My Thirtieth Year

In roughly 30 days, I will be boarding a plane to take me on the next journey of my life. I leave on Sept. 29th and my first stop will be Midrand, South Africa. Midrand is a suburb of Johannesburg and it is where I volunteered at the babies home in 2004. The time I spent working in the babies home greatly impacted me and ever since then, I have longed to return to Africa to do further volunteer work. This time, I will live on the property of Urban Life Church, which is where I lived previously, and volunteer at a health clinic about 10 miles away that serves thousands in an informal settlement. I am excited about many things especially reconnecting with the people I came to know when I was there before. My good friend Rebecca, who I traveled with in 2004, married Marc last year and they live only a few miles away. So, I am very excited to spend time with them and their new baby. The plan is for me to stay there until Jan. 19th, spending the holidays with Marc and Rebecca and my friend, Kim, who will come from Kenya for Christmas.

Then it will be off to part 2 of the journey and I will head to Mwaya Beach, Malawi to volunteer for the organization RIPPLE Africa, http://www.rippleafrica.org/. This will be a rural setting and I will live with nine other volunteers in cabins on Lake Malawi. I will have running water, but no electricity. I will volunteer at the health clinic where I am sure to see everything under the sun. It looks like a beautiful setting and Malawi is referred to as “the warm heart of Africa” and I hear it lives up to its name.

After spending four months in Malawi, I will visit my friend, Kim, in Kenya and she will be finishing up teaching at an international school. We plan to travel around Kenya and possibly Tanzania for 3-4 weeks before she returns to the States. Then, I will likely fly back to South Africa and that is as far as I’ve gotten in the planning. I hope to meet people along the way to travel to different areas with and hopefully look into different volunteer organizations. At this point, I’m unsure how long I will be gone, but likely 9 months to 1 year.

My intention with this blog is to be as authentic and honest as possible in describing my feelings, reactions, and experiences along the way. I anticipate that I will meet incredible people and see both heart wrenching and miraculous things and I wanted a place to share this with my family and friends. Feel free to send me comments asking questions or providing feedback.