Oh Canada

Howzit,

First of all, let me just mention that it is really really cold here in Canada. Boy did we get spoiled with those last hot and sunny days in South Africa.

Second of all, it's get to be able to say that, despite a long and tiring travel day, we all made it safely back to Canada. AND! So did our luggage :) What a blessing. Speaking of blessings, the prayers you tossed out there for safe flights and smooth connections worked wonders; I don't think I've ever gone through customs as quickly as we did yesterday.

It's been a blast sharing our journey with you over the last 3 months - we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for growing with us, learning with us and praying for us. It's so exciting to be back and able to share those stories and pictures with you in person.

So on behalf of the 2010/2011 Outtatown team,

Cheers,

Sandy

Heronbridge!!!!!

We spent the week back at Heronbridge Retreat Centre to finish all of our year-end debriefs. Rad Raf had the privilege of being the last debriefer. It was cool to hear about everyone's favourite moments, what everyone is taking out of the year, and how much we all love each other. We learned even more about the people we have spent the past year with and the potential in everybody to benefit the world.
We also got in some last minute tanning and had a casino night where Mennonite Madness and Dutch Blitz were played ferociously, and the Outta-Tony Awards were announced. Girls appreciation day was planned down to dinner and a show including our favorite boy band which has the most ridiculous name that not even members of the band remember it.
Today as a final moment of celebration (until Starbucks in Germany), Joshua Patkau was baptized!
Tomorrow we start our 36 hours of travel and I am a bit frightened to arrive home, as I can even see my breath here now!
Pce. Britany Marsolaiz

Kruger National Park!

When we arrived at Krugar National Park, we were excited to learn that we would be staying in tradional, grass roofed huts. We cooked our meals together outside, and the biggest problem with that was that the monkeys would come and steal our food if we didn't watch it. South Africa's racoon.
When people think of South Africa, they think of long grass, rolling hills, and of course the elephants, giraffes, zebras, and lions. This is the perfect description of Krugar National Park. Our site got split up into two groups, and each group went on two 3-hour safaris, one at 5 a.m. and one at 5 p.m.. My group went on the evening safari first. We mostly just saw owls, but near the end, we were lucky enough to see a pride of 5 lions, which was amazing, considering they sometimes go weeks without seeing on lion. Seeing a pride was a real gift.
For our morning safari, we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to the truck. We got to watch an amazing sunrise. We saw water buffalo, wildebeests, rhinos, vultures, warthogs, giraffes, zebras, and other African animals. The most exciting site by far though, was the elephants. At first we only saw five, far away in the trees. But as we started to drive away, a huge herd of them appeared close to our truck. There was about 20 of them, ranging from newborn babies to fully grown elephants. For most people, it was our first elephant siting, which completed the big 5.
Seeing all these animals was a huge privilege for me, and I'll never forget it.
- Emily Loeppky

Missions School

After our time in Swaziland we spent a few days that the African School of Missions. Our time there was spent mostly on debrief. ASM was where we started to tell our stories of the year. We told the group about our highs and lows, where we had struggled and where we had grown. There was a lot of laughter and a few tears as we all started to accept that our time together was coming to an end. We spent our free time playing sports, sitting by the pool and just hanging out with eachother and just enjoying the time we had left together. We capped it off by running in the rain and standing there awed by the lightening. Except for Dan who decided to jump in the pool in a lightning storm, he quickly thought better of that decision and climbed out. After that show it was off to Kruger for some tourist time.

By: Josh Paetkau

Reaching Out in Swaziland

We all piled into the bus excited to start our new adventure. Outtatown was on its way to Swaziland; the third country in Africa we were visiting. After the easiest border crossing ever we preceded to Manzini where we would be staying for the next five days. Our partner there was the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), so we knew we were in good hands.

While there we visited a mock traditional tribal village. They told us about their culture and we got to go inside a few of their huts. We learned that by the age of six, the kids move out of their parent's huts and into their own girls and boys kid's huts, where they would live separate lives together in the hut until they get married. We also learned that when entering a hut the women would stay to the left and the men to the right. The Swazi culture held separation of the genders to a high esteem and this was simply another way of demonstrating that.

By far the most meaningful part of my week were the orphanages that we visited. We spent time at four different ones in the rural Swaziland areas. On our first visit we spent the day painting for a woman who had liquidated all her assets in order to start up an orphanage and HIV/AIDS clinic. We saw the heart of this woman and were stoked to support her in any way we could. The next three orphanages we went to consisted of us entertaining kids; we played games, sang them songs, made paper airplanes for them, and just held these kids who, I think, blessed us more than we blessed them. Even though they don't come from the best situations they were still excited to laugh and to play, and be tickled to no end. Their circumstances didn't seem to faze them. They still live others and are willing to learn and be thankful for the blessings they do have. This was the love of God in action. I loved investing in these children's lives and putting a smile on their faces.

