"was blind but now I see"

Just finished my first real week in SA! God is good. I can hardly wait to tell you all about it... we'll see how much I can cram in to this post!

I've sung "amazing grace" a million times. Last week, I think I understood it for the first time. One afternoon I was out playing with a bunch of the kids on the jungle gym when Aphiwe toddled up crying because he was lost from the group of kids. Aphiwe is 5-years-old, is an orphan with HIV and is also blind. He had never met me so whenever I grabbed his hand he immediately started touching my arms, hands and face and smelling me all over. He asked for my name and hasn't forgotten it yet. He climbed up into my lab and then started singing "Amazing Grace." How awesome to hear those words coming from his mouth:

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind but now, I see."

Hope, joy and love are all very alive here.

Kids are funny. You can tell that all 52 of the kids are drilled in the Gospel. I was out on the jungle gym when group of pre-schoolers came up with a dead frog "crucified" to a cross made out of sticks and a broken balloon. Can't help but laugh. :) The kids love playing with my curly hair and keep asking me why my hair looks like that. Yesterday the girls gave me a new hair-do using sticks and sandbox shovels as brushes and combs. Yikes!

Kids are survivors. Most of the kids here are not just living with HIV. Most come from dark pasts including malnutrition, sexual abuse, domestic abuse and so on. One little boy came to Rehoboth barely alive weighing 2.2kg at SIX months!! He's a year old now and is quite chubby but is very developmentally behind. Some were raped as babies, left in toilets or hospitals to die, some relatives don't even know the child's name. Please pray for these kids.

Life is excited here at Rehoboth. Last week we were approved to begin building the second village so they can begin to care for another 50 HIV orphans. Great news! We celebrated by going to a Michael W. Smith concert in Durban! That was quite a treat! It was refreshing to here another American accent so I didn't have to strain my ears while he was talking and singing. I especially loved singing "A New Hallelujah" with him as it has been a BRH favorite this past semester. Really missing my 30 best friends that were with my last May experiencing this with me.

I have learned so much about HIV/AIDS, Africa and myself and it's only been a week. Here's are a couple of lists for you:

You know you are in Africa when (roadside edition)...
1. You smell sugar cane and chicken farms from the road instead of feed-lots.
2. You see zebras, ostridges (sp?), and monkies from the car window.
3. People are taking a nap literally ON the highway. Like on the actual road where cars are driving!!
4. A Zulu woman is walking with a matress on her head, a baby strapped to her back and bags in both hands while her no-good-lazy-non-gentleman husband is walking ahead with NOTHING in his hands.
5. Three-year-olds are walking on the side of the highway with no supervision.
6. The speed limit is 60 kilometers/hour but the taxis are driving at least 120 kph.

Each day last week I had some sort of training. Here are some of the things I learned on the "HIV/AIDS training day" and other cultural lessons.
1. Three million people die each year from AIDS (that's the population of Chicago)
2. 8000 people day per DAY from AIDS.
3. 50% of people living with AIDS in America do not know.
4. 14,000 people contract HIV each day.
5. The going rate for sex here in Kwa-Zulu Natal is about $5.

With all that said, life is so good here. I'm continually reminded of God's majesty from the children and the beautiful rolling hills outside my window. The other night I sat outside and starred at the stars. I've never seen so many in my life. Psalm 8 pretty much sums it up for me:

"Oh LORD, our Lord. How majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea.

Oh LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth."

-Brigid