What A Morning!

What a morning!! You ever had one of those mornings, or days, where it seems that everything-EVERYTHING-goes wrong? Or maybe it’s not that things go wrong, it’s just that they don’t go with routine. We are people of routine, aren’t we? When we are off routine, we feel awkward. I’m sure you’ve had times like this: everyone has. I think they best way to handle them is just to laugh.


I woke up this morning at 7:20: already off routine. On school days, I rarely sleep in to seven: I try to get up around 6:30. I felt all groggy and sleepy. I got up and went down my stairs with my eyes barely open and my bed hair bouncing everywhere. Before I got to the bathroom, our worker said, “Oh good morning Skyler; can you get the soap?” “Ok,” I answered, not even thinking about what he said in my confusion. So I went into the bathroom, quickly matted down my hair, and grabbed the bar of soup. Before I got back to Edwardi, to give him his bar of soap, I stumbled into little Mikael, our next-door neighbor. He greeted me: “Hey Sky, I need a rag. Do you have a rag to clean up something? Oh yeah, did you know that I’m going to Nairobi this morning” “Uh… just hold on Mike” I said, trying to figure out what was going on. “Hey, Sky, come here I gotta show you something,” called Chase from his room.

“AAAHHHHH. What’s going on,” I thought. It seemed like everyone knew that Skyler was awake, and they all bombarded me with requests at the same time. Where they planning this, as I slept in?

Anyway, first things first. I took the bar of soap to Edwardi. What a dork I must have looked like. He said, “No, not that soap. I need the soap for washing the car” “Oh yeah, of course,” I answered, once again not having a clue what he meant. I went back to the bathroom to look under the sink, maybe if I saw the right soap, it would click in my mind (not a chance, that early in the morning).

“Sky! I need a rag. Look, I need to clean that up,” Mike pointed to a big spill of water. He had the empty cup in his hands. At least he was willing to clean it up himself. I just grabbed a towel and tossed it too him.

I finally got my contacts in. Good; now I can see! Maybe that’ll make things better.

Nope...

I went back to Edwardi to tell him I couldn’t find the soap he needed. He must have felt sorry for me: He said, “That’s okay, I’ll just wait until Grace gets here to ask her.” I saw the dog dish, and remembered it was my turn to feed our dog Tanzi. I grabbed the dish-not carrying to rinse it out-I was just too out of it. I passed my Mike, who was having a great time sliding on the towel as he was cleaning up the water spill. I opened the frig to take out Tanzi’s meat. Of course, something else had to go wrong: I spilled apple juice, and it went everywhere-in the frig, on the floor, on Tanzi’s meat. I cleaned it up and made Tanzi’s food. Chase came in and said, ”Oh, we don’t feed Tanzi that anymore. We use something else. I guess you didn’t know. It’ll be okay for this time. And…Um.. Edwardi needs you to turn off the car alarm.” I answered, “Ok, can you go get the keys to the car.”

It seemed like everything had to be down by me! I finally got out my first giggle. I was just figuring out how funny this whole morning was turning out to be. Laughing is such good medicine for mornings like this. Chase brought me the car keys. I took out Tanzi’s food and turned off the alarm for Edwardi.

Now that I look back at it, I just find it humorous. That’s what you have to do in times like that.

Laugh-just laugh.

Love Songs

(Show Your Love- Jars of Clay)
“I’m gunna show you love in every language
I’m gunna speak the words that need no form
I’m gunna give you what you never had before”

Got speaks his love to me in so many languages. In friends, in things I do, like jogging, playing soccer, and playing music. He speaks to me in an unknown language that I can’t comprehend, but I can understand: that I can’t touch, but I can feel. It’s the greatest thing in the world: Your LOVE Lord. It’s so overwhelming. I love it, I love it, I love it!!! It’s kind of like having a great super star, who’s not only right by you, but he actually likes hanging out with you and he considers YOU his best friend. Yeah.. It’s a lot like that…except it’s not just a superstar, its God. Do we even really realize who that is: the CREATOR of the universe, the one who controls all the world and every little thing that happens; the one who dazzles us with his beauty and who created ME. THAT’S the superstar who is by me. When I get close to him, I feel so good. I could just stand next to him forever without him saying a word, but he’s not like that. He loves to talk to me, to tell me that HE…. LOVES…..ME. It’s so incredible.

(Befriended-Matt Redman)
“Befriended by the king above all kings
Surrendered to the friend above all friends.”

