Today I woke up to the pitter pattering of kitten paws on my tin roof and I incorporated them into my dream like you do when you hear your alarm clock and you wonder why somebody isn't answering the telephone. I walked outside, on time today, and saw kirk pointing and saying "MONKEYS!" they weren't kitten paws after all. The Monkey sat perched on the porch just long enough me to scream "COOL A MONKEY!" and run into my bedroom to grab my camera. However, in true monkey fashion or atleast what I assume would be monkey fashion, he ran away just as I had him in my view finder.
We headed to church this morning at Hilltop UMC where we were the honored guests. The place was packed; the drums were loud, and the music was tribal and beautiful and just right. Laurel and I were given two translaters because we could not see the interpreters over the heads. My translaters sign name was mustache but, for the life of me I can't pronounce his spoken shona name.
Sadly enough, everyone was astounded by our offerings since I alone gave $20 US which with the black market reate is 4 million Zim dollars and their goal for the Harvest collection was 500 million. Why didn't I give $50 or the entire $300 I brought? I know I can live without that $300. God forgive me.
On our way to the youth prayer group that Laruel and I were invited to at night, our driver Abraham, whose name sign is "fat"... ouch..., told us that in 2007 it is rumored that Zimbabwe will be out of electricity because they have no way to produce it and no other country will except their worthless cash. He also saith that the other countries will only except US cash because it is excepted everywhere as oppsed to the Euro which is twice the value of the US dollar.
At the prayer group we spent time singing and explaining to eachother about the structure of the US and Zim youth groups and then the holy spirit came. It blew through the doors and washed over all of us as we got off the pews and slunk to the floor and faced our benches, bowed our heads and prayed aloud. "Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth." The Shona and English, Zimbabwe accents and our two American accentsmixed together like waves aplashing against the gritty sand shore and nothing was distinguishable. It was magnificant and for a moment I was glad that I was not there with a Deaf person because just how there are things that are so visibly beautiful about sign language that you can't interpreter them for the poor hearing people that don't understand, this moment was not interpretable. Thank you Jesus.
There are so many things happening here that the English major in me wants to describe for you but I don't have the time or the ink like all the monkeys we saw when we came home this afternoon or the dinner we ate at the "fancy" but TACKY American style theme resturant that cost us 17 million 200 thousand Zim dollars... or the way the entire valley shouted for joy when the electricity was turned back on and how the cheers of the children made me cry as I listened from Hilltop church... or the way the lizard crawled into Carol's room... or when Zellie chased a bug for 20 minutes so she could pretend to take a picture with me and throw it on my instead... or when we drove back in the back of the truck to christmas pass and I forgot my sunblock as I ws standing just under the equator or when...
Amen.
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