Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Team Arete is serving this month in Mossman Gorge an
aboriginal community a few miles from the city of Mossman
in Queensland on the NE corner of Australia. There is no denying the fact that we are in
the rainforest. The temperatures during
the day reach around 110 degrees F and we live next to a huge gorge with
rushing water so the humidity is at least 5 times more then any other place
I’ve lived, including Missouri
and Georgia.
We are living in the one room church (which by the way does
not have air conditioning). On our first
night a HUGE lizard that was over a foot long came running into the building
and it freaked me out! I hate creepy
crawling things! I jumped up onto the
chair faster then I’ve moved in a long time. That night I was so scared about sleeping on the ground that I decided
to sleep in my tent inside the building. Since the only way we cool down is fans, it was miserable in my tent
because the air did not flow through well, but the lizard didn’t get me!
The next day we decided to clean the place up so we could
have a little more piece of mind. While
cleaning we found a mouse in a box of stuffed animals. We also found out that the huge lizard lives
in the building and we found two babies in a box. There are also spiders everywhere and some
that are huge and like to jump. (Enjoy
the below video of our mouse and lizards removal and my teammates scaring me
with the lizards!)
After we cleaned the place up a bit and removed the mice and
lizards, I’ve been sleeping on two pews pushed together. It’s a lot cooler then my tent and at least
off the ground (even though I know lizards can crawl up the pew legs, mentally
I feel better about my sleeping arrangements).
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Update: Since writing
this blog we have seen more lizards and another mouse inside the building. Even last night we saw two small lizards and
a mouse right before bed. I’ve still
been sleeping on the pews and at night I just put in my ear plugs and close my
eyes. My theory is that as long as I
don’t hear it or see it then it isn’t there! I guess my theory will work until I catch something actually crawling on
me, which I pray daily never happens cause I might have a heart attack if it
does. I would appreciate you praying for
me as well!!
