"there are no wild animals in Africa"

This past Sunday night, we had a fundraising opportunity called Night of Nations.

Night of Nations: an event where global outreach teams perform a skit, song, video, dance, or anything imaginable!

Courtesy of Vanguard Outreach Department

I have a love/hate relationship with NoN ... 

Love: It gives me the reason to dress up 

and make a complete full of myself in front of a crowd of people.

Hate: It's stressful. 

I remembered the first time the Outreach department decided to host this event, I was going to Mozambique for the second time. Our theme was Safari with mix of African animal stomping, Mozambican dancing, and had the help of our Ethiopian nieces ;)

And then I dreaded the following year's NoN. This time around I was going to Mozambique through our S.O.S program (Summer of Service) for 10 weeks , along with other students who were going to different countries. Our theme was Dora the Explorer. Dora helped a friend find her missing djembe by traveling through Philippines, India, and to finally Africa, encountering new friends and the infamous Swiper along the way. And yes, I was Boots.

This year, our team came up with Safari theme with a Lion King twist. It's the only time where you will see a hipster-vegan lion, crocodile, zebra, Rafiki, bird, elephant, and tourists dancing on stage to "Yesu Wakanaka (Jesus is Very Good)" while the audience is singing and clapping along. Although our team didn't win the prize, we still had a lot of fun, had hours of team bonding, and no one was shy. Pretty proud of my team. Like a proud momma. 

Courtesy of Korynn Whitaker aka Zebra