England

I have had my first experience with visiting another congregation in which Sally Norton and I organized an hour long service to some very lovely people. I have really started to like drinking proper tea, and when it is time for tea.....everything stops. lol. Gotta love it. I have spent a majority of my time getting to know the staff and learning the stories behind everyone who is here. I wanted to post a quick one and let everyone enjoy this picture I am going to post. There is a house cat named Gloria who is 14 and acts like she is 5. Quite the sacavanger! She decided that a good welcoming home gift was a headless/half eaten baby bunny on my luggage. ENjoy

South India!!

We met each other for the first time in the Chennai airport at passport control. We were in Chennai for a day before flying to Madurai where we stayed for our first week. There, we visited a village and participated in the service on Sunday Morning. Mostly, we hung out with our host family and visited sites around the city such as the Gandhi Memorial Museum (where they had the clothes he died in... blood stained) and a 1,000 year old Hindu temple where we were both blessed by an elephant for 10 rupees. :)

Yesterday, we traveled by taxi 2 1/2 hours to Uthamapalayam (try pronouncing that)... and went over our schedule for the next three weeks with our hosts (Prince and Ruby). It looks like we are going to be doing a lot of things, visiting a lot of villages both close by and some distance away, and will have many opportunities to share with people. We are adjusting to the weather and food (with some difficulty!), but overall are doing pretty well. We are excited to be somewhere more permament for a little while, but are also excited to travel around many places and see new things. From the roof of the house we are at now, we have a beautiful view of the mountains. Indian culture has been interesting... a clash of village and city almost everywhere we have been. Goats and cows wandering around in the streets... obeying traffic laws (well the few that they have anyway!!) We have almost died each time we have gotten in a vehicle. That might be a little dramatic, but I am sure some of you can relate to how different traffic is in other places. It takes some getting used to (and covering our eyes a lot).

We are going to go exploring! It has been so good to hear about everyone! Stay safe and feel our love with you!

Love and Peace,
Kory and Katie

South Africa

Hello everyone! We made it alive last Tuesday, Jac and Sherri Kirkpatrick met us at the airport and took us to our wondeful charming hotel! We spent the night there and took off the next morning. We are currently in South Africa, heading to Zambia tomorrow. Things have been going so well so far, we have met so many amazing people and have found so much inspiration in the projects we have seen. We have spent the past few days in Botswana to learn from other NGO's about how to start our own NGO in Zambia, we met with four different groups, everyone of them blew our minds. One of the organizations was for preschoolers and we have never had little kids steal our hearts quicker. They mobbed us, hugging us, giving us high fives-immediately, no hesitation. They were just amazing! There was a point where we weren't sure we would ever stand up again they had such tight grips on us.
We've also met quite a few Americans, they keep coming out of the woodwork at these organizations, but they've all helped us quite and bit and we've ended up eating dinner the past two nights with Americans which was completely unplanned. We've seen quite a few hilarious signs, including "Tresspassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again" (downtown Johannesburg) "Blacklisted? Call *** *** *** to clear your name!" (pole) "No Bribe No Power!" -and there are so many more but I can't even remember them all-they are constantly cracking us up. We have also been taken as twins a few times already, and we're in the part of Africa where white people are common...so I can't imagine what it will be soon...
We loved reading the other posts, and look forward to hearing from others, we hope everyone is doing well, and we'll post again soon!
-Ashely and Rachael

CANADA

hey everyone!!!
Heidi and I are in Canada all safe and sound!
We have to wear our bunny hugs (hoodies) everyday because it's so cold!
So far we've.. had a BBQ put on for us and met a bunch of the people from the congregation, gone to Tim Horton's, gone to a Western Development Museum (which sounds kind of lame but was super cool), eaten SO much, and eaten Saskatoon berries in more ways than should be allowed (perogies, iced tea, lemonade, on top or waffles and cheesecake, jam.. I'm sure there are more ways that we haven't even gotten to).
Just to name a few! None the less it's been awesome and super busy and we've had so much fun!
We hope everyone made it as safe as possible and are enjoying themselves as much as we are!

Britt and Angela in Hawaii

Aloha!

Our first plane ride on Monday was canceled (it lost an engine--eek!)but we arrived in Oahu a day later and were greeted by Ralph Aona and two bright magenta leis.

We have had one really relaxing day and one really busy working day so far, so it all balances out.

Yesterday we had the day off so after eating a papaya with a spoon for breakfast, we caught the bus into the city (Honolulu) and got off at Ala Moana shopping center/national reserve beach. I (Brittany) talked to everyone on the bus and made about a dozen friends the first day. Mostly local Hawaiians would talk to me as I incessantly asked them questions about their lives/cultures. I met a fellow trekkie named Dave, and Angela got hit on by a pot-bellied plumber named Pete on the beach.

We shopped a little bit, and gathered up souveniers for our family and friends and walked across the street to the beautiful Hawaiian Pacific Ocean. We avoided sharks and coral and managed to escape only with mild sunburn and our fix of sand, sun, and water.

Angela and I returned to the house of our host family, Millie and Steve, two incredibly beautiful and generous people, and ate rice and spicy sausuages for dinner before feeling jet lag kick in and going to bed early.

Today was a little more Service oriented. We woke up early to spam and eggs cooked for us by Uncle Steve. We met a few other people from the mission center and put up 11 tents during the first couple morning hours for the upcoming reunion. Already exhausted, we continued to clean out the kitchen fridge, unloaded CostCo trucks full of food, organized the food into the kitchen, cleaned out rancid containers, crawled into rubbish bins with spiders to wash the bottoms out, and worked out in the garden. All this before 5 p.m. so we are sweaty, red, and wiped. But our host family works just as hard as us if not harder every day doing the same things. We are lucky to have them, and they feel lucky to have us to help. :)

In the upcoming week we will continue preparing the campgrounds, live in a tent, be teaching the class for 4-5 year olds at reunion, planning recreation for the afternoons, helping plan services at night, cooking and cleaning in the kitchens during reunion, and planning a Vacation Bible School that we will be leading in a week or so on the island of Hilo.

Mahalo (thank you) for reading this now novel length blog and Aloha until next time.

England!

Well i hope all of you have made it ok, I just woke up this morning and finally slept. I was going on 28 hours of no sleep.............not fun! Had some interesting flights with some pretty cool people. One guy works in Swizterland, and the other is on his way to Kenya to do some church type work. Good conversations though. Everything is well here, beautiful weather, amazing people. Had proper fish and chips already!!! Chat with you all soon.

Matt

Please Blog on here!

hey World Service Corps Members this blog was created for you to send the link to your family, friends, and supporters so that they can follow your adventures! Blog as much as you want (we suggest atleast every couple weeks) and talk about what ever is on your mind and the experiences you are having. Thanks!