Well this is a very overdue blog post. School has been out for Christmas break for almost a month now because this is their summer vacation. There has still been a lot of work to do around the Monastery and we have been doing major renovations to the school and preparing the new resource center for the after-school. Plus Christmas and Advent are very busy times around the Monastery. My parents arrived here on December 18th and it was extremely refreshing to be with family. They brought tons of donations from my aunts and uncles for the school. Plus they were able to stock me with an essential supply of Dr. Pepper and other good treats. I think they really enjoyed getting to see where I live and meet the people I work with. My community here is very hard to explain to someone so it was crucial that they get to experience this even if it was just a couple weeks. My sister and brother-in-law came right after Christmas. We drove all the way to Cape Town and back for an amazing vacation filled fancy hotels and gourmet meals. It was a big shock to my system to how nice Cape Town was. It is a beautiful and very wealthy place. It definitely doesn’t look like the areas of South Africa that I am used to. We were able to tour Table Mountain and go see the penguins of Simon’s Town. It was a well needed break. It was definitely hard to send them back on the plane. Not long after they left we had some drama with a few of our boys. They are orphans and we had been paying their oldest brother to take care of the two younger ones. Well it turns out that he was spending the money on drugs and leaving his brothers to sleep on the streets. They came to spend the rest of their holiday at the monastery. They are extremely sweet kids and it was very nice having them around. I had to make sure they were in bed on time and had brushed their teeth and other parental stuff. I also played entertainer which was not easy considering the fact that the Monastery isn’t a very lively place for children. They have now returned to school and are staying at the hostels there but I ask that you keep these boys in your prayers.