Solitude

Harare Botanical Gardens

This week has been a great week of reflection and rest. Last Wednesday I literally spent the whole day in solitude at the Harare Botanical Gardens, most of it hanging here in my Eno. Training has focused more on practical skills I can use and learning to really spend time refilling myself when I pour out all my energy and passion into others. I can't believe how quickly time has been going by. I am already halfway through the month of February. Soon I will be able to really start what I came here for. I'm excited to get to explore more of town and get myself established.

Resting after running... look, I'm
smiling and it's not even 6am!

One of my favorite parts of each day, believe it or not, is waking up early to run. There's something so satisfying about knowing I've been awake as long as the sun and haven't wasted away my morning. The city of Harare is so beautiful and green... I have grown to love running into an orange sky while dodging the many potholes in the road. The consistency in running has started to help form some small relationships with people in the neighborhood. I now recognize the faces of many other morning joggers and walkers. While our greetings may be brief and short of breath, it makes this place feel more like home.

Serving supper

Please be in prayer for me as training winds down and a whole new world of opportunities awaits around the corner.

Learning Points:

• It's not just okay to take a break, it's necessary. Pray I continue to have time to rest and reflect during these busier weeks.
• Walking to the shops for groceries almost every day provides great opportunities to get to know faces and connect with people/employees. Why don't we do this more at home?

Chillaxin'

After church last week

I just sent out an email update (which you can sign up for on the home page of my blog), but I thought I'd share some more photos and silly stories here for posterities sake. ;)

So, here are the highlights of the past week. First off, in case you haven't already noticed, I get to hang out with some pretty crazy people. Every day is full of hilarious adventures. Every Sunday we attend a different church. Since we are all here for training, everyone is out of their comfort zone to some extent. It's been so fun for me to walk through exploring new things with this group of people.

We like TV. Like, too much. So much that we need to like keep the TV in a different room... and we may have plowed through four seasons of Psych and like one or two dozen movies in the past two weeks. It's also possible that we spent 16 hours on Saturday eating popcorn and sitting on couches. While this is great bonding time, I promise we've also been learning a lot and the breaks are well-deserved. This photo is from training last week. We've been studying the characteristics of the Father and the truth of our identity in Him. We nailed all our insecurities and worries and fears to the cross - literally. Then we burned them. It was an eye-opening experience and has been so freeing for me as well as others.

Yesterday after church I finally got a chance to explore downtown Harare a bit. There is a chicken restaurant with the slogan "Luv dat chicken." I have yet to try it, but I can only hope it will fill the Chick-fil-A shaped hole in my heart. We were able to get some ice cream and make memories. It wasn't comparable to Whitey's Ice Cream in the QCA or to Andy's Frozen Custard in Springfield, but ice cream is ice cream, right? I am halfway through my time at this house with these wonderful new friends, and I'm sad to think that it will come to an end soon.

But alas, new adventures lie ahead. Thanks all for supporting me on this journey. Please enjoy this photo of sausages that spell "God."

Learning points:

• Don't wear red in a rainstorm because apparently the superstition is that if you wear red you will get struck by lightning.
• People are people no matter where you are. I love people.
• I should probably stop writing updates late at night when I'm deprived of sleep.