seals. whales. sharks. dolphins. AND a man over board. really? okay, maybe not the man over board, but everything else, yup.

oh man...this was wild for sure. The seal island tour was LEGIT. basically...you get on a motorized raft boat and hit the water towards seal island. they warned us that it's not often that you see much else besides the seals, but keep your eyes out anyway. hahaha. WRONG.

on the way out, we kept mistaking kelp as anything really. once we got past that...all of a sudden this HUGE, SLIMY grayish, blueish color start submerging from the water and sure enough water shoots out of the now in vision, blow hole!!! WHAT?!?!?! clearly, that's when the freaking out began. i wish i had a picture of it...but it was literally over before i could realize what had happened.

next stop...seal island. omg...it smelled RANK. just foul. it literally sounded like we pulled up to a herd of sheep!??! crazy. they were so daggum cute though!! some were just playing -- sliding down the rock into the water over and over again!! haha! (jenny, if you were a seal...you'd be one of those...) before we started to head back to shore, there was a boat conducting what we've all seen on shark week. people cage diving!! so...clearly, we had to stop to see if we'd see anything since they were throwing chum right by them!! hahaha. AND WE DID!! just barely. just a fin. but it was terrifying enough for us!! we broke out in screams like a 4 year old at a haunted house. it was AWESOME.

now, for the trek back to shore...my favorite part. we were just minding our own business, taking our turns at trying to be THE whale whisperer and all of sudden we're in the midst of a POD OF DOLPHINS. it was incredible!! we're not talking like 10 or 20...we're talking HUNDREDS. (some people on our team say thousands...but I'm just not sure I can type that out with full confidence. hahaha.) i, of course, was so focused on trying to get a picture of one that by the time i looked up (away from the camera) and saw all of them, i almost lost all ability to breathe from sheer joy, excitement and confusion all coming to pass. hahahaha. they were EVERYWHERE. just soaring through the air, swimming under the boat, having the time of their lives, not at all disturbed by our 2 boats full of people FREAKING out. beautiful! they were BEAUTIFUL! as if that wasn't enough...God decided to give us one last surprise. after the excitement/panic of being in the midst of a pod of dolphins subsided...we commenced on our path to see another whale and andrew was rightfully deemed THE Whale Whisperer.

Andrew: Oh, I think I saw something!!

We all stand up, hold our breath, trying to see what he's talking about.

Torree: Are you sure? Was it a seal? or kelp?

Andrew: NO!! It was (motions hands to the size of a whale) THIS BIG!! Seriously!!

EVERYONE: OMG!!!!!! THERE IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!

The whale (aka submarine look alike) breached the top of the water and did its thing (aka blew out of its blow hole). It's like they move in slow motion, yet it goes by so quickly all at the same time. Crazy!!

All in all...we look back on it as quite the success and clearly, God's hand was all over it. It was so fun and a memory we'll remember forever!! laskdjf;adkljsf!!

streetfootballworld.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup was coming up around the corner (2008) in sweet, sweet South Africa. They had a dream (not sure if it was actually a dream...but it's a great project, so I'm going to go ahead and say it was their dream...).

FIFA calls streetfootballworld and says, "Hey, here's our dream. Want to be a part?"

SFW: "Yeah, alright. We could do that."

FIFA: "Great, how does "Football for Hope" sound as the movement and "20 Centres in 2010" as the project within the movement?"

SFW: "Perfect. It's your dream. We'll just run with it."

streetfootballworld is an organization based in Berlin that uses football (aka soccer) to promote social issues all around the world. The Cape Town office was created for one purpose; that purpose being to fully own and see the “20 Centres in 2010” project to completion. The project's mission is basically to create 20 Football for Hope centres all across Africa -- 5 in South Africa, 15 around the rest of the continent. Each hope centre has two elements to it -- a pitch (aka a soccer field) and some type of infrastructure. The pitch is used to attract the kids whether via a soccer tournament or camp or even just as a place where everyone can meet after school to play, as everyone here loves the game of football!! The infrastructure is used to host different education opportunities. Each centre has a different focus, but most educate students about HIV/AIDS prevention, protection, causes and dangers. Some centres are geared towards kids with disabilities and others may focus on educating kids about technology in order that they may be given the chance to thrive outside the doors of their neighborhood and go on to further education. Regardless of the focus, the purpose of all the hope centres is to use soccer as an avenue to bring kids in to a community where they are given something that will benefit their lives forever that they normally wouldn't have had the chance to gain.  

How’d I get here??

