That's A Lot Of Snow...

Thought Peorians and all those receiving tons of snow might appreciate this video.

 P.S. I am extremely jealous of all of you in Peoria that got to be there for the huge blizzard. Hope you all had fun during your three snow days! :)

The Mysteriously Lost Song

About two Fridays ago, the Senior Youth Worship Team played a song, by the name of "Found In You." The following Friday, I was told by a very insightful American that this song nor the author could be found on the Internet, or in that case, anywhere. Phil and I, of course, disbelieved her since every praise and worship song can be found on the Internet. After our thorough half-hour search for the song, the best we could come up with was a blog where a man had posted the verse and chorus, but was begging for the chords, bridge, and artist. It was then, that I was given the idea to be the first person, to my knowledge, to put the whole song with the chords on the Internet for all those deprived of this great worship song. So, here it is:

"Found In You"

Verse:
E                              Bsus
Lord, I lift my eyes to You
                        A2             Bsus
Who else could see me?
E                               Bsus
Lord, I lift my hands to You
                        A2              Bsus
Who else could reach me?
E                                Bsus
Lord, I lift my prayer to You
                         A2         Bsus
Who else would listen?
 E                                 Bsus
Lord, I raise my voice to You
                       A2                Bsus
Who else could hear me?

Chorus:
    C♯m Bsus   A2
And all I ever wanted
    C♯m Bsus   A2
And all I ever needed
                E    Bsus         A2        Bsus
I found in You, I found in You

Bridge:
C♯m    Bsus                  A2
Lord, I fall before Your feet
C♯m    Bsus                   A2
Lord, I want to be complete-ly Yours
C♯m     Bsus                 A2
We sing praises to Your name, oh Lord
              C♯m                   Bsus                  A2
Make me whole, make me whole, make me wholly Yours


And thats it! Unfortunately, I do not know who originally wrote or performed this song. The only speed that I have heard the song played in is moderately-slow to slow. Generally, I play the order of the song: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge. I repeat the "make me whole..." line usually 4 times, and then end the song by playing the first two lines of chords of the verse. Hope this helps a lot for all those who have been searching.

Differences Between America and South Africa

One's company, two's a crowd, and three's a party. Yes, my third post in one day. I have no comment on how this happened, except that it did. Anyway, on to the post:

Since I have arrived here I have noticed differences between Americans and South Africans, which of course comes at no surprise to anyone. Some of these differences are cultural, others linguistic, and some go as deep as their thought process. I know the last one sounds weird and could almost be described as a bit negative, but what I'm trying to say is that we come at problem solving different ways. I'll try to do a better in-depth job of explaining what I mean I subsequent updates to this post. These differences, that I've seen, do not apply to all South Africans, or in that case I guess to all Americans, but to the general populace that I have met of both groups.

Words:
American-------------African

flashlight-------------torch
traffic light-----------robot
jacket---------------jersey
jelly-----------------jam
jello-----------------jelly
trunk (vehicle)-------boot
swim suit------------costume
napkins-------------serviettes

Word Pronunciation:
America------------------------Africa

fillet (fill-ay)--------------------fillet (fill-it)
aluminum (a-lume-in-um)------aluminum (al-loo-minium)

Like I've said, there are more differences than just how we speak the English language, but experiencing it is easier than actually writing about it. So, I'll be keeping this page updated with the differences I find, which mean that this page will never truly be complete until I leave, but I decided it would be worth posting now instead of at the end of my stay.

Christmas...with no snow. Odd.

 In light of my second blog post addressing my few blog posts, and stating I would do my best to write more, I have decided to write about how a South African Christmas goes in the Beakley household... or at least how this Christmas went.

It was about 80 degrees out Christmas day. We first went to a church service at 8 in the morning. When we got home, we began working on making brunch...which wasn't served ultimately until lunch time. Most of the day was spent hanging out and fellowshipping. Later in the day we went swimming in the pool, only to be forced out by the worst rainstorm I've seen since I arrived here. We had over a dozen towels spread out on floors to soak up drips that were coming from leaks in the roof. It got so bad, Phil's room was in danger of flooding, so he had to go out in the rain, lighting and hail to dig out a trench in order for the water to not get backed up as it streamed into the road. After all that fun we lost power for a while. Eventually the power came back on, the hail and lighting stopped, and a steady rainfall settled in for the night. We had Mexican, tortillas and such, for supper, but nothing else of note happened the rest of the day that I can remember. You may be wondering though what happened to the presents? They were already opened, from Christmas Eve. So, that is a South African Christmas in the house of the Beakleys. Overall it was very interesting and quite unlike Illinois.

And since we are on the topic of Christmas, I've decided to add some other things into this post. I was sent two Christmas videos during the last couple of weeks that I thought were pretty neat, though very unlike each other.

The first is called The Digital Story of the Nativity which I thought was quite creative:

The second is of a hidden choir suddenly breaking into "The Messiah" in a food court:

Hopefully you enjoyed the videos and had a very Merry Christmas!

