Day of rest, rain and spiders

I had a wonderful night’s sleep last night! After coming back from supper, we went online a little bit and then went straight to bed. We were so tired we were at the stage where we couldn’t even talk in coherent sentences. It was strange sleeping under a mosquito net again, hearing the sound of African insects outside. I slept so soundly, hardly waking up at all during the night, and when I did I had the quick thought, “Where am I?” Then I would remember I was in Africa and go right back to sleep with a smile on my face.

I had a pleasant surprise when I woke up at 6:45 this morning. A rather large spider was on the inside of my mosquito net, way up at the top so I was staring straight up at it. It was a harmless thing, but still rather gross. It just made me wonder how it got there…  So the first thing I did today was kill a spider. Then Erika and I did a workout video before church. It was still fairly cool that early in the morning, although not quite cool enough to make the workout super comfortable. After a cold shower (on purpose) and getting ready, we walked over to Dee and Dave’s to catch a ride to the church in town which started at 9am. Dave was sick, so but we did pick up 3 other people to bring with us, so it was a squished ride in the back. It took about 20 minutes to get to Good Shepherd in town. It was a nice church—I probably have been there before because I recognized some of the roads we turned onto, but it didn’t look all too familiar to me. The hymnsoft program was broken, so the Pastor introduced worship with an announcement that we would be singing everything a capella. However, it was discovered that Erika and I both play organ/piano, so they asked if one of us would be willing to step in on the keyboard and at least play the melody. Erika volunteered! Nothing like being thrown into something last minute, but this is Africa. And Erika did a wonderful job!

After church, we were introduced and welcomed to the congregation and got to visit briefly with some people before Bible class started. Aunt Margie led the Bible class on Ephesians and there was a good turnout of women—maybe 14 or so. I always knew this about Aunt Margie, but her knowledge of the Bible is incredible. It was awesome to listen to her speak, and encourage us and really get us thinking. It was a long, but faith-building Bible study. After the Bible study we caught a ride home with Mrs. Birner, because Dee had to stop at Shoprite again to price some things and felt bad for dragging us along (although we wouldn’t have minded). We had a nice chat with Mrs. Birner on the ride home and she invited us to go swimming with them and maybe the Sargents later in the afternoon.

Lunch was a yummy PB&J and a super delicious plum! While chilling in the living room after church and lunch we counted 6 spiders on the wall, that we could see without moving. We didn’t harm any of them.

Instead of unpacking, we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood before going swimming at 3. We got our athletic clothes on and our cameras and headed out. We wanted to try to find the little shopping area that is within walking distance from the campus. So we started out, being typical tourists taking pictures of everything. Right outside the campus gates we walked past a guy wearing an MLC Knights shirt. What are the odds?? Seriously! Unfortunately he was running past us, so I couldn’t whip out my camera fast enough to take a picture. I was tempted to call him back though.

The walk was very nice! We didn’t find the store we were looking for, so we’ll have to try again another day. I think we realized where we turned the wrong way though, so I’m pretty sure next time we’ll be able to figure it out. The highlight of our walk was getting caught in 3 rain showers. Erika didn’t have her camera case and didn’t want her camera to get ruined, so we stopped under a tree to wait out the rain. While waiting we had about 5 cars stop and ask us if we wanted a ride home. One guy even gave me his business card with his phone number on it. Later on we also had a car stop and a guy wanted our telephone numbers so we could ‘mingle’ sometime. He wanted to take us swimming tomorrow. We politely declined every offer, but it was quite nice for the self-esteem. J

The swimming was delayed a bit until the weather cleared, but then we met up with the Birners, Dee and Nathan and headed over to the American International School. What a gorgeous campus! It was crazy to think that I was at the school that had started my quest to come back to Africa and teach. Mrs. Birner said she will give me a tour sometime and introduce me to some of the head people there. Very much looking forward to that!

The evening was pretty laid back. We finally unpacked and looked through some of the boxes Abby and Tammy left us. Had another supper of sandwiches, since Anne only cooks for us on the week nights. We watched some episodes of Modern Family but I was nodding off so badly, so I decided to multi-task and go online to keep me awake. It's probably going to be an early night for us and tomorrow we're meeting with some of the ladies and hopefully the Dean of Students, Pastor Phiri, so we can figure out some kind of schedule.

I've posted pictures on Facebook, so if you want to see photos you'll have to add me as a friend or just go there to look. I will probably take way too many, but that's ok. I"ll upload as I go.