I first got here I remember not being able to take my eyes off of this beauty. Can't believe I'm to the point where I'm just like eh yeah it's gorgeous...but looks the same as yesterday! haha. 

Anyways not too much exciting things have happened this past week/weekend. Just living each day and not worrying to much about the next really. Still trying to balance out how to work on my boys in Capricorn...with not ignoring every other kid there. I honestly think I've been doing a good job at it which is nice. The other day some of the girls wrote me a card during their free time. little things like that mean SO much to me. Then today when I was driving through the township to drop off the food, we got to the house where the lady lives. Now when I pull up my car gets surrounded by a lot of the kids that come to club. They always wait for me to pop the trunk so they can get the containers out to bring into the house. Well today we crammed Roger, Illana, Marti, Allison, and Emily (our 3 summer volunteers) into my car. When we got to the house I rolled down my window to say hi to the kids and just a little small talk. Then I heard one of the boys say that I was his favorite leader to everyone else. Talk about a way to put a huge smile on my face. I love being around these kids. :) Today I took the 3 girls back to their house and while we were driving they asked if I was going to be sad when I left. They leave in 2 weeks which is INSANE. It literally feels like they got here yesterday. Well I had to think about it honestly. Yes I am going to be sad about leaving this place, when your here for almost 9 months, some of these people just become your family. I'm also going to miss these kids...but I think when October rolls around I will be more excited to get home. Yes...family go ahead and get excited about that statement, doubt you'd hear that from me eh? haha. But yeah I told them it'll be bittersweet. I think if I didn't have people to go back home to...like friends, family, Eric, then my response would be a little different. But I then said I honestly don't know how I will react until the day I leave. When I was in Ghana I knew I was going to be sad...I mean I was with those kids from 8 till 9:30 everyday. When the last day came I was perfectly fine the whole day...was doing a fantastic saying my goodbyes...getting TONS of goodbye letters from alot of kids...but right when one of the boys I got super close to over the summer came up to me and gave me a big long hug was when I lost it. I had to leave and go hide in a classroom to cry. I remember being so mad at myself because I was doing so good at not being sad. When I came out he was standing there and told me 'I don't want to be around you right now, because I make you cry and I don't want to see you upset'...which naturally made the tears keep coming! haha I only share that story because who knows if one small hug or a smile in my direction will turn my 'emotional' switch on and make leaving here become something extremely hard. I guess 4 months from now I'll find out. Im kind of nervous about leaving here and heading back home. Selfishly I wish nothing has changed and everything will be the exact same when I get back. It's going to be weird to go back to Abilene and not being able to see everyone I was used to seeing when ever I wanted to. It'll be weird not having Quinn, Dan, and Eric live together in the house I used to spend much of my time at. I'm nervous of the unknown. I know awhile ago I talked about how I had that moment when I freaked out about what my future holds but God used Pinterest to show me this picture... 

I saved it onto my desktop and now whenever I have these random moments of 'what in the world is next' I just pray. Simple as that...because you can't worry and pray at the same time. If you are praying, God is taking your worry away && well if your worrying, then you sure aren't praying. So to whoever is reading this...if you pray as much as you worry about it, you won't worry anymore. 

Well next week Holiday Club starts and it is 3 weeks of non stop club. The first two weeks were doing something along the lines of olympics and then the last week were doing waste watchers...just about keeping your community as well as yourself clean. Well Holiday Club involves alot of planning...because instead of normal afternoon club, we have kids in the morning and teens in the afternoon. So the days are long and your nerves get tested. Im quite optimistic about it but everyone knows that the tiredness is bound to happen. Holiday Club is awesome but exhausting. So once these next 3 weeks get past us I'm sure I'll be one happy camper. Today we had to go to training to start planning for the first week of club. During it each branch had to write on a big piece of paper what they were worried about with this coming up stuff. Here is our paper! I think it's pretty self explanatory. 

After that we got all our supplies for the next 3 weeks and then got to sort it all out. Im pretty sure us at Capricorn got the most stuff..it seemed like it anyways! 

haha Meagan already looks ready for Holiday Club to be over. I feel like the best way to explain this to y'all is it's kind of like VBS in the states. You have to prepare ALOT and then your going from 9 till 4...and you get to do it for 3 weeks straight. So just be praying for all us Life Skill Educator's these next few weeks. It will be greatly appreciated! 

Here's some pictures from club this week :] 

 haha this is Darren...he has recently decided that I am a human jungle gym. Today he successfully made it from my back up to my shoulders. Then he got scarred so I had to use all my might to slowly get to my knees. Love this boy...but there's been many times he's almost taken me down. He will get a running start, and just jump on me. Most of the time it's when I have absolutely no idea it's about to happen. 

 Jeremiah. :] he pretty much grabbed my heart the first day I met him

 yes...it's cold enough here to wear a beanie and not think twice about it. 

&& this is Cameron. He is going to be a heart breaker with that perfect smile! 

&& there's life as I know it. Thankful God has given me the opportunity to have these kids in my life. I hope they are being impacted through the things not only I do...but Living Hope as an organization is doing! 

Live each day like it was your last y'all. cliche...yes but we all need to take it more seriously. 

OHH best picture of the night -- tonight is Monday so we had the normal monday small groups. Tonight was different however, there was only 6 of us girls..no Tim..no summer volunteers..and Natasha had made some cinnamon rolls and this is how she baked them. 

yes...that is a heater.

lol..this is only half true. She did this for awhile to activate the yeast?..her words not mine...I don't bake. Still hilarious. These African folk sure do some weird things around here ;) 

Your beliefs don't make you a better person...your actions do!! So with that said...BE the change you want to see in the world!