It really should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? Think about it… the king above all kinds befriending us? We should surrender to this king above all kings, not be befriended by him. …And surrendering to the best friend in the world? It’s seems all mixed up, but it’s so perfect. I love surrendering to Jesus--my best friend--, and I love that the king of the world befriends me.

(Your Love-Darrel Evans)
“Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, oh intimate”

Friends are Friends

I'm trying to get better at going to play soccer in Unga Ltd. more often. I've realized lately how much I really enjoy going.

(Sometimes it's a hassel to go cuz if there's no one to take me there or make I have to leave at 3:30 and come back at 7:15 or so. I'm very thankful for public transportation, but it sure takes a long time.)...anyway...

It’s so fun getting to know each one of them, and as I do, I realize: we’re all people. We’re all on this level ground that all human beings are on. I have nothing over them, and they have nothing over me. We’re all people. We all have smiles, we all make jokes, we all love hanging out with each other, and we all yearn to form friendships with each other. They don’t mind an mzungu (white person) on their team, why should I mind making friends with them? They love getting to know me, why shouldn’t I open myself up to them? They are so joyous: every word I say to them is returned by a smile. I huge smile: a loving smile.

Though I never would have said it, or even thought it really, I came into the team with a sense of "I have to share God's love to these people in the way i act...I have to be a good example of God's love...ect." And I got so serious about it that I was defeating the perpose. I just go to play soccer and hang out. When I go, I'm the one who gets blessed the most. I am so blessed by their smiles, by their friendships. They are no different than my best friends that have the same color skin as me. Friends are friends.

...And I love the kids there. The soccer field is like a hang out place for kids of all ages: they come to play around and chase each other, to watch the older kids play soccer, or to play themselves. As I was putting on my cleats on day, a group of six year olds stood a couple feet away daring each other to touch my hair. One brave one, slowly came up behind me, stroked my hair, ran off and giggled with his friends. A couple more got up the courage and soon there were three kids stroking my hair. They kept saying "Ni teleza sana, eh?" (Is so slippery, isn't it?). I was laughing to myself. Kids are so fun.

The next time I came to practice, a mob of little kids ran up to me. The one kid who was the bravest in the "touch his hair" dare kept saying to the other kids "ni mzungu wangu, mzungu wangu" (he's my white-person), as he clung to my arm. They were all jumping on me. It was so awesome.

Oldonyo LenGai

I wrote this in August, thought I'd post it:

Last Monday morning, Chase, my dad, two friends named Jeremy and James, a visitor named David and myself went on a trip. We were going to some very dry, desert country. The reason was to climb Oldonyo LenGai. Oldonyo LenGai is maasai for the Mountain of God. The reason it is called that is because every once in a while it rumbles and smokes and shoots up ashes and sometimes lava. It is an active volcano. Our mission was to climb it.

We arrived at about 4 o'clock and tried to get some rest. Now it may be hard for you to believe this, but we were going to be leaving the campsite at 11 o'clock that night to start our climb. Why? Well, for a couple reasons: 1: I mentioned that the area is desert country. Very very dry, dusty and hot with little vegetation. We did not want to climb this mountain, with an average slope of 45 degrees, during the heat of the day. 2: We estimated the hike to take 6 hours. We wanted to get to the top for sunrise. Also we heard that if you get to the top at night you can see lava glowing.

So we got about an hour and a half sleep that night. We got up at 11, got in the car and drove to the base of the mountain (about an hour from camp).

It was actually very fun climbing in the dark. It was a quarter moon, not too bright, but the stars were dazzling. The Milky Way stretched its arm across the whole sky: glittering, shinning, twinkling as we hiked. You could look up and see the pitch black silhouette of the peek with stars lighting up the sky behind. We would be climbing for a couple hours, I would look up and the peek was still there: it hadn't moved, it hadn't got closer, it still seemed miles away. How long would this take?

Oldonyo LenGai, is a very very difficult climb. I mentioned before that it's average slope is 45 degrees. If you don't believe my look at the picture. Another thing: the path we take up (there is only one path up the whole mountain) is straight up. NO SWITCHBAKES or anything. The reason why is because there are huge gully running down the mountain. At times we had to walk in between two of them with drop offs on both sides. It was a very tiring climb, that just wore you out. Our visitor Dave (who actually paid for all of us to climb: very very nice) said: "if I had known how hard it really was I wouldn't have climbed it."

