a week gone by

So much has happened this last week! I know I mentioned I would update more often once work projects started but the days are so busy and long now. The weekends are really the only time I have to catch up emails and blogging. I've also been using my free time to rest. Ive been having some issues with my asthma this past week which has not been fun. So if you think of it, keep me in your prayers! I want to breathe easily once again!

I'll start on last weekend. We had a day trip to the Drakensberg Mountains on Sunday. We took a 45 minute hike up to see some ancient cave paintings. It was pretty incredible to see something that was painted there thousands of years ago. It was also a beautiful day.

This past week at Walk in the Light has been extremely busy and productive. Monday, we cleared a shed. It was a huge task as the whole thing was packed full of wood and other random things. After some walls and doors are added the shed is going to be used as gym/hang out center for the youth.

On Tuesday, we spent the morning whacking away at knee high grass. We've clear quite a huge area. Let me tell you, using a dull machetes and pitch forks to clear that much grass is quite the task. We've cleared it to build a playground for the kids from Haniville. There's this perfect tree right center of the grassy area that were going to using for tire swings. We've even begun construction on a tree house. I'm really no help in all these construction projects, due to my complete lack of real construction skills, but it's been fun to see the progress and encourage the people with construction skills. Another exciting thing about the playground project is that the senior youth have gotten really involved with the clearing of the grass and building the playground. We're learning in our community develop class about the importance of empowering the people of community by working a long side them.

Tuesday afternoon, we attended the funeral of one of the ladies who died last week. It was a heart breaking and eye opening afternoon. Being at the cemetery was unreal . There were so many graves only feet apart from each other. We were told that the cemetery is running out of room and are forced to dig graves extremely close. There are up to 10 to 15 funerals on saturdays and sundays. It's a painful reality.

Wednesday and Thursday we continued the playground project. We have the start of an awesome tree house. We also got to feed all the kids lunch both days. The afternoons are my favorite part of the day when all the kids come to play!

okay it's super late here so I'm gonna end this, but i'll be sure to put pictures up this week. I miss all of you!