Home(Sick)

So, I would just like to start off by telling you all something I have learned about myself since we came out here a month and a half ago. Until this trip, I had never really looked at myself as an "extrovert". Come to find out...I am. I like being around people and doing things. At first glance, this seems like a great quality. But from what I have learned, I am a special kind of extrovert. By special I mean the type that ALWAYS needs to be interacting with the people around me. This doesn't really work well with the rest of the team. You see, most of them absolutely need their alone, "down" time or things aren't that peaceful (haha). And God chose to wire me a bit differently. I understand any normal person would NEED that alone time, especially after being with the same 6 people for 6 straight weeks...24/7...but I just can't do it.

Last night we came in from the Crusades meeting and everyone went into introvert mode...again completely understandable. They had been socially interactive all day and needed to just chill. I of course, decided to annoy the group. Time for an oh-so clever metaphor via Bruce. As I have told my team many times, I often feel like a young puppy dog jumping up and down, running around in circles, wagging its tail while staring at its owner as he reads the newspaper. The rest of the team being the owner of the dog reading the paper. You see, what usually happens is the dog is either ignored by the annoyed owner, locked in its kennel, or taken out for a walk after constant begging. In the case of last night, Josh and Luke took me for a walk...literally. We walked to a near by park where we found some really sketchy people out and about. Thanks to the tacos we had eaten with the Cru folks, we had to cut short our time at the park and make a quick trip back to the church to tend to certain things...

After getting settled again, I decided to annoy the team some more and Josh, along with Kelsey and Storm, joined me for a movie around 11 pm. We watched the latest release of the "Friday the 13th" series. Pretty interesting to say the least. About 20 mins in, Storm cut out because she wasn't feeling well and I was left with the other two. From my observations, Kelsey likes horror movies, as long as there is someone nearby to protect her from whatever is in the movie. Last night, that person was me. To be completely honest, I am fearless. Nothing scares me...except for girls inches beside of me jumping and squealing in consecutive time with the most intense loud jumpy scenes of the movie. The scenes in which unintelligent, young, attractive girls were being chased by Jason were not that bad, but it gets pretty intense when I think Kelsey is being attacked as she gasps loudly and kicks the couch we are sitting on. She was bad enough, but Josh Littlejohn decided he needed protection about halfway through the movie also. I won't go into details, but lets just say that the door to our bungalow needed to be locked as we went to bed.

About 2:30 am, I wake up to furious beating on the door. I slowly open my eyes to see Storm with wide eyes peering into the window looking dead at me. What did I do? Lay my head back down of course, thinking it was just a dream. Thank heavens for Luke, he so graciously got up and opened the door for her so that she may get water for her and Kelsey. You see, they both woke up very sick this morning and didn't sleep any last night. It is either 1) food poisoning or 2) some horrible stomach bug. The diagnosis varies depending on who you ask. But either way, the girls couldn't function today. But being the kind, sweet guys that we are, we took care of them and catered to their every need.

Jonathan Stockstill also came today and we discussed various evangelism and church planting tactics. Our Swedish friend Bennett also joined us unannounced again. Which is perfectly fine. A little distracting, but fine.

After our meeting, us guys grabbed a bite to eat and fetched the girls some Gatorade to rehydrate them. We continued on to Starbucks for Free Pastry Day, but was very disappointed to find the absense of pastries...what a scam. We pretty much took today as our "day off" due to the busy schedule coming up. We have tomorrow on the field, providing the majority stay healthy (Thomas was feeling a bit queezy this evening and went to bed early). And the rest of the week is full of meetings.

So prayer. It works, and we need it.

1) Health. The girls, Thomas, and the rest of us. Pray that takes care of whatever is going on so that we can finish up these 2 weeks like we want.
2) Good spirits. As the title says, we are homesick. I dunno about the rest of the team but I really miss my family and friends back home. I miss Bojangles and mama's country cookin'. It's hard to not look at this as "only 2 weeks left", but instead we should be looking at it as "still 2 weeks left". Just pray that we overcome the homesickness and be in good spirits throughout the remainder of the trip.
3) The current relationships and where it goes from here. Whether it be Jeff and his new age spiritual community, or Tony G and the Chi Kung class. Pray that God opens up more opportunties with them so that we can dig deeper spiritually and leave them with a positive impact on their life. Also pray that the permenant church planters/pastors can take over where we left off and use the information and contacts to continue helping God's Kingdom grow.

I thank you, as always, for the support and prayers. Also thank you for taking the times out of your day to (still) read our blog and care enough about us to do that.

Until Tuesday,
God Bless,
-Bruce