My first week on HG staff

My first week of being on Holy Given staff, and man oh man is it busy! But its so much fun. This is an amazing group of students, they are so eager to get involved and really don't mind going the extra mile.

I did sound training with all the guys again, and they've been doing their own sound for school since the start of HG (its going good), and the outreaches are also going really well. It is quite a task keeping all the systems juggled - there is an overnight outreach every Thursday, returning Friday afternoon, but then 2 teams leaving every Friday morning for weekend outreach. And there is school everyday. And even tho I have 4 systems, I want the guys to practice on the outreach systems, so making sure that an outreach system isn't accidentally setup on a Friday when its meant to go out is a challenge... Good thing they are all color coded: Red (the small Yamaha Stage Pass system) and Yellow, Green & Blue (Mackie SRM450 outreach systems)!

So the systems have been going really well, although on this past weekend's outreach the 'Yellow' system's generator stopped working on the 2nd night, so they borrowed a small one from someone in the village, and this resulted in one of the guys on the team sending me an ominous text message: "We have some work for you..." Oh no! :-§

Well, the generator they had borrowed didn't have a voltage regulator built into it, so one of the plug strips went 'poof' (I'm told there was smoke and sparks!) and the little sound desk [a Yamaha MG10/2] stopped working too. Fortunately when I tested the little sound desk today it still worked, I'm SO relieved, as they are no longer in production so getting a replacement sent up from South Africa would have been next to impossible. The plug strip is a goner tho - good thing I got 5 extra ones in my storeroom! :-)

I am also responsible for the 'Village Feeding'. Heidi's heart is that no one goes hungry, so even tho the village kids are not allowed on the base during the day, they are allowed in for an hour or 2 for lunch. It gets kinda rowdy up in the kitchen/dining room, so the village kids are fed in one of the classrooms are the bottom of the property. My job is to make sure that there is a team of students who do this everyday. I made a schedule and the students have been AMAZING and run with it. No problems!!! (I told you they are a great bunch!)

I'm also trying to find some of the 'lost luggage' - doing it as a favor for Eric who helped me out with sound for the week that I was away - so I go to the airport everyday searching for the bags! The 2 students have been pretty chilled about it, they have been living out of whatever they had in their carry-on for the past 2 weeks! I did try and cheer them up tho, and I told them about a student from the previous school who's lost luggage only turned up the day before he left Pemba! I dont think they appreciated me telling them that! :-p

So it's going really well, God is doing some amazing things in the student's lives, and it's really exciting to be part of it all!

Heading North

I'm on my way to Pemba after 2 short weeks in South Africa! My exams went well, but I'm glad that they are finally done.
Holy Given started on Tuesday, so I've missed the first few days of school - but I'm sure that I'll get settled in real quick and get to know all the students that I will be working with for the next 9 weeks!

I'm studying really hard. Serious....

OK, so I'm not really throwing myself into studying as much as I should be - but I have a valid excuse: Raphael and Eric travelled with me to Pretoria to renew their visas, so I just HAD to show them a bit of South Africa! It was their first time in my country, and you know what they say about first impressions...

So I took them to our big mall (Menlyn), I took them to visit an old Dutch fort (Fort Klapperkop) and we went to Pilanesberg National Park, to go look at some animals. It was so much fun to have them here - and I think they liked it too!

A 'Disinfector' used to clean the soldier's uniforms 

Here are some photos taken by Raphael at the game reserve: (click on the thumbnails to view the larger versions on Raphael's website)




So this past week has been fun, but the guys left today... I guess now I have no more excuses! I write my first exam on Oct 15, and the second one on the 17th. Then I head back to Pemba to join the staff for the next Holy Given School of Missions [HG7] starting soon.