Ups and Downs

Today has definitely been a day of ups and downs. Before I woke up this morning, I dreamed that I was at my uncle’s funeral, which was really cool because it felt like I got a chance to go, even though I’m not able to go for real (it’s actually about to start in 10 minutes), and I woke up thanking God for that opportunity. An interesting thing is that the things people were saying were in Swahili. I think in the dream, I thought it was Spanish, but the words that I remembered when I woke up were Swahili words. Anyway, it’s been a hard day knowing what’s going on at home. My teachers knew what was going on and some of the other students, and they were all very understanding, but I still cried in the middle of class and periodically throughout the day.

Today we were studying directions and means of traveling, and so we divided into groups and did a scavenger hunt. Each group wrote and placed clues for another group and then we all went looking. We sent the group to the house of one of our teachers (which is also the family that one of the girls in our group is living with) and hung instructions on the clothesline. The instructions told them to knock on the door and sing a song using three random words for the lady who cooks there. Then she gave them the next clue, which sent them to the library to find a particular book. The clue in the book sent them to the laundry where they were supposed to ask “Where are the animals?” The lady told them that they were the animals and told them to act like a cow. After acting like cows, she told them that the clue was in the sand (in the volleyball court nearby). We had rolled up the clue and partially buried it in the sand. That clue sent them to the security guard at the gate who asked them to answer two riddles. After answering the two riddles, they got the “treasure.” The funny thing is that all three groups decided to leave their “treasure” with the security guard at the gate. Fortunately, each of use had clues written on different colors of paper and we each had to do something different. Actually, it probably wouldn’t have mattered because the treasures were all the same – juice boxes (pineapple-passion fruit – yum!), chocolate bars and little sweet bananas (which, by the way, are REALLY, REALLY good). It was a lot of fun and it was a great way to practice giving and following directions.

Last night was also really cool. I had a good conversation with one of the guys in the group and was able to pray for him for some things that he’s dealing with right now.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m working on getting some more pictures up. I’ll post the link again when they’re up. Please keep praying for my family, and especially for my aunt and her kids and grandkids.