Over 4 Months...

since I arrived here...and since my last, and only, blog post. Yes, I have received much criticism about my lack of posts on my blog. I originally was hoping to post once a week... not happening. I'll try to post as often as I can, but I'm not making any promises as to the time span between posts. As to the content, I have decided to change on what exactly will go into the blog. I think this change may (again no promises) lead to more posts. I originally was going to post about any major things that happened to me throughout the week, much like my first post. But as things and events became routine here I found it difficult to come up with information for a post, to the point that I really stopped trying. So, my plan is to widen my topic areas from a schedule based post to...well, in general, anything. Basically all of my previous blog plans and ideas have been removed, tweaked, or corrected, which means I may end up posting anything from a funny, superficial youtube video to what God has been teaching me while I've been here in Africa.

And no, this was not a New Year's Resolution even though it is extremely close to the day.

First Post, First Impressions....Well, A Lot of Firsts...

Hey! The blog is officially up!

Wow, I’m in Africa! Never thought I would be here 3 months ago...Anyway, so the blog....well, my plan right now is to make a post every week telling of anything that was of note that happened throughout the week and, if I took any pictures, explain the best of those. I’ll probably be putting up all the pictures in an album on Facebook...we’ll see how everything works out.

So, for those who didn't know, on Monday, August 23, I Ieft for South Africa. I pulled an all-nighter with Aaron Mason, Joel Borden, Seth Elsasser, and Alex Colwell at Bradley. We mostly played spades, and yes, Joel and I won :) I went home, grabbed my stuff, and left for the airport with my family. Some really good friends came to see me off along with my family. My first two flights were quite uneventful and boring. I made it to Atlanta with a seven-hour layover. I plugged my laptop in and proceeded to eat away the time by getting on the internet. During this time I met two people, one was an American headed to Moscow, Russia, and the other was a African girl headed back to Ghana (I tried to stay away from the World Cup in my conversation with her). It was pretty cool talking to them and learning what they were doing.

Finally, the Beakleys arrived! They were a very welcome site. We proceeded to get supper, since it was about 6:00 p.m. I ate at Panda Express because I was told it would be the last good Chinese I would get for the next year. Then, we headed to the boarding gate for our plane; the plane took off about 7:30 p.m. East coast time....we arrived about 5:00 p.m. Tuesday evening in Johannesburg. Oh, and this was the longest (about 17hrs.) and most boring (between two people, impossible to sleep, no good movies, etc...) plane flight I have ever been on.

When we got to Joberg, Mr. Beakley noticed that the customs officials weren't wearing uniforms. We found out then that the government employed doctors, teachers, and police had gone on strike. (They started the strike about a week before we got here and it's still going on. The people on strike are also intimidating private doctors, school teachers, and kids. Here in Polokwane some of the private schools had to shut down because people were threatening to burn the buses with the kids in them. As emotions fly, the violence will increase). Quinton, a friend from Pretoria, was there to meet us and he had the Beakley's combi which had been left there while they had been gone. (It was also stolen while they were gone, but the the criminals were caught and the vehicle returned -- though the driver side lock was broken and needs to be replaced).

For those who don't know what a combi is...here is a picture:

We made it back to their house and proceeded to go to bed since we were all pretty jet-lagged. We mostly recouped on Wednesday. I got to see Phil that afternoon and he already had plans of how he was going to use me. Handsome also came back home since he was staying at Joseph's while the Beakley's were gone. That night we went to a Bible study at the home of one of the church families. On Thursday, I practiced with the Senior Youth worship band and played guitar with Phil for a chapel that the seminary students had. I met Junior, a good friend of Jason's and the families, on Friday. He is a really cool guy and is leading a Bible study for students at Capricorn (a public school in Polokwane that is right across the street from the Beakley's). That afternoon I became a leader in the Junior Youth, without realizing it (Phil's in charge), attended a Junior Youth's leaders meeting, and then actually helped out with Junior Youth. Later, I practiced once again with the Senior Youth worship band, then immediately afterwards we had Senior Youth. Over the week I got "moved in" and made myself comfortable in my room.

On Saturday, we went up on the roof and broomed the leaves off onto the ground and in general just cleaned up the yard. It was mainly just a nice day to rest and stay around the house. We went to Sunday school and Church the next day. We went over to a family's home that was from Bible study. We had boerwors for lunch, which is a lot like a bratwurst. Later that night, we had evening service at church.

Monday was the official start of school for Jason, Jacob, and Handsome. To start of the weekdays we go to the gym at about six o'clock every morning; from there we get ready for the day and do Bible reading. School starts at about nine. In general, everyone is done around four and that includes homework. Quite nice. Well, Monday was more of a prep day. We went over what subjects each of them was doing, at what times, and then went to the mall to shop for school supplies. Today, Tuesday, was the real start of the school year. I'm still getting the hang of my role in it all and hopefully soon it will become natural for me and everyone else.

It's been one week -- almost to the hour -- since I arrived here and I like it a lot. Well, I think I have reached the limit of what I can remember or at least the main things I planned to cover. Hope everyone is having a great weak and God bless.

P.S. If you have a question about Africa, what I'm doing, etc...please ask. Or if you have a request for a picture or to explain a picture, once again...please ask. I'd be happy to do any of it  and it would help me get to know what type of stuff to put on here. Thanks.