“I guess you might say he gave me the world.”

Today David and I are celebrating our 8^th Wedding Anniversary:-)  Celebrating our anniversary today (with the world's best hot chocolate...what else?) and being here in South Africa made me think of the movie “While You Were Sleeping”.  It is a movie with a perfect blend of ridiculous humor, love story sentimentality, cheering for the underdog, and of course a happy ending.  And Sandra Bullock is fantastic.  David can quote large portions of the movie.  While I cannot touch David’s movie-quoting abilities, my favorite quote from the movie is at the very end when Lucy and Jack are newly married: “Thank goodness my Father was right.  Life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan.  But Jack, Jack gave me the perfect gift: a stamp in my passport.  He took me to Florence for our honeymoon.  I guess you might say he gave me the world.”  Happy 8^th Anniversary David! I love you and thank you for giving me the world!

The other night David and I sat down and just wrote out a list of some of the highlights so far, from our first two weeks here in South Africa.  I don’t have time to write out stories for all of these, but I want to capture them to be able to remember them.  So, in no particular order, and knowing that these won’t make sense to most people (sorry...bad premise for a blog post), here are some of the highlights thus far:

1. Braai at Talida and Johann’s house.
2. Springbok rugby game in Durban.
3. Hiking at Queen Elizabeth Park Nature Reserve and seeing three zebras up close.
4. Going to Jubalani Kids Club in Sweetwaters.
5. Touring Sweetwaters and seeing some of the gardens that iThemba is working on with NonJabs
6. Going to uShaka marine world.  Especially the toilet bowl water slide.
7. Fruit smoothies with Steph at the Indian Ocean/Durban beachfront
8. Talking with Machenini about environmental issues here in SA, and his family’s involvement with the ANC and fighting apartheid.
9. Playing games and visiting with kids at the children’s burn unit in a government hospital.
10. TopTots with Matthew
11. The Royal Show
12. Watching Timothy visit a creche (preschool) in Sweetwaters.
13. Meeting our neighbors, the Zulus, who have son Timothy’s age, and a daughter in high school (babysitter!)
14. Wandering University of KZN Durban and finding the jazz music students who gave us two private concerts.
15. Generosity beyond my wildest dreams from so many…the Binions for letting us stay in their house and use their car and everything they own.  The UBI community for welcoming us and answering a million questions.  Christ’s Church and how they have amazingly demonstrated Matthew 25:35 and what it means to welcome a stranger…by loaning us kids stuff, babysitting, invitations to join Bible studies, homes for the kiddos to play, rides, advice on x,y and z, and providing a place for David to work.  And David and Steph…for your time, good conversation, explaining a million things and being our cultural translators, rides to everywhere, re-teaching us to drive, introducing us to Phil Vischer podcasts, help with the kiddos, and organizing a bijillion things for us to experience:-)

 I KNOW I’m super slow to post pictures.  Sorry.  Someday…