And yet another day is done

There are a few things that happen only in this place...
The day started off with Vicky (one of the girls who helps us in the guesthouse) trying to ask me about Richard, and asking me if I had heard anything from him since he left on Wednesday. Then she started talking about plane crashes and all sorts of strange things... now, you have to understand that Vicky's English is less than perfect, and she sometimes has, well, some different ideas about things. So I really couldn't figure out what she was sayinga, and she knew I had no clue what she was saying.

So she trotted off to Jackie's room and started talking to her about whether or not you get money from the airlines if the plane crashes. Jackie had no clue what Vicky was getting at, so she started telling Vicky all about lost luggage procedures.

Obviously, this was not satisfying Vicky, so she gets out her phone, makes a call and shoves the phone to my ear. On the other end of the line was Richard, from his home in a different part of the country. As it turns out, Richard called Vicky yesterday, hoping to get to one of us to tell us that his plane almost crashed on Wednesday on his way home! Wow. They were coming in for a landing, and obviously weren't quite getting the landing right. Richard said they almost flipped over on the runway, but at the last minute, the pilot was able to pull up and abort the crash landing. Phew. The thought that, really, in a split second, we could lose someone like Richard in a crash or an accident... it's a bit humbling, really.

And then, of course, I've been getting more news about my friends back in my previous home. The news from there is not good at all. And that, too, just reminds me of how so much can change in a split second. Just one moment everything is going as we think it should, and we're going about our business... the next moment... everything changes.

And that makes me so thankful that I have a good God who is control of all of this! Even if Richard's plane DID crash, and even if my friends are never released, and even if the ones who are running get shot in their tracks... I KNOW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God is watching and that He is in control and that He loves His people and will do what He deems best to bring glory to His name.

How can people who don't know that go on living? I wonder at that sometimes, and it makes me even more thankful that by God's grace, I actually know him and have that assurance.

Um, yeah, ok, didn't mean to start sermon-izing here.

Right, this all came out of the fact that we had a very odd conversation with Vicky about planes, and how little we actually communicated with each other about Richard's near-death experience! No wonder nothing gets done around here, since we're all just puttering around trying to figure out what everyone else is trying to say!

Another highlight on the "Only around here" list of things for the day is the fact that Grace and I nuetered little Zane this evening. And I have the war wounds to prove it. Maybe I'll post a photo of the scars tomorrow.

So now Zane might actually be turning into a Jane. Speaking of Vicky and her linguistic abililities, because of her first language, she can't say the "z" sound. So she's been calling Zane "Jane" this whole time. Vicky and Sunday both have caught on to the fact that Jane is a girl's name, and Zane is, in fact, a boy cat. So they just thing it's a hoot that I gave my boy cat a girl's name... until lunch yesterday when it finally clicked with them that his name is Zane and not Jane.

But, quite unfortunately, we all end up calling Zane "Jane" quite often now, just because.

And now, Jackie's out of the shower, Grace is complaining that she wants the light out (she did, after all, work quite hard today - digging fence post holes out in the sun all day, since all the local folks were too drunk to do it!). Without the generator telling me to go to bed, I'm going to have to learn to be a bit more disciplined in my own bedtime routine.