Sometimes totally absurd things happen that feel kind of routine on the World Race…. until you really take time to reflect. There is nothing normal about any of this. 
Journal entry written during church (8/11):
Today there's a chicken…alive… stuck in a grocery bag under the table (bottom left corner of photo above), last week they had toy cars when they took the offering, picked them up and said “HALLELUJAH BMW! HALLELUJAH MERCEDES BENZ!” and cheered. What is my life? Sometimes I am just not sure. When I imagine singing (with hand motions, mind you) “Read your bible, pray everyday, if you want to grow” with the whole congregation of Believer's Chapel (my church at home), I have to hold in the chuckles as to not disturb the crowd's concentration of which car got the jackpot.
See the car?
When I start laughing at something small in a public place, my mind continues to think about all things funny until I can't do it anymore. It's terrible and wonderful. My next thought was about the early morning that same day…. I woke up brainstorming ways to look maybe-sort-of-a-little-bit-at-least-culturally-respectful at church…. then I put a headband on and felt super fancy, the same headband I wear when I exercise at home. Then I just went on a roll, baby.
Remember that time my teammate sat in a stranger's vomit? Or when we bought laundry soap that made our clothes smell like fish for 2 weeks? How about when I missed the announcement that we couldn't poop on the 37 hour travel bus? Then had to watch the bus attendant clean mine out with a plastic bag wrapped around his arm, my scarf around his neck, incessantly spraying his face/my scarf with disinfectant spray so he wouldn't get sick from the foul smell, all to see him dispose of my feces through the sanitary method called window. Better yet… how about finding out another member of our squad pooped on it 3 weeks later….. with the same attendant….. who then proceeded to show every.single.individual the part of their bus ticket that read, “WC for small necessity only”.
Remember when I got my blood drawn by a lady who stabbed and pinched my skin so she could scoop up my blood with the test tube? How about when I slammed a stranger's hand in the door of a Combi? Or when we had to soak our clothes in boiling water to get the port-o-potty bus scent out of them?
Then I started getting ridiculous picturing things like…
the route we take to church or….
that time you wanted to play volleyball or…
this ugly thing that tries to live in our house or…
how my view at church looks like this to the right…
and this to the left…
The list continued along with my laughter. It was a tough service to sit through.
Close up of the struggling chicken
Anyway, I haven't blogged since May. Much has happened…. a passion for South Africa, I'm on a new team, a team leader, learning a lot, almost done with Africa, almost to Asia, soon able to say “2 months and X days until home”, lived with a unique ministry with a Torah-Observant ministry host in Mozambique, slept on a bus 2 nights in a row, got tested for malaria, typhoid fever, a tropical disease, etc… found out I have half a tick bite fever (I don't understand those results either), lived at the top of a mountain for a week in Swaziland, the list goes on. Right now we're in Manzini, Swaziland serving at a hospice center (Hope House) and serving at a Carepoint for hungry children. We're here until the end of August and then head to Thailand for September. My love goes out to everyone! Please pray for us as we enter the last leg of this race… that we'll not do it to complete a task, but do it out of love for our Father. It's hard to focus, easy to think about the next big thing (which, at this point, is heading home), but there is a lot God has prepared for the next 3 months. With open hearts we finishhhhh…….
In Jesus' name.
Pizzy.
