The Speas Adventures
We are currently living in Pretoria, South Africa working with the homeless and a boy's shelter.
Planes, trains and automobiles
Monday, May 11, 2009 Today we spent touring Northern Ireland. A girl in college picked us up, along with Anneri and Rachel who lives in Northern Ireland and was on our training team. We visited the Giant Causeway on the coast of Northern Ireland. It is a natural phenomenon where rocks have been formed with six equal sides. It was a lot of fun, but great to catch up with Rachel who has spent the last 4 months in the United States working with an inner-city ministry in Houston. ...
still in Pretoria....
Thursday May 7, 2009 This evening was our flight to the UK. We are heading to visit some friends on the Logos Hope and to check out OM's ministry ship. We will meet the ship in Belfast, travel with it to Dublin and then fly out from London. It worked beautifully because our layover was in London anyways. We are so excited for this last adventure before we will arrive home. Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Tonight was our final coffeehouse. A few prayed for our ministry back at home...
Inner-city Pretoria
Thursday, February 26, 2009 I feel like I am becoming authentically South African. I played touch rugby with a few guys this evening. It was pouring down rain, so it kept quite a few away, but I enjoyed the workout. It is actually a pretty easy game, the main rule is you can only throw it backwards. Once you are tagged, the possession switches. I felt like I improved quite a bit from when I first stepped on the field. As for the boys today, one of our classes was geography....
Vacation!!!
Thursday, January 8, 2009 It was Meagan’s last
day today and we (Meagan and Jo) decided to make it fun and go to an Elephant Sanctuary. We attended a 2-hour program
where we got to walk hand in trunk, feed the elephants, and play with them. We received a lot of info as well, but really
it was way more fun to touch them and feed them. Our group did not seem very into elephants so
Meagan and I would jump at any...
Teen Street
Sunday December 7,
2008 – Saturday December 13, 2008 Teen Street is a camp
for teens in South Africa. Adam and I
were counselors for a group of girls and a group of boys. I (Jo) had six older girls (18-19 year olds)
and Adam had five (13-14 year olds). My
group was challenging at times and getting them to open up was difficult. They did not have much respect for each other
or for me and at times I was very frustrated.
I had...
Nov 30th- Dec 4th
Thursday, December 4, 2008 Living and operating in another country can be difficult at times. This morning was our second venture to the ABSA bank to try and open a savings account. After being assured from our organization that it would only take 10 minutes on Tuesday, we learned that they were pretty particular and that an African 10 minutes can take an hour or so. Regardless, we were told by the banker the exact details and paperwork that it would take to open an...
Nov 25th- Nov 28th
Friday, November 28, 2008 Today was our last official day of class. We had a question and answer session. Glad to be done with them, even though we did learn a lot. Then this afternoon the ladies had a Christmas party. We listened to Mariah Carey Christmas and had a white elephant gift exchange. Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving and today we moved right into the Christmas season. It was a really hot day and hardly felt appropriate to listen to...
November 20-24
Monday, November 24, 2008 This morning’s class was on conflict management, transition, debriefing, and other things having to do with going home. At one point, Adam was supposed to frustrate everyone in the class and he did such a good job that some people are still frustrated even though it was a simulation of how to handle conflict. We had this afternoon off and after a quick swim in the pool; I continued to read my book. I have enjoyed reading and in a recent book there...
Nov 13th - 24th
Monday, November 24,
2008
This morning’s class
was on conflict management, transition, debriefing, and other things having to
do with going home. At one point,
Adam was supposed to frustrate everyone in the class and he did such a good job
that some people are still frustrated even though it was a simulation of how to
handle conflict.
We had this afternoon
off and after a quick swim in the pool; I continued to read my book. I have enjoyed reading and...
Cape Town
Sunday, November 9,
2008
God was good to us
today. I (Adam) did not sleep much
of the night and was in the bathroom every few minutes. I didn’t even feel good before we left
for church, but once we got there, I was o.k. to preach. It went well, the pastor even
encouraged me to the do the alter call.
I didn’t quite have their excitement level during it, but I tried my
best. For the afternoon of which
became evening we had lunch at another families...
