Anyways, I had a really nice morning. It was cool, so I just layed in my bed, dozing, enjoying the coolness of the day, thinking about the week that's past and the week ahead... it was lovely! I finally got up, had some porridge, which Jackie had made when she got up a few hours earlier, and then listened to a really good John Piper sermon on my MP3 player. I love that guy. This one was about showing hospitality to people, and how our love for the folks around us (whether we like them or not!) flows from the love that we have for God and the love that He has for us.
Nothing deep that I hadn't known before, but a really good encouragement to me, as we have a pretty steady stream of people in and out of our compound on a daily basis... and even just giving someone a cup of water when they come by looking for something is showing them hospitality, which, quite honestly, takes a lot of effort when there are so many other things to do and it's so hot... So I'm feeling encouraged and motivated again to try to treat people as I should, because that honors God, and that's why I'm here. Doesn't matter so much if I single-handedly kick start a country's education system or support the work of Bible Translation... what matters is if I honor and glorify God in the little things of loving the people who stumble into my life every day!
After a refreshing morning, I led another expedition to the river for lunch. This time we went to a different restaurant, where we could sit right on the river bank to eat. It was a BEAUTIFUL day today - over cast, breezy, just spitting a few rain drops now and then. So we were almost cold sitting on the river bank! As we sat waiting for our food, we watched a bit of a drama unfold. The restaurant we were at happened to be just a few meters down from the barge landing. One barge took off from the docks, and was headed downstream. Of course, since the barge sort of backs out of the docks, they have to make a bit of a circle in the middle of the river to turn themselves pointing the right direction downstream.
This barge made a big wide circle... and then kept going into another circle. And then he kept going into another circle. And then he started moving towards the bank a little farther downstream. And he started going closer and closer to the bank, and it didn't seem that anything the captain was doing could control the barge. Remember, this is a huge barge on a huge, very fast flowing River!
And notice on the far left side of the photo is the wreckage of a previous barge crash?! So we were all watching with bated breath, waiting to see what was going to happen with this barge. Sure enough it got hung up on the bank.Fortunately, we weren't too far from the barge docks, so someone called for help, and another barge swung out and came to tow the first barge back to the docks!
We were all sitting there being very impressed by the skill of the second barge captain. It was amazing how he piloted his own huge barge against the current, while swinging the first barge right where he needed it to be. There was drama on the high seas today!
No comments:
Post a Comment