From Africa

I'm in Africa.

I apologize for taking so long to write. The internet isn't as efficient as I'd hoped. I've received several great and encouraging emails from friends and family, and the moment I hit "send" on a reply... it went down. (Apparently to send (or "upload") affects the connection more than to receive (or "download" (for you silly laymen)).

Also, I have a slightly older computer (it was a refurb I bought five years ago), so it may not be getting/sending the information as efficiently as others (for instance, I think Sharon's mac has had a lot more success on Myspace than my computer has).

So my apologies to all of you who've sent me messages and I haven't replied... I really have been trying, and I'm grateful for the contact.

I'm writing this offline right now in hopes that on the chance I get a strong connection I can just paste this in and post it.

We'll see.

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It's beautiful here. At this point I'm not even going to try and upload pics (see previous paragraphs), but hopefully that can be remedied before too long.

We arrived safely, without incident, and with all of our luggage (some of the others weren't so fortunate (regarding the luggage that is...). We left the morning of May 1st and arrived in Livingstone on the 3rd. The reception was warm and excited...

So far it is almost a dream... or one of those fantasies your mind wanders off on.

It really is breathtaking. I've always just thought of that as a cliché, but when they first brought us to the lip of the gorge as the sun was setting on the Zimbabwe horizon... for a moment, I literally could not breathe.

You wouldn't believe the night sky. Stars upon stars upon stars... when God told Abraham that his descendants would outnumber the stars in the sky and the sand in the sea, I always kinda thought the reference to stars in that passage was... unnecessary. We could probably count all of the stars if we wanted to, but the sand? Well, I have been humbled. The stars are just as without number. And they go all the way down to the horizon. If you want to see a shooting star, just look at the sky and wait a few minutes, you will. Late at night when the generator is off and you've let your eyes adjust, you can get a good idea of your surroundings just from the light of the stars...

...amazing.

It is also demanding. We are up early and we go to bed late. We work out in the mornings. I thought I was in "sort of", okay-ish, shape.

I was wrong.

But we're working on that.

I know the real "challenge" hasn't even begun yet. In two days we leave for one of the nearby villages to spend the weekend with the people there. I'm nervous and excited.

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I've had a difficult time finding my "quiet place," or "secret place," or whatever you'd call that state.... The schedule is very full, but it includes a couple of hours of free time every day... though until the past few days it has been a challenge to use that time to find my focus toward God. If you're needing things to pray about for me... please pray for that.

I'm grateful for the prayers of my friends and family back home.

Mike Petzer was with us all of our first week here, teaching us out of Romans. It was very refreshing to hear so much of what Mom and Dad have always taught us coming from "a pulpit." I probably can't even begin to comprehend the deposit that has just been made in my life...

... but I will see the results.

The people are a good group.

I'm glad to be a part.

A surreal setting with twenty of us pursuing the Father, while wanting to learn relevant and practical ways to be a benefit to this world... And all through this training, we have expedition and missions teams coming in and out of the base here, stopping by for a rest and to get re-"outfitted." They share the amazing things that have taken place while they were out, and then go right back out into the bush.

It makes me think of different movie scenes... like allied soldiers in WWII briefly stopping by the base before going out to fight again, or some John Wayne scenario where he's stopping back by the ranch before heading out to the call of the wild... surreal.

It is beautiful.

... I'm anxious to find my secret place.