Sanibonani from South Africa

After an uneventful 22 hours of flying time, we arrived safely into Johannesburg an hour early . . . then the drama began!! We were without six of our bags!! Luckily five of them were bags with quilts and supplies. The sixth missing piece was Steph's personal baggage!! After filing our lost baggage claims, we proceeded to pick up our rental cars and found out they only had 2 of the 3 Kombis (large vans) that we had reserved. We ended up with 2 Kombis and 1 minivan. It has worked out to our benefit as the minivan is automatic so Russ feels better about driving!!! Next we went to purchase a Sim card for our phones and ended up purchasing two new phones as they would not work. All of this took 4-5 hours!! It ended up to be a good thing as it was easier for our drivers to adjust to driving on the opposite side of the street with less traffic. The team was very patient through all of this and I'm very grateful for that!! It was a long journey from LAX to our hotel in Johannesburg.

Saturday was a great day!! I had planned a surprise field trip for the team! We went to The Lion Park!! It was awesome as we saw zebras, giraffes, lions, antelope, wildebeest, cheetahs, hyenas and an ostrich!! It was similar to Lion Country Safari except we actually saw animals. Along the lion route, the ranger threw pieces of meat towards our car and the lions came right up and ate it. They were only 5 feet away from us!! The highlight was going to Cub World where we were able to pet lion cubs!!

We were blessed to have as our driving guides, Pastor Themba and his wife, Buhle. They took us to the community where they live in Slovoville. This was an eye-opening experience for all of us!! The children all ran to the tiny room they call their church when they heard singing! They were so happy to sing to Jesus for us!! Our hearts were amazed that they were so happy when the whole community is in such poor condition. They don't see the broken chairs, the glassless windows, the lack of electricity or feel the freezing cold of winter that we felt or saw. We were all very humbled and I was brought to tears to see Jesus through them!! After teaching them Deep, Deep, Down, Pastor Gary ended with a prayer for all of them. It was experience our team will never forget.