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due to my obnoxious facebook posts, many of you probably already know that i went out of town for the past couple of weeks. we had a break from classes for about a week so, three friends (lindsey, elle and ashton) and i decided to adventure. we ended up taking a few extra days off from classes (whoops) in order to see as much as humanly possible. in 12 days we went to 3 countries. i think it's easy to view africa like the US meaning, each country is like a different state but let me tell you, that is not the case. these countries are far apart and south africa is huge. each time you enter or exit a different country you have to exit the bus and clear customs, which could take an unfortunate amount of time. our final journey back to gaborone began in macia, mozambique and took 18 hours, 3 buses, and 3 border crossings. a long, long, long, journey. complaints aside, everything was completely worth it. without a doubt, these past few weeks will be some of my favorite memories from my time here. we spent our first 4 days in manzini, swaziland with the sweetest missionary couple, dudley and inge donaldson in the whole wide world. they fed us home-made cookies and let us watch their TV (none of us have watched actual TV in months). also, let me say, swaziland is one of those hidden gems of the world. it is so beautiful and i had no idea. we arrived at night time and were exhausted so we went quickly to bed. the next morning we woke up to the most glorious sunrise peacocks, black swans and ducks in a small pond out the window and rolling mountains for miles. that afternoon the donaldson's hosted a braai (bbq) for some of the rural children that they work with. we spent the whole afternoon playing games and laughing with these sweet swazi children. after the braai finished, we ended up heading back to their village area on the truck. the truck had about 80 people packed onto it and no roof or walls. not to mention, we were driving through the mountains on unpaved roads. it was quite the adventure.

once we arrived, we followed a girl named sempiwe to her house. as we were walking down the green mountain to sempiwe's house the sun was setting and an array of colors was bursting across the sky. it was glorious. we were invited inside along with 3 other children. sempiwe and her siblings offered us some juice and turned on the TV. so, there we sat watching WWE, drinking juice with 4 swazi children in a house carved into the side of a mountain while the sun was setting like i've never seen it set in my life. it was one of those moments where i felt special that God chose me to experience that. after about an hour, dudley came to pick us up and we returned to the donaldson's house for some JAG and a good night's sleep. the rest of our time in swaziland was nothing short of amazing. from manzini we headed to johannesburg, south africa to attend the passion conference. passion was the most awesome experience and one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

 it was so surreal worshiping God with thousands upon thousands of south africans. chris tomlin kept saying things like "hello south africa" and "howzit johannesburg?" and i kept having to remind myself that i wasn't dreaming. it was so cool. when we got to johannesburg, we decided we wanted to push the adventurous sides of ourselves and so we rented a car and drove around johannesburg. keep in mind, none of us have driven in months and they drive on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. it was an experience. no one died and we didn't wreck the car, so i guess that's good. from south africa,we headed to macia, mozambique  where we stayed with joseph and mancoba. joseph is originally from mozambique and mancoba is from swaziland. joseph and mancoba have a ministry in rural mozambique that is in beginning stages of a school and feeding station for kids. a lot of our time in mozambique was spent with these sweet, sweet kids that joseph and mancoba are working hard to help. many of these kids are orphans and were among some of the most mal-nourished children i have ever seen in africa. you know those children with extremely distended bellys on "save the african child" commercials? yeah, that's exactly what these kids looked like. the village they live in is so rural that there is no electricity. when we first arrived, we met a small girl named angelina who was busy grinding maize in a bowl with a massive pole. i wish i could explain to you how hard this work is. this little girl had massive arm muscles already. i asked her (well, gestured she spoke no english) if i could give it a try and after about 2 minutes i was exhausted. i'm pretty sure i watched her do it for at least an hour straight. after a while, her mother told joseph who told me that angelina is 6 years old. on saturday, we fed about 60 children at the feeding station. again, my heart was captured by a tiny girl named luisa. i kept telling lindsey "i can't keep doing stuff like this, i'm ready to take one home," luisa spoke no english and i speak no shangan (local language in mozambique) but we bonded. she looked really malnourished and dirty and i decided she could probably use a few hugs. she timidly followed me around the whole day and i could not help but smile at her. she stole my heart. even though i knew her for a day, it was hard to leave her behind.

on sunday, we went to church and then went to the most beautiful beach. at about 7 pm we boarded a kombi and went to maputo (the capital of mozambique) to spend one final night. we stayed in a really cool hostel called fatima's for $20 and spent the next day wandering around maputo and scanning the craft market. i think we all spent too much money that day...but hey, they had some great local art and we felt we had to support our new friends ;) from there, the long journey back to gaborone began and it seemed neverending but alas, here i am, back in my dorm room in  botswana. it was an interesting feeling arriving back in botswana. i didn't feel as if i was entering another african country, it simply felt like i was arriving at home. it's amazing to me how much this place feels like home and leaving it made me realize how much i love it. i am so grateful for my friends here and the experiences i have had so far. i only have about 60 days left and that honestly terrifies me but God has a plan for me and i find peace in that and that alone. so cliche, but so true "for I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." jeremiah 29:11