If the top were not so rewarding, the climb would not be worth it. We had to book it to get to the top by sunrise. ...And OH WHAT A VIEW. The mountain is so steep that you seem to be just standing on a pinpoint. As Chase said: "the mountain doesn't get in the way of any of your view." We were blessed with the most beautiful, clear skies. As the sun rose over the clouds and everything changed from black to blue to pink to red to yellow we could see for miles upon miles. A blanket of orangish yellow clouds was laid out across the landscape, with mountains breaking through it everywhere you looked: Longido, Monduli, Gelai, Meru, and even Kilimanjaro could be seen as bumps on the land. Lake Natron below us reflected the suns glare. The sharp side-lighting of the sun peaking over the horizon accentuated every crevice, valley and gorge of the rift valley escarpment, where upon you could see the stunning shadow of the very mountain we were on top of.

Now, let me describe the mountain itself for a bit. On the top there is a crater where all the lava comes out of. Throughout the crater there are huge spires. They are formed when lava is excreted and it builds up on itself. They just get bigger and bigger. (In some pictures you can see people at the bottom of them for comparison. You won't believe how big they are). You can also see huge holes where lava resides deep down. The lava actually only looks like mud. It is only sometimes in the dark that you can see it glowing (which we didn't). ...And there are lava flows quite frequently. There was a big one that occurred just three weeks before we were there. You could see the cooled lava, and imagine it dripping over the edge of the crater, oozing down the side of the mountain. Another cool thing was the steam. There was steam coming up everywhere: our of the spires, our of the ground, out of rocks. We were pretty cold at the top and we would warm up by putting our hands in front of the warm steam.

The whole thing just seemed out of this world. We seemed to be on the moon or Mars. Everything was so mystical. So elegant. It all pointed to God and His handiwork. It truly is the Mountain of God.

Clouds

Man! I just marvel at the clouds here in Africa! Today God has put on a glorious display of the many shapes, sizes, formations, and colors of clouds.
I needed to read a couple of chapters of a book for my English today, and I decided to read it up in a tree. So I climbed up my favorite tree and settled down in my favorite crook of that favorite tree, and started to read. It had been raining most of the night before and all of this morning. With the rain came the wind: rushing about trying to keep of with the rain, but always a little early or a little late. The wind was pounding on the tree causing it to bend. It smashed into me, chilling me to the bone.
I finished one chapter of the book, and wanted to move around a bit to kind of warm up. I climbed a bit higher and began to gaze at the landscape. On the horizon, way in the distance, were the flat skinny clouds with little bumps here and there. They stretched themselves flatter and flatter the farther away they went, trying to cover the seemingly endless expanse of the horizon. As I brought my gaze closer to me, the layers of clouds got puffier. I seemed to be lying on a bed with a big, soft comforter, looking across all the rolling hills and valleys in it.
Every once in a while my eyes would find a bright blue patch in the sky. The cleanness of that rain-washed sky was incredible. That “sky”-blue was just so punchy. There was no haze between my and it: so awesome.
As I rolled my head back to get the full dome of the sky in view, I was startled at what I saw: a black cloud. It was ominous: hanging over me so dominant yet so able to avoid my gaze. It spread its wispy arms in a circle trying to get as wide as it could without loosing its sheer bulk. It was this striking difference to all the other clouds that startled me. All the other clouds were delicate. They were decoration: like flowers spread throughout a living room; giving it a homey feel. The big dark cloud was like a huge oak tree right in the middle of a living room. It wasn’t homey, it wasn’t decoration: it was meant to be marveled at.
It was interesting what I saw next: two eagles soaring. Catching every gust of wind. Playing with the weather. Dancing with the clouds. I loved just watching them. I sat there at the top of my favorite tree wishing I could fly like those eagles, soar like those eagles.
Then…SPLAT. A huge raindrop landed on my arm. Uh-oh. More fell. They were huge! They left wet marks all over me, not like little sprinkles that disappear. By the time I was down the tree and heading toward the house, the ground was almost all wet. Rain in Africa: I love it.

And the smell that comes with it…. uh.. well, I won’t even try to put that into words.

I love God and His nature, and all the dazzling shows he showers all around us. Take notice of his marvels. They’re all around you.

(By the way, these aren't pics of today: just some of my favorite cloud pics)

Me

This is me.

1st Blog

Yahoo! My first blog. Let's see if i got everything set up right.