Bind Us Together

I spent a delightful evening tonight with a small group of friends. We shared a meal, worshiped for a while, really meditated on Ephesians 1:3-14 together, sang some more, prayed together, read about the persecuted church and prayed for them, prayed for each other... I imagine the early church may have been similar. For most of the time we had no power, which was fine. Candle light adds to the ambiance. Praise God for such an encouraging time!

Stun Guns and Other Cures

Believe it or not, I have gotten a lot done already in the 2 weeks since I got here. Sooner or later I will send out a letter with more details on that. The last two days I have had fewer projects to work on so I could finally sit down and do some reading. In the good old days, when folks arrived they spent a couple of months in training in a little village somewhere. Now they have condensed those months into a bunch of readings which I am supposed to be doing.

Today's reading was horrifying. Several nurses have gone through a ton of work to create a very thorough health document for the sake of those who don't have good medical care nearby. I am glad that doesn't apply to me. Nevertheless, I read most of the document, with it's gruesome descriptions of boils, worms, rashes, infectious creatures running amuck in the digestive track and chewing your liver to pieces... very light and fluffy stuff. I did find one bit of information that I found particularly fascinating. Though there haven't been any official studies done, it seems that one way to stop the poison from a snake bite is to zap yourself with a tazer. In fact, this cure seems to work for all kinds of things, even bee stings and mosquito bites. So next time you get bitten by a mosquito, blast yourself with a stun gun and you won't get an itch! Sounds like a good deal to me.

The other option, of course, is to use the stun gun on the mosquito. Actually I found out that they sell hand-held bug zappers here. They look like a racquetball racket and fry like a lightsaber. Rather fun, I may get one for the entertainment value as well as the anti-malarial benefits. Of course, hopefully now that I plugged up the hole in my bathroom I will have fewer hunting adventures in the dark.

African mosquitos are very obnoxious because they are smaller and quieter than what we have in the Northland. Kind of like stealth stingers. You can't hear them unless they are about to bite you in the ear, and they are almost impossible to see unless they are against a perfectly white wall (those are rare here). They hide out until you are asleep and then meticulously study your mosquito net looking for stray body parts that they can stab through the net. Unfortunately I didn't realize at first that they were that industrious, and both my hands are full of mosquito bites. I now try to maintain a DMZ between my hands and the net at all times while I sleep.

All right, well I am off to play some table tennis with somebody who is probably a lot better than me. Fortunately we have an eighth inch of dust on the table, which should level the playing field both literally and figuratively as long as he is not a poor sport and insists that we clean it off before we play.

Bonne journée!

C'est votre meilleur geste de la journée!

Here in Africa we reuse everything at least once, and frequently hundreds of times. One of those things that we reuse is plastic water bottles. When I arrived I inherited 4 of them. I think 2 where actually brand new. The others were already on their second or third life.
On these bottles, which are French, is the phrase I posted as the title. It means "It's the best thing you do all day." The paragraph talks about how drinking their wonderful water does marvels for your body and that of your child if you happen to be pregnant.
Every time I see that line I am so happy that it isn't true. I am so glad that I do something more useful with my life than consume a product that is good for me, or that required fewer trees to get cut down in a rain forest somewhere, or whatever other gimmick they come up with. Those things are good, but if that is the sum total of life- being a better consumer- then life is pretty meaningless. You would honestly do better to just stop consuming altogether. Live in a forest and eat grubs or something.
So my thoughts are these: Consume intelligently but don't stress out about it and don't waste your time getting indoctrinated by advertising. Use that time to do something with your day that actually MEANS something.

I'm here!

As you have most likely gathered from the messages I have already launched in vague directions via the grapevine, I have safely arrived in Africa. The past 4 days have been kind of a whirlwind, especially since I have had a cold and have therefore been somewhat groggy. They have been gracious to me here and let me sleep in a few times as I try to get over this cold and get over the jetlag as well!

On my very first night I took a taxi home in the dark, which was terrifying, but I got home okay. The next day I took a "car rapide" with a friend. The "cars rapides" are brightly-colored vans with benches in the back. They stop every couple of blocks, or wherever there is a big enough crowd, so people can pile on and others can get off. That would have been quite an adventure if I had been alone, but with him there it was just pleasantly entertaining.

Saturday I was feeling kind of crummy so I stayed in my room while my friends went for a looong walk on the beach. When they got back Sunday I hung out with them, and a couple of us ate supper together. So it was a good weekend despite feeling under the weather. I pray none of them get sick from me!

Today was a branch meeting that was a ton of information for a new guy like me. And we have been working on inventory. Yay, oh yay! This evening I went shopping for the first time and got stocked up on rice, couscous, tomato paste, more anti-malaria meds, etc. and ate supper with a really neat family here who has LOTS of board games.

So, despite significant initial culture shock, I feel like I am starting to settle in pretty well. Thank you so much for all of your prayers!