Destination: Africa. Day 2

Sarah here.
Hello from Africa! We are safe and sound in Swaziland.  I plan to post my daily journals of our Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday traveling, but for now, I will start with today.  It is almost 11 pm (Swazi time), and I am running on very little sleep, so bare with me.

Monday
July 19, 2010
Destination: Jesus Is the Answer Church in Swaziland, Africa

Today was our first day of serving the people of Swaziland.  We started off the day waking up at 5:30 to shower and make it to breakfast by 6:40.  There are 300 people on our Heart for Africa trip, so we were put into teams of about 10 each (we are the largest group with 23 people, Stroups, Burns, Pastor Thomas, a group from Atlanta, and a group from Taiwan), and larger groups, called waves, to split up breakfast times.  There are 3 waves (teams 1-10, 11-20, 21-30), and we are in wave 3... which is the best because we have the latest breakfast!  And it also means that we have the shortest commute, wave 1 travels about 2 and a half hours each way to their church, wave 2 travels about 2 hours, and wave 3 travels about an hour.  Our group, though, has an incredibly short commute; we only have about a 20 minute drive to our church.
So, moving right along, we ate breakfast, which was really good.  The juice, though, wasn't as good... we had some sort of guava juice and lemonade-looking, but NOT tasting, juice.

Then we headed to our church.  Being at the church and loving and living with the people of the surrounding area was indescribable.  I love this country!
So much happened today, so many stories to tell.  Each person, each child, each house had their own story, but they will have to wait for another day because it is 11:30 PM Swazi time, and I have to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

Our first day was a huge success, and I have 629 pictures (yes, 629 pictures from JUST TODAY!) to prove it... which also all have their own story to tell. I am too tired to go through and pick out my favorites...
I hope to post a real journal tomorrow and a few videos I shot today of all the children and women singing "Jesus Loves Me" and breath-taking songs in Siswati (not sure how to spell that).


Goodnight! Or good evening to those back home!
Love,
Sarah