Another thing that was cool was seeing a couple of the children wearing Toms. Toms shoes is a brand that will donate a pair of shoes to a child who needs them for every pair that the consumer buys. For us it was super exciting to see the receiving end of something we do. Some of us already wear Toms, so to see a child who has been blessed by us supporting the brand was really encouraging. I know that we want to support it even more when we get home.

My week in Swazi proved to be uplifting and fulfilling. From bartering in the markets for our loved ones' souvenirs, to learning about yet another new culture, to spending time with God's most precious children I've continued to be stretched in my abilities, points of view, and most importantly, faith.

-Laura Bernier

Drakensberg Hike and Zulu meal

Most of us were pumped for our three days in the Drakensberg mountains but the thought of being split up for a week was a little sad, but not too sad. All of us had been hoping that we would be in our canoe trip groups from the first semester to partake in some more inside jokes and stir up old, fond memories. Our wish came true and my group was to depart first. we filled our packs with what we thought were the essentials, strapped them snugly around our hips, laced up our hiking boots and if we were smart, applied sunscreen. The first day was a managable hour-and-a-bit jaunt to our sleeping quarters for the next two nights, a cave. We unrolled our mats which were two centimeters of pure luxury and ensured that there were no drips in our chosen spot before unrolling our sleeping bags. Then it was down to the river to replenish our water supply with cool, crisp, refreshing mountain H2O (some of us took the warning from Raf and purified our water with a complicated system involving at least a fifteen minute wait since last years group may have picked up a parasite here. But impatient others -myself included- drank freely but not before praying over it -shout out to Joshua D. of course). We also took a dip to cool off and tested out a natural water slide. Anywho, it was 5:30 the next morning when our guide, Paul, woke me up. A hearty breakfast of oatmeal and we were on our way! As we hiked we enjoyed the glamorous scenery. We spotted baboons and only hoped the security guards back at the cave were watching out stuff. I will spare you the details of the long and gruesome struggle and skip to our arrival at the top of Rhino's peak. Spectacular! a 360 degree panorama awaited us. I think it was the most beautiful view I had ever seen! All of us were so proud for making it up there. We just sat and ate our lunch in awe. None of us wanted to leave such an amazing display of God's beauty and power. But the time came and we tore ourselves away. We were all pretty pleased to get back into the cave, prepare some dinner and then settle in for the night (all of us praying for a better sleep than the first night). The next morning we were sad to have to go. Connecting with God through nature, getting some good fresh air and excercise and being with a fewer amount of people was really a nice break for all of us.

I am also to mention an evening a few nights after our return to Project Gateway in Pietermaritzburg. We had the privilege of partaking in a traditional Zulu meal, the featured dish? Chicken feet! What a shock when the thing on your plate has claws and fingers. For most of us it was just a mental thing we had to get past, but really, they turned out to be not too bad. My group was the second to have this meal and the other group saved us from also stomaching trip because apparently they didn't do a very good job of hiding the fact that none of them liked it. Anyway, the highlight of the evening was watching (and participating in) some traditional dances. Afterward we all went outside (in the light mist) and played some African (and Canadian) games. The evening was concluded with singing. Some of the Zulu women busted into beautiful worship songs. It was a great end to the night.

Written by: Christine Barkey

A Week of Curry

Hello to all of our dedicated followers.
Last week was our final homestay with an Indian family in Durban. We arrived on Saturday and after an introduction we got our homestay assignments and went our separate ways. We met again on Sunday for church and then went out for a picnic and games with the church members. We started our week at the Chatworth drug rehab centre where we got a talk about drug prevention in Durban. Next we went to the Hare Krishna temple. Hare Krishna is an Indian religion which has similarities to Hindu but also many differences. It's hard to explain. We then went to our first mall of the week. We went to one everyday, by the end of the week some had visited 4 different malls. Tuesday started with a talk about Indians in SA by pastor Dan, the pastor of the church. We then got another talk at the University of Kwazulu-Natal. After that we went to the Pheonix settlement. This was a settlement set up by Mahatma Ghandi during his time in SA, we toured his home. On Wednesday we went to the Victoria market to do some shopping. We then spent time at a Muslim mosque where we had a lecture on Islam and then ate a traditional Muslim meal with our hands. Thursday was spent at the Aryan Benevolent Home, a home for the elderly. We got a tour, sang songs and talked to the residents. On Friday we had a fun day. We started the day by taking a big bunch of kids to the beach. We spent the morning playing with the kids and making sure they didn't run into the water. After that we walked to uShaka watermark and basically unwound after a packed week. We took tube rides past the aquariums filled with penguins, dolphins and sharks, went downvthe tallest waterslide in Africa and the decided to start getting crazy. We took 22 people down a slide with 1 second gaps and then packed 17 people into an 8 person tube and went down a waterslide. We had a lot of fun and got some great videos. During the week we tried a lot of new, spicy foods and got to eat it all with our hands, every parents worst nightmare, be glad you weren't here. Well that was our week in Durban, bye for now.

Josh Paetkau