hey everybody.

i'm in africa. at the johannesburg mall currently. communications
are hard to come by, but there's an apple store here at the mall with
some internet access.

for the past week i've been at `alabanza' a small christian community
- set up a bit like a commune, outside of pretoria. it's been great.
beautiful place, good people, good teaching, darkness when the sun
goes down. the weeks ministry has been a lot of manual labor,
building retention walls and terraces out of tires and dirt, and
mixing concrete manually to build an extension onto a pig stye.

rainy season just kicked in so we're getting some torrential rains in
the afternoons. it hasn't rained in six months, which `i suppose
works something like saving up rain credits. then when it rains it
pours. so it's hard to stay dry and unmuddy on the half mike hike
from the barn where we eat and have lectures and the house where we
sleep.

my times running out. i'll be able to write longer updates in a few
weeks, but tomorrow morning we're headed to swaziland to work in
hospitals and schools for a week. then back to alabanza for a week,
then off to `jeffreys bay, the final destination until may. i'll
write more soon, but i figured i'd check in. take it easy. hope all
is well with you.

simply,
matt