All Things Interesting...

After a long silence, I am finally back. It seems that I am becoming accustomed to many of the things that I would normally notice. As a result, there are fewer times that I think, “This HAS to go on the blog!” Unfortunately, I have not had any of these moments recently, but I thought it was time to update the blog. So, here is a brief update of all things interesting…

We had another termite invasion. For those of you who were not reading the blog at the time of the termite invasion last year, every year all of these termites (which are basically large flying ants) come up out of holes in the ground, fly around in a huge swarm for a night or so, shed their wings, and then crawl around for awhile and eventually die. Every time this happens, I spend an hour or so wielding a can of Doom and a fly swatter, trying to best the few determined termites that manage to squeeze in under the door to flutter around my room.

In other news, we recently returned from a trip to Kenya for meetings, medical appointments, and rest and relaxation. I had a fantastic time buying things, eating ice cream, and visiting with friends. During one of the meetings, we were enjoying some group prayer and worship time from a spectacular mountaintop outside Nairobi. As we discussed Scriptures and what God was teaching us, my supervisor's wife very nonchalantly pointed to the bush behind and said, “Look!” A giraffe was calmly walking right towards us, clearly enjoying the view himself. How cool it is to be joined by some of God’s most interesting creations while spending time to praise Him!

When we returned to Southern Sudan, we found another of God’s interesting creations in our bathroom. The six of us share a long-drop toilet (if you don’t know what this is, don’t worry about it!), and we occasionally share the bathroom with various critters like snakes, lizards, and frogs. Upon our return, we discovered a nice little petrified lizard. He had managed to get himself caught in a door, and in the Sudanese heat, had petrified in quick time. This morning, Jennifer and I were reminiscing about the petrified lizard that we found in the bathroom. As we discussed it, I remembered another petrified lizard I encountered once. The particular petrified lizard I had discovered was about half petrified and was lounging on our porch. Thinking it was dead, as most petrified lizards are, I used my shoe to lightly scoot it towards the edge of the porch, at which point the slightly-petrified lizard quickly scurried off to the bush, clearly very much alive. I mentioned the half-petrified lizard to Jennifer, and asked, “How does a lizard become partially petrified without being dead?” Jennifer responded, “That would have to be one LAZY lizard!”

Well, that’s all for today. Maybe it will be more profound next time! :)