What a week

This past week was a bit of a doozie. Of course, it started with some difficulty with the internet which resulted in me not getting last weeks post up until Tuesday. But there was a lot more going on at the beginning of the week than just that. Some of you may know that my mom had been in the hospital for a few days and was finally able to get out on Sunday. Really everything was fine, I knew she was only there for some tests, but being here with no internet access, I was really feeling cut off from home and knowing what was up. I did hear Sunday night that she was out of the hospital, but hadn't heard much else in several days.

Monday I spent in the office mostly on my own. The power was out most of the day so I couldn't continue with the videos I had been watching when I left on Friday. Instead I started through several folders of slides. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the slide folders I had stacked up had lists in the beginning stating what the images were. These were a huge help especially since we don't have a light table for viewing the slides and instead I would have to hold each page at a somewhat awkward angle to use the light from the window. (I guess this would have been my technique any way since the power was out.) By the end of the day my neck was getting tired of the up-and-downs required for this process.

John had been away at a crusade over the weekend and came back late in the afternoon. The electricity came back on when he arrived so I declared his arrival as the blessing that brought the lights back. When he arrived I was preparing to be done for the day, so we didn't get too much more accomplished, but we decided to sit and talk about the project on Tuesday and evaluate where we were.

On Tuesday morning John had some errands to take care of so in the afternoon we had our meeting. We discussed the fact that we were behind on our proposed schedule and also acknowledged the fact that we needed to focus the project a bit more than we had originally talked about due to time and recourse constraints. That refocusing meeting turned out to be really great and from there on we have been able to push ourselves and our pre-production work. We've been able to come up with a script outline that has us now up to the late 1980s.

So the day on Tuesday was great. When I got back to the trailer that night the internet was finally working. I called in my email and was happy to see an up-date from my mom, but it came with some bad news as well. My Uncle in the US had been taken to the hospital sometime on Sunday. Three more messages soon followed giving details of a blood clot near his heart, his condition worsened, and finally he had passed away. WOW, seriously I went through the 4 messages almost as fast as I've just written them and, unless you're a VERY slow reader, you just read them. Not even an emotional rollercoaster that was more like an emotional cliff dive! Thankfully, I know that my uncle was a strong Christian man so I have no doubt where he is now, but it was still like having a rug pulled out from under me. It was a rather emotional end to the day, and I felt the distance between myself and the family back home.

On Wednesday I was back at work, John and I continued working on our script outline and accomplished quite a lot. In the evening my friend Michael came over and we watched a movie, which turned out to be just what i needed at the end of a long hard day, and in working out my emotions from the previous day.

Thursday John and I had a real victory as we installed and tested out the new hard-drive and slide-scanner I had brought. I am pleased to say both are working quire well. Not a lot else to say on hat day.

Our number 1 goal for Friday was to figure out how we could digitize some of the VHS footage John had in the library. For a while it was very discouraging and we could not figure out what to do. I have to admit I gave in to the frustration quite quickly and had trouble thinking of where to turn, but thankfully this is one area where John really came through for our team. He kept going through various settings dialogue boxes until he found 1 or 2 items that turned out to be the key. So in the end it was another victory for us as we began reviewing and capturing the tapes.

In the afternoon John had to go for another crusade so I finished in the office on my own. In the evening I went to church in town for a meeting with the Young Professionals (YP's), a newly formed group aimed at post college/pre-marriage and family adults. We had some nice fellowship and also "swallow-ship" of Mandazi's and Chai. The message this week came from the senior pastor who spoke on the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Specifically she touched on the 2 greatest commandments to "Love the Lord you God with all your Heart, Soul, and Mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself." The unique thing that popped out to me was that she pointed out the 3rd person we are to love in that verse. We talk a lot about loving God and almost as much about loving our neighbors, but we often for get to talk about how we aught to love ourselves! Just stop and think on that for a moment. Pastor Joyce pointed out that we are not necessarily supposed to be proud or selfish, but we need to be happy with who we are and what we do. Really, how can you "love your neighbor as yourself," if you don't love your self?

Getting back on track... Saturday was the 4th of July, which to me is a holiday, but to the entire rest of the population of Kericho, is just another day in July. So there were no big cook outs and no fireworks displays. My day started with laundry...uh...woo hoo? While I was bent over washing some clothes in my basin, minding my own business, this mal-tempered bee swooped in and maliciously stung me in the back of my neck! It was totally uncalled for! Thankfully, I am not allergic and so I think I will survive this episode of "when animals attack" but it was still an unpleasant experience.

I didn't let the sting totally ruin my day though, I finished my laundry and took the long walk to town, which really got my blood pumping, in pursuit of some groceries. That expedition had about a 50% success rating. There were a few items I didn't find, most notably meat. Last time I was in Kericho I would get all my meats from an ice-chest in a certain corner of the store which was not there anymore. I asked a man who just shook his head and said they don't have it. Don't know what happened, but now I'm going to have to start having my meat purchased and brought to me by other missionaries. A little disappointing and this requires a lot more pre-planning to find those coming my way and let them know what I'm going to need.

On something of an up-side, I decided with it being a holiday I would break my rule and buy a DVD at the store. I hope no one from the FBI reads this because it is definitely a pirated disc with 5 movies on one.

When I made it back home I cooked myself a hamburger (a good 'ol piece of Americana) and sat down to watch Elektra. Not the best movie I've ever seen...Maybe we'll just leave it there, but it was a fun ride on a saturday afternoon. Michael came over and I was really feeling I'd make the holiday an excuse to take it easy so we watched 2 more movies during the day. All in all a pretty good celebration, except for that dumb bee.

This coming week I hope John and I will be able to digitize most, if not all, the slides and photographs we are going to need for the Tenwek video and also get the script nailed down quick enough that we can arrange to go around and shoot the footage we'll need.

God bless,

Jonny