Safe Arrival

Hello, All!

Guess where I am??? You guessed it! South Africa!

I arrived safely yesterday around 7:20am in the Johannesburg airport. Our site director Arthur, his eldest son Arthur-Paul, and one of the apprentices, Chris, picked me up. I was extremely grateful, laden with heavy luggage and somewhat disoriented by the reconstruction of the airport, to have some familiar and soon-to-be-familiar faces greet me, guide me out of the airport, and drive me (back on the left side of the road) to my new home!

God blessed me with needed times of rest on all of my flights, from Portland to Chicago to London to Jo’burg. I even got a couple of hours sleeping on comfy airport chairs in the London Heathrow airport among others who had the same idea.

Since being back at Pangani, the NieuCommunities’ main site and guesthouse where all the apprentices stay (where co-staff Barbara and I are staying until we move into our own place in two weeks), I have felt very wrapped in God’s love. He knows even better than I do what I have left behind, what awaits me in my new life here, all that I feel I must do to wrap up and process things from being in Portland, and all of the new responsibilities that await me as new staff here. And I feel that He is giving me time and space right now, to just adjust, and to be. I appreciate that- more than anything.

Because of this new-felt freedom from God, I am enjoying getting to know the apprentices here this year (eight of them- four guys and four girls), as well as reconnecting with others whom I had known before. And again, I feel God’s grace as I do, reminding me that I have all year to get to know folks and that it’s okay for me to not have the frenetic type of schedule, fitting things in, and daily, weekly, and monthly To-Do lists that I had grown so accustomed to the past few months. (I know I will start writing lists again soon, but God is reminding me right now of their arbitrary nature sometimes).

Right now I am staying at Pangani myself with fellow new staff Barbara in the extra house on the property. In two weeks, though, another couple and their kids are joining our community for the rest of the year and they’ll be staying in this house. So Barbara (who I affectionately refer to as “BJ”) found a place for us (while I was preparing to come in the past few weeks) and we’ll be moving into it on June 12th. It is actually our good friend Elizabeth’s brother’s house that he is renting out for a while (we’ll probably be there about a year). It’s only about a kilometer from Pangani, which is ideal as we will be coming and going there for community activities regularly. I may post pictures of it on here when I have more time!

For now, I’ll give you my mailing address. It is just the address for Pangani, as that is the most convenient place to have mail sent. So if you’d like to write or send me anything, you can mail to here:

106 Emily Hobhouse Ave.

Pretoria North 0182

South Africa

I will be continuing to update you and in the meantime, I am so grateful to all those who sent me off with love from Portland. Stay tuned and many blessings from “across the universe-” okay, just the world, I guess.

Love, Sarah