Updates :)

Sorry I havnt written in a while, I have had some busy days.... To catch everyone up on some things, Themba is actually walking now, the big boy :) He's almost running actually! He is learning in leaps and bounds! He says "please" "obey" "God" "I love you" and many more things, it's possibly the most adorable thing I have ever seen! Oh how my heart strings get tugged when I ask him, "Themba, who made you?" and he replies, with his finger pointing to the sky, "God!" in the cutest sing-songy voice ever!!!! Along with that exciting news, Aya (the first baby who came to the home)  has finally been allowed to move in with Newton and Vanessa under foster care! Newton and Vanessa have been wanting to adopt Aya for  long while now but her social worker, for some reason, doesn't believe in adoption, this makes things difficult. This foster care is a huge step in the right direction for all of them and we at the baby home are ecstatic!!! On Friday we (Donovan, Heather, Eliya, Kyllie and I) went to the animal park (we went to Pilansburg Game Reserve) it opened at 6:30am and you have a better chance of seeing animals if you get there early so in order to get there by opening we had to leave the baby home at 4:30am. We woke up at 3:40 and didn't get put the door till around 5am and got to the park before 7am, so we made pretty good time. We drove around all day and I got some great pictures! We didn't see any cats, but we did see elephants and giraffes and rhinos and hippos and lots of cool birds in their natural habitat, which was so cool!!! Kyllie and I went on a game drive, like a safari tour. We decided to go on the night game drive (since we got to stay in the park An hour after closing) and didn't see very much, we did get an elephant up close and saw a jackal and a black rhino (which are very uncommon) and the starts were sooooo beautiful! Even though we didnt see any lions, the game drive was so worth the experience) I think in all the day was about $50-60 (which mr Hamline had warned me in advance that it would be about that much, so I was okay with it) :) it was so much fun to experience and real safari! I felt, for the first time really, that I was actually in Africa! So, anyway, the night drive ended about 7:30pm and we left around 8. Didn't get home til 10pm and got in bed at 11something. It was a very long day, but a lot of fun!   It is so crazy, I woke p today and realized, I only have ten days left before I'm home. None days now, really. I can't decide whether to be ecstatic or sad.  I am so happy and excited to get home but at the same time it will be hard leaving here. I have grown so used to Pretoria, America will seem kind of weird to me when I get home. One amazing thing about being around Gods people, if you are a believer, you are always with family. They say that home is with people you love. I guess in a way, Pretoria almost feels like home to me. Not necessarily MY one and only home, but one of many homes to me. I love it here, I love the people, I love the experience. I am so blessed to have had this! And I most definitely want to come back someday, even if it's for a short term missions trip, I will always have a fondness for SA :)