beautiful.

good afternoon from johannesburg! :)

hope you've all had a wonderful week so far. we are definitely in the home stretch; i will be home in less than five weeks! i cannot believe it is mid-November already; where did the time go? i am really feeling the crunch; it's a wild emotional ride at the moment. anyway, i'll have lots to tell come Christmas. :)

we spent the beginning of this week on holiday, around two hours away from our home. we packed (or squished) seven people and their luggage into an SUV-type thing called a Condor. and off we went. :)

we stayed in a nice little chalet, complete with rain spiders (four inches across, common here) and monkeys wrestling on the roof. :) it was great fun. we went on multiple game drives, both morning and evening, and saw all sorts of wildlife. This included giraffes, all types of antelope (kudu, impala, springbok, steenbok, riverbuck), rhinos, an elephant, hippos, african birds, turtles, and LIONS. :) we got up at 5am both mornings, so i came home and slept half a day. :D it was absolutely amazing! ... but the animals were not the greatest thing God showed me on our trip. to share that, i'll give you a bit of background info.

Pilanesberg National Park is situated in an extinct volcanic crater, and is quite large. i'd venture to say we drove several hundred kilometers through the park, and only saw a small part of all that was there. there are savannas and lakes and forests and mountains; it is beautiful! as i've told some of you, Africa has more of a 'dry and rainy' season than summer and winter, which means we had no rain for two months but now have storms almost daily. these are not quiet rain showers; the electrical storms here are intense! these, added to dry terrain, make it easy for fires to begin and spread quickly. such an incident recently happened at Pilanesberg, as a fire burned through acres of grassland and trees in no time. this was in August, only around three months ago! yet, as quickly as the fire cleared the land, life returned. the burnt land is chock full of nutrients, and the ground is quickly covered in a bright green blanket. but, more astonishing than that are the trees. trees on the grassland are thin and small for the most part, suited to their environment. they're not particularly hardy-looking, they look scrawny! but they are the most awe-inspiring green things i have ever seen. <3
the skinny little trees were black- for the most part. though they had been burned and 'oppressed' and beaten down, they refused to give up. through the black branches, sprouts of green popped out. some even had a whole side that was green! it was amazing. i took several pictures, so have a look at one.

the moral of the story is: God can restore anything. No matter how much something (or someone) has been hurt and abused and rejected and persecuted, God can bring her back to glory. what a wonderful God we serve. <3

alright, well it's nearly time for Friday night youth. i hope you all have a fantastic weekend, and i will write more soon. :)

to end, the words of Isaiah:

“Pay attention, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel. I, the Lord, made you, and I will not forget you. I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.” Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done this wondrous thing. Shout for joy, O depths of the earth! Break into song, O mountains and forests and every tree! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and is glorified in Israel. This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer and Creator: “I am the Lord, who made all things. I alone stretched out the heavens. Who was with me when I made the earth? I expose the false prophets as liars and make fools of fortune-tellers. I cause the wise to give bad advice, thus proving them to be fools. But I carry out the predictions of my prophets! By them I say to Jerusalem, ‘People will live here again,’ and to the towns of Judah, ‘You will be rebuilt; I will restore all your ruins!’ (chapter 44, verses 21-26)

This is what the Lord says to his anointed one, whose right hand he will empower. Before him, mighty kings will be paralyzed with fear. Their fortress gates will be opened, never to shut again. This is what the Lord says: “I will go before you and level the mountains. I will smash down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness— secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name. (chapter 45, verses 1-3)