We have been in-country for 3 days now. So far we have been settling in, trying to beat the jet lag, and started getting to know the ministry, staff, handbook, expectations, etc. There are only about 10 American staff and 20 African staff, so it won't take long to get to know everyone. Yesterday we went grocery shopping for the first time. The ministry gives us food cards each month, and we have to budget out a certain amount for each week's grocery shopping. The South African currency is Rand, and 10 Rand is the equivalent of a dollar. So basically if you move the decimal place over once, you get the dollar price. We get R2000 a month, which is R500 or $50 a week. I have never planned my own meals before or done my own shopping, and doing it for the first time in a giant foreign grocery store that has the organization of a toddler's playroom is stressful to say the least, and that's not even touching on having a time limit, budget, and constantly converting rand to dollars in your head to make sure everything's a good price.
Tomorrow is church, and I'm excited to see what it's like. After that we'll either go see a waterfall and have a picnic or play some volleyball. This next week will be more training and we'll get to actually go into the squatter camps to see some of the ministry areas and we will probably get our ministry placement, which is the area of ministry that we'll be working with all year.
I love and miss you all and I will try to update you as often as possible!
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