Hello! 
First off, I would like to just thank all the past and present armed forces that fight for our country as well as remember all of those who have fallen from September 11, 2001. We will never forget the sacrifice you all have made! I can’t believe it has already been 10 years. 
This week has been filled with a few ups and downs, but it ends just right. Today was a 1st for a few things. 1. My first rugby world cup!!! After church, we all gathered around the t.v. to watch South Africa take on Wales. I almost felt like a traitor cheering for the Springboks because Daniel’s family is from Wales…but sorry Roberts! I had to cheer for my current home – the green and yellow! It was a very entertaining game and South Africa did indeed win…by one point! Rugby is a crazy game. I feel like it is a combination of so many sports plus insanity throwing your body around like that. I look forward to watching more games because it is quite entertaining!
2. Today was also the first ‘prayer walk’ for the churches of Ocean View. Ocean View is a rather large community, but even so, to have over 200 churches in the area is outrageous! I doubt Raleigh even has that many churches and it is way bigger! So a bunch of the churches came together and prayed for different areas of the community. Many people are very passionate about having the churches come together. It is a shame that Christians, who all believe in the same God and Jesus, can be so hostile towards one another. These walks are to gain unity amongst all the churches and with the new strength, make a difference in making Ocean View a better place. 
I was really put to work this week on the Ubuntu front. Being the only girl volunteer at this point, they had the perfect job for me. Basically, it was a job that the rest of them didn’t want! I had to tape together ribbon around 70 invitations for the fundraiser! The ribbon was super small. The task was on the tedious end, but hey, if it gets people to come to the fundraiser and helps to raise money for the teams, I’m on board, and the invitations look awesome! 
At Friday night youth group, I heard some disturbing news. Two of the youth, one girl in 8th grade and one boy in 9th grade, got mugged at knife point in broad daylight at the entrance of the neighborhood. Obviously, it’s unsafe to walk around at night, but for kids to get mugged in the daylight is pretty frightening. The weird thing is, the kids knew the guys that mugged them, I guess the guys were really desperate to have a few cell phones. On a brighter note, after youth group I came up with a brilliant idea to play charades. We actually all had a lot of fun acting and looking super stupid. The last act was “pretend like you peed your pants and don’t want anyone to know.” The girl did a pretty good job acting it out. This 12 year old boy screams “You had your period.” Sarah and I almost died laughing. Sorry for all those that just got weirded out by reading this, but it just goes to show how outrageous and open these people are here!!!
Sorry, these last 2 blogs have been kind of gross! But anyways, it has been fun having time hanging out with the middle school/high school aged kids. At first when I came, they were a bit intimidating and they love to make fart noises all the time, I mean allll the time, but it has been great getting to know them from church events. They are always going out of their way to walk me home and different stuff and I know they all have my back which is sweet. They are starting to open up more too. One of the girls, actually the one who “peed her pants,” I hung out with a lot today. She told me that she hates going home and always looks forward to going anywhere and everywhere. She said that her mom and brothers aren’t very nice to her and make her cook and clean and do everything around the house. I thought that since she was only in 8th grade, she probably was exaggerating about the whole mom thing, but it is true. When I was with her, her mom was super rude to her and cold. It is sad to think that sometimes while I am here I think about how much I miss home when others are wishing how much they wish they could never go back home. 
The low part of the week came when I was at one of the schools for after school soccer. Flying to South Africa and staying in Ocean View, I didn’t expect people to fall over and tell me how gracious they were for me to be here, I really didn’t. I don’t think you are going into volunteering with the right attitude if all you want is for people to show appreciation to you. To my surprise, some people are indeed grateful for my time while some people are indifferent and could care less that I am around - I can handle that though. When I was at the school some of the little boys said straight to my face, we don’t want to play because Amanda is here. Immediately it was a big blow to the gut. Granted these guys are fourth graders and I hadn’t done anything to them in the two previous weeks that I had been around, but I still took it personally. I know that they probably only said it for one of these reasons. 1. I’m a girl 2. I’m white 3.They kind of blow at soccer and I’m half way decent or 4. They don’t have the best home life – so they don’t know how to treat people. Even though I knew all that, it totally ruined my day. I had ridiculous thoughts like why am I wasting my time and money if people don’t even want me around. It’s funny how one negative can make a whole bunch of positives seem less. Luckily, I was basically over it 24 hours later, but it really made me think and I came to this conclusion. People will disappoint you, some intentionally, some not intentionally. The trouble is if you work for people, a lot of times you will get inner rewards, but sometimes you will get let down, even if all you ever wanted to do was help. That’s why you have to work for God. With whatever you do, work, volunteering, or both, if you do it for God you can never get disappointed. 
I have been hitting the sack around 10 or 11 each night, but unfortunately have been waking up at 4am. Luckily, Sarah gave me some neon orange ear plugs so hopefully I will be getting more sleep! 
So my little buddy Zoon, it’s actually Zuan but who knew, I still have trouble with the accent, only has an ear tumor not a brain tumor (still kind of gross) and he will be going to surgery in a few weeks. I talked to his mom and she said that Zuan is really excited about his surgery, which is kind of strange. She also said that the surgery isn’t that dangerous and the worst part about the tumor is that his ear starts to smell really bad if they don’t clean it out every morning (barf!!!) 
A Raleigh boy flies in on Friday so I’m excited to be able to do more touristy stuff when he arrives. Everyone pray for a safe flight and courage for Austin, he will be here for 9 months! 
Hope everyone has a great week, love you!
Amanda