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South Africa. When I first heard about APU South Africa Semester at the beginning of this year, I had no desire to go. Now, here I am, I leave in a month and a half. I depart January 21 @ 10:10pm from LAX. It is crazy that it is actually happening. I have so many mixed emotions about leaving.

South Africa is going to be an extremely unique opportunity and a once and a lifetime experience. I am extremely excited to go. I know God is going to do incredible things while I am there. He is already doing amazing things as I am preparing to leave.

I have been on a journey the past couple of weeks, knowing that the end of the semester is coming and I will not be at APU for the Spring semester. This past week it really hit me hard. It was so difficult to fatham not being with the people that I have developed extremely close friendships with. I have been afraid that the friendships I have spent so much time investing in would not be here when I came back. This past week God gave me an incredible peace about this and so many other unknowns about this experience.

Wednesday was an interesting day becuase it was the final lecture in my Life and Teachings of Jesus class and the whole class has been trying to understand the historical person of Jesus, but not forgetting that he is alive and working today. There is so much about Jesus’ life that is unknown and is debated on a daily basis. I came to the conclusion that the unknown is beatiful. After thinking through this idea of the unkown being beautiful, it began to occur to me that in one aspect of my life I was embracing the unknown and in another aspect of my life absolutely fearing it. I have since tried to apply the unknown being beautiful to South Africa and God has given me an incredible peace that is unexplainable.

He has given me peace through the ways my friends are acting. I have had some great converstations (that had nothing to do with South Africa) that really showed me how much my friends care for me and that they will be excited when I come back from South Africa. I still get sad and sentimental at times about leaving for South Africa, but I have confidence and trust in God that my friendships will be here when I return.

Now I am excited and looking forward to what God is going to do in South Africa.