Entry 9- 7/4/08

About 9:06AM

After a long night on the truck, we have arrived at the border of South Africa. We're sort of stuck here because the border patrol wants to charge us $1,000 USD to leave S.A.

Okay, so I guess we had to pay the money and we just went through immigration at Botswana. Now we drive 14 or 15 hours to Zambia, wait probably 5 hours to get through and then the real fun begins. Charnay met up with us last night and seems very sweet. We've been having some great conversations. Yesterday, a bunch of us went to the movies and later, had dinner at a place called Parrots. First Courtney and DJ met up with a South African family, a mother and her 3 girls. The litte girls knelt down and prayed for us!

7/5/08 9:00AM

Had to stop writing. Too bumpy on the truck. We are about 3 hours from Zamiba's border. Yesterday driving through Botswana, I really got a sense of Africa. Here, the land is very open, a lot of scrub bushes, trees, and very few roads and cities. The houses were mostly huts with an occassional brick building. Saw many cows, bulls, sheep, goats, and mules but only saw one elephant way off in the distance. There is an obvious shortage of water here. Nearly every rest stop we made yielded a toilet with no running water. We were turned away many times. Also, every water hole I saw in the bush was bone dry and so were three of the four rivers I saw. I didn't sleep on the truck at all during the day. We had the back and side flaps up so I read, listened to music and watched the scenery. We stopped at a campsite and set up camp. I was on kitchen team with Kaley, Simeon, and Rebeka. We ate dinner around the camp fire and talked about where we would be in Zambia. First stop, a village called Mwandi. Betram and Chelsea shared some scripture and encouragement and a few other people did as well. Sleeping in the tent was not too bad. It got really really cold and I kept sliding off my sleeping pad. But other than that, I slept well. There is a sense that something exciting is about to happen. I'm longing for more contact with these people. They are genuine in a way that I can't really explain. Ryan, Betram, Emily and Tarrin are leaving today. So we will be under Rachelle's guidance as well as the other leaders, Brian and Patrick, 2 Zambians I have not met yet. I hope our border crossing to Zambia goes smoothly today. I know that it can take several hours and I pray that God uses that time to His glory and I pray for soft hearts of the border workers, so that we will pass into Zambia without fines and with ease.