Well, after the door of staying with my old job closed, I began to pursue an opportunity Lenny brought up to me MONTHS ago. When Lennell and Jason came to Cape Town in January, Jason got on board with an internship at the Human Rights Commission here in town and Lennell got hooked up with an architecture internship at Architecture for Humanity. AfH is all over the world, doing a multitude of projects and designs for communities that are in desperate need of improvement and opportunity. Naturally, the Cape Town AfH office’s only purpose is to design all the centres for the project. Once Lenny was offered an internship for the summer, he proceeded to look into SFW since he knew it sounded right up my alley. Long story short, I got an internship with SFW during my time here on M-W and have absolutely loved it!!

It's been so fun to see a new side of the business world. A side that intrigues me even more than before. The side that has a bigger purpose than just making money. It's incredible. I mean...there's no doubt I'm an intern as I've been given the grueling tasks of organizing the JACKED UP server, writing the quarterly newsletter, and other random, mini-projects. One day I put together a package and addressed it to STRAIGHT UP FIFA. FIFA?!?!?! hahahahaha. Then I laughed OUT LOUD when I realized I was freaking out about addressing a package. hahahaha. God knows our hearts so well. But seriously, even though my daily tasks aren't directly going towards the creation and sustaining of the hope centres, knowing I'm a part of something bigger...is so encouraging. SO FUN. I am literally a part of something that will change the lives of people forever.

On another note, God has been teaching me so much about what life looks like with Him in every realm. The phrase, "what do I have to lose" is on replay at all times. I literally have nothing to lose. There's so much freedom in that. It's absolutely beautiful. It's been so fun to go to work and talk to people about Jesus. It's so fun to see people's reactions when we tell them what we're doing here. "You quit your job?!?!" "You're here because God told you to come??" "That's wild..." "No offense, but don't you think America needs missionaries more than Africa?" hahaha. That was a good one. And it's so freeing because we have nothing to carry. Yeah, maybe America needs some help, but the world needs help. We all need Truth. The most effective thing we can do is be obedient. We carry nothing else, but to be obedient to what God says. That's why we're here. We know we miss it. We know we will miss it in the future, but as best and as quick as we can, we want to be obedient to what He says for us. “There is room in God’s heart for failure.” Let us not let fear of missing Him stop us! He has enough grace. He is grace. He cares so intimately about us that He has a specific plan and route He wants us to take. He has dreams beyond dreams for us. His children. His precious children. Let us step in and follow.

HERE'S TO A LIFE OF FOLLOWING HIS WORD!! HOLLA!! oh yeah...in the words of our fellow friends here in SA...CHEERS!!

                                          

                   Here I am at work!! haha! Check out downtown Cape Town in the back! :)

Cape Town…Where life is backwards, but BEAUTIFUL!!

Please...let us enlighten you with a few examples we've come across...from the most obvious to a few surprises...

It's June and it's winter -- Hello, Southern hemisphere!!

The steering wheel is on the right side of the car.

We drive on the left side of the road.

The outside lines on the road are yellow and the center line with spaces in between are white. 

The safe place to go for a run is on a highway. 

There are pedestrian crosswalk signs accompanied by horse crosswalk road signs as well.

Baboons cross the road. HA!

Vans are combis. (That's right..we've been cruising in the "green machine" aka...a green VW microbus!)

Trucks are bakkies.

Yielding to pedestrians is not an option.

You pay for plastic bags at the grocery store. (Not to worry...we've invested in the "go green" bags...we just forget to take them to the store EVERY time.)

Places close EARLY. 

We live in the mountains and I ran for 25 minutes ending up at the beach.

An item on a menu at a restaurant included monkey gland. (vom)

"Take Away" is the same as "To Go".

Fries are chips. (South Africa was once a Dutch colony, then the British invaded...can you tell?)

Welcome to the metric system!! 1 kg = 2.2 lbs -- Thank you, 9th grade physical science. I'm forever grateful.

No central heating!! 

The normal "nice to meet you" handshake isn't a firm shake, hold and release. It's more of a loose shake, move your fingers up over the hand, then back to the normal shake and release. (3 step process. hahaha!)

The rugby world cup packs out the bars like OU playing in the national championship.

                                  (the green machine!! and trying to capture the backwards road...)

              (Oh hey, South Africa!!! If this doesn't make you want to come visit, I'm not sure what will...)

These are just a few things we've noticed so far...we'll keep you posted of new findings as we continue on our journey here this summer (aka winter)!! Our first two weeks here was spent with the EQUIP team. We partnered with an organization called All Nations, here in Cape Town, shared the gospel in multiple townships and at the University of Cape Town. We had anywhere from 15-19 adults, 6 kids, a microbus, and God's voice directing us where to go. Here are two, of many, testimonies from our time here…

We met a woman in Red Hill (township we’ve been pouring into) who had a very swollen ankle with a very significant scar.  She told us she had fallen four years ago, and had a metal screw in it, and when we looked closer, you could see the metal pushing against the inside of her skin on both sides of the ankle. When we put our hands on her to pray, we felt movement in her knee, and felt the screw shrink. By the end of our praying, our teammate couldn’t feel the screw touching the skin anymore. When we asked her how she felt, she starting rolling her ankle and said, “I can move it!!”  She was overjoyed by the goodness of God.  We shared the good news of Jesus with her, which she stated she already believed. When we went to Red Hill the next day, we saw her out and about. We asked how her ankle was and she assured us by her words and actions (as she was doing laundry) that she had no pain and had work to catch up on! Haha! We can’t wait to meet with her again and see God not only transform her life, but her whole household!

