Horrraaayyyy!!!

So, today, FINALLY we have gotten a response from the Embassy!

They've granted me the Visa and my passport and documents are being posted back to me today. Praise the Lord! Talk about leaving it to the last minute... les than 48 hours before I fly! lol! Am feeling much better, lighter now, feels like a ten tonne weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

So now its getting down to doing all the packing... for some reason my suitcase wont close... It needs to be flat on both sides but it seems to bulge in the middle when we try to push the sides together...should have gone with an expandable suitcase! Oh well... guess I'll just have to take some things out....!!

There's supposed to be lots of sunshine there at the moment. I looked up the weather and it said it was 29 degrees on the day I'm due to arrive, 26 today, 27 tomorrow... it's gunna be warm, me thinks!
Am hoping the people I'll be staying with are nice and that we'll get on ok... am wondering if there'll be any Brits there or if everyone will be American. I hope there may also be some other new people there so I'm not compeltely new and everyone else is fully established etc...:-s

So... about 60 hours to go... countdown...

Stress!

So, I'm starting to get really stressed out about my visa and passport etc. The south african embassy has had my stuff since the 12th August, and they've not replied to any of my emails , calls or answerphone messages. I have 12 hours to know if I will need to pay a whole lot more to change my flights, and if I need to do that, when for and how much longer theyre going to keep all my documents and passport, bank stuff and everything... The website says it will take no more than 10 days to process everything, so why has it so far taken them 21. Twice they've asked for other stuff and I sent it immediately, so why won't they send everything back to me.... really starting to lose all hope :'(

Let's get going...

So, as you know, I'm Nikki, I'm 21 and I'm a crazy welsh girl from South Wales & I decided maybe it would be a good idea to start one of these blogs to track my many different travels and adventures! I've just spent the summer travelling all over the place including the Dominican Republic via Miami and New York to visit a Compassion child (www.compassionuk.org). It was a really amazing chance to see how Compassion work, to visit a real child face to face in their home and really see what it's like to live in extreme poverty, and how much your sponsorship actually means to the projects, children and family that you sponsor! I'll try and put some photos up on here if I can work out how! It's hard for us to imagine living with no electricity, no running water no closed sides to your house, certainly no showers or toilets, just dug out holes... its really tough, and seems very real when you're there. I remember thinking it was aweful flicking flies off myself all the time and didn't wanna sit down because it wasnt very clean, but then I stopped to thnik - this is how these people live, what right do I have to think that!!


So after my Dominican trip I landed back in the UK for all of 2 weeks before heading back out to the Ukraine for my 9th trip. As ever it was really good. I was there for 3 summer camps in 3 different places. Two in the Vinnitsa region, and one a 20 hour train ride away in Zaparozhye. It was so good to see everyone again and get to do some fun camps - plus this time, we also got to stay near the sea in Zaparozhye so we got afternoons off where we went to play beach volleyball, watch the sunset, and chill out on the beach - great fun :)
I know that I definately want to go back out to Ukraine in the future again, even if it's just to see all my friends and not do the camps. My heart is really in this place!!




















I arrived back this time last week, and, providing my passport comes back, and my Visa too, I will be heading out to South Africa to work with TLC (The Love of Christ Ministries) on the 5th September for 8 months. This organisation takes in children that are abandonned, mainly between ages 0 and 3 years, and cares for them in a way the state orphanages and children's homes cant. They pride themselves on giving the best possible start to these abandonned/orphaned children and need lots of help to do so! They have between 30 and 40 newborn babies through to 2 1/2, 3 year olds and their aim is to either reunite them with their birth failies, or family, or to adopt them into new forever families. It's really cool. Some of the kids are sick with AIDS or HIV, or other kind of illnesses, so it's not always as easily done as can be said, but that's life. Will be hard work as they children don't al;ways pull through, but I hope it will be really fun and rewarding. My friend Rachel went there 2 years ago and stayed for 6 months. She said it was really tough but really rewarding. Part of me still wants to be going to the Ukraine longer term, but it doesn't feel right that they want so much money and that's one of the main things that's really holding me back... Hopefulyl going out to South Africa will give me time to put everything into perspective and see what's right in my heart and what God's really telling me to do and where to go :)

So, before I go away I'm trying to catch up with as many people as possible, and spend as much time with friends and family as I can! It's gonna be tough being away from everyone with no way to come back - my parents are hopefulyl coming out in February just after my birthday to see me and take me for a weeks holiday, which will be nice. Cape Town is where we're hoping to go for the break which should be fab!

Part of me is really scared about going to South Africa - not because I'm going to be away from everyone I know and love, but because everyone keeps scaring me with stories about crime and about how dangerous Johannesburg...which is where I'm going to be living... is! I don't know if it's safe for me to take things like my laptop and anything important with me - I want to take it, but I dont want to take anythnig that's likely to be stolen........ Please pray for me to make the right decisions & also that my passport and visa are granted and sent back to me...! I sent off my passport a week ago to the South African embassy with all my documents for the visa application including my birth certificate and all my bank and money information! I won't be going anywhere unless I get those. They told me to leave 10-15 working days from when I send it, to when I recieve it back which will take me up until the...26th August-3rd September... with my flight booked for the 5th... I hope and pray it'll all work out perfectly!! So, I'm down in Wales now over night to visit some friends at a party and will come back down on Sunday to go to church for the last time before I go away :(... I hope everyone I wanna see is there and that it'll be good. I'm gonna miss everyone so much!!!

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