Coming to Africa to update my facebook profile.

Today was a nice day. Had a good sleep under heavy cotton blankets, woke up and had some ginseng and honey tea, read, journaled. Then after lunch went with the guys back to the Africycle site to finish putting the roof on the guard hut.

I had totally prepared myself to be working hard while I was here--in fact if I remember correctly I spent a couple restless moments praying about the ensuing physical labour. However, this isn't the case. In fact, if I wanted to I could just sit around and read or mess around on facebook.gay. (yes, I use facebook.gay from time to time...but that doesn't mean I can't bash it.)

But, by the grace of God I prepared myself to work hard and so my mind is set to work hard, damnit! I didn't come to Africa to catch up on my reading or movies.
That's another thing--I've been praying a lot that the Lord would show me my purpose here (in the guise of a crotch?) because I know there's a reason I'm here.
Anywho! Back to today! I went with the guys to finish work on the guard hut--pretty sweet. I hammered in a few nails, took some pictures, swept, and generally felt less lazy and more worth-while (yeah, yeah, hard work makes me feel worth-while...)
Here I am trying unsuccessfully to hammer nails into the top of the roof while Ben looks on laughing. Well, less laughing, more humouring me.
Then after that we headed home and I helped make dinner for 13 people. It was awesome. A real glimpse into community living--preparing and eating meals together, fellowship after. It's cool.
Oh, and a new girl came today--Claire Bent. It's pretty funny actually--we have a lot in common (minus she lives in London, is a pastor, and is 28). Alright, so the only thing we have in common is our uncommon first name and stranger last names.
The cool thing about being here is people are constantly coming and going so there are always new people to bug and ask 'what are your dreams?' 'why are you in Africa?' 'where are you going next and why?'
Sadly I haven't completely identified the spirit of missions--but I feel I'm getting closer with each person I interview.

One of those people I met is Mary Helen, a retired nurse/psychologist who is here to help orphaned children with their grief. What a crazy ministry, eh!?! She's going about it all right too--training the nationals so that the program doesn't die when she leaves and so that the people take the responsibility and the pride in their work and the results.

She told me a sad story--she was in a village doing research about how children are helped to deal with grief when she met a grandmother caring for her orphaned grand-children. Mary Helen noted the children never smiled, or really showed any emotion at all. After an hour Mary Helen said to the grandmother 'The children seem very sad.' to which the grandmother replied 'Oh. I'd never thought of them as being sad.' When I asked Mary Helen how children were helped to deal with grief she said 'they weren't' and that's why she was here.

This last picture was taken from the site today--there is a gang of kids who congeal around us when we're working. This little girl is a typical snapshot of Africa--but her smile melted me. It's not framed properly (all you shutter-bugs) but I had to catch the moment and only had a fraction of a second to do it.

Alright, my picture has been downloading this entire time and there's no end in sight. I can't believe you forced me into doing this again! But the pictures here are just too cool. Oh. You'll just have to wait for the slide-show. And you KNOW there will be a slide show the day after I get back.