Our team went to a township called Ocean View, split up into teams as usual, waited on what the Lord had for us during our time and went after it. Tommy got a picture of a specific type of tree, so naturally when we looked up across the street, there was an open park type area with the same tree God gave him a picture of. So, off to the park we went. There was only one man at the park, so we went for it. We told him we loved Jesus and asked if he knew Jesus or needed any prayer for anything. Talk about the right kind of soil! This man (we'll call him Bill) and another man (we'll call him Bob – he came out of nowhere when he saw us talking to Bill) were HUNGRY. Desperate, really. Bob started with, “Well…to be honest…there is.” You know it’s going to be good when anyone starts with that! We were so excited! Yes, please be honest! As it turns out, Bob currently smuggles drugs and Bill used to. Bob had just gotten out of jail two days prior and just wants out of the drug world. He used to desire it, but now he just wants out and is, for various reasons, tied to it. Bill got out of jail two months ago, but has promised himself he’d never go back and hasn’t up until this point, but is obviously feeling weary and struggling as he can’t find a job to provide for himself. It was incredible how open and honest these two men were and how God was speaking His love for these men through us. We shared the gospel with these men, explained how the Holy Spirit wants to talk to them, shared some of the character of God so they can distinguish the voice of God from the voice of the enemy. We got to share pictures, scriptures and words for how God sees them. We got to share with them that God looks down on all of us the same way!! We’re all His children!! No matter how the world treats us, that is the truth. They are valued sons of their heavenly Father. Ahhhhh!! It was so fun!! God is after their hearts. He deposited so much hope in us for them! They were so grateful for us and we actually got both of their information as they’re both open to a discipleship relationship this winter! Pray for transformation in their hearts and that they would open their ears and eyes to what God has for them! Jesus sets the captives FREE!!

We live in community, spend time in His presence every day, worship together, eat together, pray together, serve one another, share Jesus everywhere He tells us to, and through it we've seen people come to know Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, baptized, encouraged, and healed!! It's literally a backwards life from what we’re used to, but absolutely beautiful and the way God intended it to be. It’s been incredible so far and we have big hopes for what God has in store for the next seven weeks!!

Tommy & Arian 

Traveling with the Perrys -- always an adventure...

A recap of our adventure getting to Cape Town...


OKC to Dallas -- success. No problems.


Dallas to London -- not so much.


We ate dinner at terminal A and planned to take the skylink to terminal D where our gate was. Naturally...the skylink went down right before we got to it. Awesome. So, we go catch a bus that drives approximately 2 mph and gets us to our terminal. Jason had gone to the terminal early (leaving his phone with us and taking all of his family's flight stuff -- passports and boarding passes). Since we took the bus (aka exited the airport), we had to go through security again to get in! (oh yeah...and while we were on the bus, we heard an announcement, "the skylink is back up" hahahahaaha I HATE YOU, SKYLINK!!) So...we all go through security as fast as we can. Ashley and the kids go frantically talk to the lady that checks you in, explaining what has happened and she just reissues their boarding passes (without their passports or driver's license!!). The kids are just crying because we took their suitcases so we could sprint. (This is where I should note...the kids were insanely attached to those suitcases.) Finally, when we get to the gate, Jason is like OMG?!?!?! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!??!!? Everyone had already boarded the plane and he was using his lawyer skills (aka just making crap up!!) to procrastinate the plane from leaving! bahhahaha. So, needless to say, it was QUITE eventful...which is why we didn't go out into London even though we had a 7 hour layover...didn't want a repeat. :)


London to Cape Town -- success.


Nonetheless, we made it!! We're here!! It's beautiful!! More updates to come...


Arian and Tommy

Leavin' on a Jet plane....

Hey Everybody!

  Well, the time has come.  We take off from OKC at 6:25pm and head to Cape Town, South Africa! We are truly blessed to have the opportunity to call Cape Town our home for the next nine weeks.  It is going to be so amazing!  Arian will have the chance (hopefully) to work with an organization that provides the children in the townships with the chance to play soccer.  I will be going into the township and just trying to see where we can help out the most.  We are both excited and nervous all at the same time. Well, I'm sure Arian will want to say something before we head out, so I'm going to sign off of here. Take luck. 

 Tommy