February 19th, 2009

Shout out to Tyler Reeves who is turning the big 20 today. Way to go bud, you made it! Sorry, that wasn’t very professional of me. If this ever gets published into a nice big, hardback book, with a really cool cover of a giraffe of lion or something, those two sentence may need to be removed.
Anyway, life is good right now, and God’s better (a little cheesy, but it’s true). I continue to get challenged, to grow, and to find strength in the grace of God. I’ve had a rather eventful past 45 hours, and I’ll take you on a play by play.
Let’s see, two night ago I set a new Alex Salzwedel South African record with a fall asleep time of pre-10:00! That was exciting, but I know every single soul that’s reading this could care less.
Yesterday we had our good ol’ weekly field trip…and for the first time we had blue skies to accompany it! However, the field trip was pretty bad, and one of my top 5 strengths according to strengthquest is positivity, so when I say pretty bad, I mean pretty bad. Generally, our field trips are what we make of them. Therefore, because I am blessed to be part of the best Humans and the Environment class to ever walk this planet, our field trips are usually AMAZING, on a scale of 1 to 10. Yesterday was an exception. First, one of our star players, Amanda Kretzmann, was out of the lineup for the day, a big hole to fill. Second, we got a tour guide that…well we’ll just say she had a good heart. Third, we were in Durban…DURBAN!!! THE F’ING VACATION CAPITAL OF SOUTH AFRICA, and we found ourselves visiting industrial areas looking at God knows what. I’m still a little bitter. I will say that since we have the coolest professor ever, she let us go to the Ocean to swim for a half hour when it was over, which made up for it.
The rest of yesterday was just a really good day, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it was the blue skies. Maybe the fabulous company. Who knows? But it was a supurb day.
This morning…new day. Woke up, clouds, oh well I’m from Oregon so I like it. In no time, sun, who doesn’t like the sun. I went on a run, and saw two zebras. I probably got closer to these guys (well it was a guy and a girl, I could tell) than I have any other zebras. So I looked, and looked, and looked at them some more, until I realized that if I didn’t at least move my feet they might become fused to the cement, so I turned around and started running back. I took a path on the way back, and ended up at this look out point in the middle of the reserve, it was gorgeous to say the least. There’s nothing like listening to the beauty of Josh White and Telecast, as you look out over God’s creation at it’s best (as if I’m one who determines what of God’s creation is “best”). So eventually I got up, ran back to The Palace, showered up, ate some lunch, went to Life and Teachings, got done with Life and Teachings, went back to The Palace, worked on my exegetical for Life and Teachings, and here I am now. Oh, and since we’re in South Africa I should add that the lightning and thunder has hit, and hit’s pouring like mad. There’s a phrase we always say here…TIA (This is Africa). Now, all you all who haven’t written me in a while (or ever since I left), we both know who you are, open up a new tab, get on facebook or email or whatever you go to, and write me a stinkin’ letter! Love.