For the last week I have had my head deep in my Bible and laptop. Well, actually, it was the theatre's laptop as they let me take one with me to the conference while my own got fixed so I could work on this writing. HUGE THANK YOU to them. What the writing is, since I've been asked this a lot, is a project for Barclay Press. I am writing five lessons on the Psalms for the quarterly publication they put out. It is a lot of writing and I have one more lesson to do. It's due tomorrow of course but that's fine, I'll be done. It is the first of the to-do's that has to get done right away. I'm really enjoying it, I love doing this kind of writing. It's been a new challenge for me and I'm excited that I'm getting paid for it. I spent most of the conference working on it but don't fret, I had fun too. The last morning I even took a long walk among the redwoods, a much needed time to be in the mountains. A phrase I created to describe my love for being outdoors is that I go to the ocean to find God, I go to the mountains to find myself.
I've been back for two weeks now but I've hardly been home. I had just enough time to spend the 23-27th here with Christmas celebrations and church taking up most of that time and then I left again for a week. I want to tell you all how much I appreciate you for sticking with me during these 5-6 weeks when blogging has been sporadic as I've traveled so much. Much of that time, I didn't have internet access, a blessing at times and would have been nice at others. I also want to thank many of you for giving me the space I've needed to find my feet after getting back from such a transforming journey. This is going to be my first week dealing with my regular responsibilities - we'll see how I adjust to them.
One of the adjustments I did not expect was getting nausious and dizzy. Eden told us in Kenya that if we were feeling dizzy, it was because of the high altitude. (Even the low parts of Kenya are really high.) But I didn't have any trouble with that. Fast forward a 33 hour airplane flight later and I feel a little dizzy every so often. The trip to and from California was fine, about a 12 hour trip each way but the day after getting back I was going to and from a meeting in Hillsboro via Newburg and felt nausious. Even now, I can feel the toll all this traveling in so short a time has taken on my body so I've made the decision to stick close to home for the next few weeks with no extended car trips with the exception of small group next week. Maybe it's an adjustment back to this altitude. Either way, I won't be going far which is good news for many of you as I will be blogging regularly again. I even got my computer back today with the instructions to buy another external hard drive to help with my memory.
In the next few days after I get this writing turned in, expect lots of pictures to be showing up. Not only do I have many from Africa, but also from Christmas and the conference. Oh, and I promised my younger sister one from Thanksgiving.
Today as I worked on one of the Psalms, this song came up on my ipod. I have it on shuffle most of the time and this has never come up for some reason. I bought it on itunes because I heard it on broadway radio and really liked it but then forgot about it. There is a reason for everything for today when it came up, I listened to the lyrics and exclaimed to myself, "THAT'S IT!" I've been having a hard time finding the space and time to work on describing to you both what it was like to be in Kenya and what it is like to be home. This covers them both really well. So to tide you over until I get this into Barclay Press and probably through the theatre photography this week, I will sit down and really look at writing about it. By then, I might have a few frequently asked questions to answer too. Oh, and my photos. I want to print those up this week. :)
One thing I would like to express before then since I am posting this song as well is that this wasn't just a three and a half week trip for me. I have been walking through a process lately and before the trip, I had no idea the inward journey had to do with the outward one to Kenya but I began to suspect the connection while I was there and was certain of it by the time I left. It feels like all the ingredients save one were there when I left on the plane and in Kenya, God added the last one that changed and transformed it all. Knowing him, I should have known he had something like that up his sleeve. It's just like him. It's going to be interesting and really fun to see what he transformed inside me and where we go from here. I'm still not sure what it all looks like myself yet. A woman I spoke with today who knows just how a trip like this affects your life said it keeps changing you, espcially one year after you get back. It was really nice to talk to her about it, someone who understood exactly what I am feeling and all the feelings and thoughts inside.
In case you want the song yourself, it's called "Electricity" and is from the original broadway show of "Billy Elliot". Thank you all!