Sun, sea, surf and banana pancakes

Wowsas. A week has passed since I arrived in Jeffray's Baysays and what a week it's been. For those that don't know the details I'm here to do what YWAM call a Discipleship Training Scheme; spending three months 'knowing God' and then two months 'making God known through mission work, which could involve building houses, talking at schools, working with street kids etc. It's all quite exciting but I'm a little nervous as well I guess - I don't think the leaders here have much respect for my comfort zone!

I've learnt lots over my first week but I guess there are just two lessons I want to share now.

1. That video showing how challenged Americans are when it comes to general knowledge, you know that one? Having stubbornly refused to believe that it could possibly be true for several years now I'm afraid I have to now concede that it is not in fact a set up. There are two State-Side girls on the DTS with me and I asked one of them - Jess -to simply point out England on a world map. I couldn't believe my eyes as she pointed slowly to the Ukraine! Unbelievable.

2. Never go running with a Nigerian. I woke up at 6am the other day to go running with him and it was only a matter of minutes later before i sincerely regretted the decision. He pushed me seriously hard - doing this strange sprinting drill, running up sand-dunes etc. Overall, that's not gone well. Serious hats off to his stamina levels - he wasn't phased at all. It's wonderful though - almost every other morning I've woken at 6am and gone for an altogether more pleasant jog with some of the girls along the beach. The waves breaking and the sun rising. Perfection.

Knitwear-Mondays is struggling to make an impact.

Daily routine? Hmmm, well...

6am - Run (compulsory on Tuesdays and Thursdays!)

6:30am - Breakfast

7am - Quiet Time

8am - Mussipumelle (essentially cleaning up the base)

8:30am - Prayer or Worship

9am: Lectures - We've had a visiting speaker this week to talk to us about hearing the voice of God. Amazing stuff - I've really learnt a lot. He had some pretty cool personal experiences - three times now he's felt called by God to go and speak at a conference without the financial means to take the flight so he's just rocked up at the airport and each of the three times God has provided the money for him to fly! Three times, strangers have just given him money, without him even asking! Incred-redonk. So lectures are good - not as boring as they sound!

1pm - Lunch (the food here isn't something to write home about (www.irony.com/imahardnut) but its not bad. If there's porrige on the menu for breakfast though don't be surprised if you're served up a suspiciously oaty soup for lunch.)

2pm - Siesta (greatly appreciated)

3pm - Work Duties. Not so greatly appreciated - they've had me cleaning the floor of the chapel every day so far - it's so dang clean right now you wouldn't believe it! Soon though we should be able to go out into the community and help where it's really needed during this time.

5:30pm - Dinner

7pm - Games night/film night/home groups depending on the evening.

10pm - Lights out (I thought they were joking. Outrageous. It's good though - I find I'm not quite as grumpy as I normally am.)

There we go, that's the day. Weekends are free but it's coming up to 5:30pm now so I need to get back to base for dinner. I can only use the internet in town so that pretty much limits things to weekend use. Should be back tomorrow though to tell you a little more...

Peace.

Disclaimer: If any of you have seen the mutliple beach shots on Facebook and are worried that your sponsorship money which you thought was going to a good cause is actually paying for me to have a holiday, rest assured. Your money will be going towards my mission work, starting in July! Honest...