Trekking with Rhinos

Last Saturday, I went on my first Ugandan “safari” experience. And it was certainly fun! (This is your "lucky" day, because for once it's a blog post with pictures!!! If you want to see the picture bigger, just click on it and it should open. Then you can hit your browser's "back" button to continue reading.)

We had several short-term visitors at New Hope at the moment, and so one of them wanted to go see some rhinoceros at a sanctuary nearby – and she opened it up to whoever else wanted to come along to decrease the per person transportation costs. There ended up being eight of us!

So Saturday morning we left dark and early (instead of bright and early, because at 5:30 a.m. it is still very dark here!!!). After we hit the tarmac (paved road) in Luwero (the larger town 30 minutes away), it started to rain – and it really poured for a bit of the drive. In the back seat, we (our team coordinator’s wife, myself, and a Canadian visitor) were pretty talkative most of the way when we could actually hear one another ;-)

Eventually the sun rose, though it was still really overcast. We got to the rhino sanctuary before 8.

The sign for the sanctuary on the main road; no, those are NOT real rhinos!

While we were checking in and paying at the main office, we got our first “wild” life sighting – a warthog named Pumbaa, appropriately enough :) But he was quite domesticated, not really wild at all. The staff were petting him, so some of our group did too! Very very wiry & bristly – certainly not like petting fur!

Warthog Pumbaa eating the doormats…I don’t know why…

Wild Ugandan rhinos were victim to a lot of poaching, especially during the civil wars in the 1980s. The last one was actually killed in 1983. So the rhinos at the sanctuary have been re-introduced to Uganda, and the staff are working on breeding them with the hopes of one day releasing some to other wildlife parks in Uganda. Currently, this sanctuary is the only place to see wild rhinos in Uganda.

The rhinos have personal guards who are with them 24/7 to make sure they are doing fine, and also to keep track of their whereabouts to make it easier to take tourists to find them. In our case, we drove for a few minutes deeper into the sanctuary, then followed our guide trekking through the grass on foot to where the rhinos were. Within an hour of arriving, we had our eyes on two rhinos! Bella, who I think is the founding matron in the sanctuary, and Luna, her 14-month old calf.

Meet Bella the Rhino!

It was kind of hard to get good pictures because of all the grass (it is certainly still rainy growing season!), and because rhinos don’t hold their heads up very much (too busy eating, and their heads are very heavy!).

Bella is currently pregnant (baby rhinos stay in the womb for 16 months!), but still nursing Luna – which we got to see for a couple minutes! 

Luna nursing from mother Bella

It was rainy (just lightly sprinkling) and chilly, which initially seemed like a downside…but it was actually good because otherwise the rhinos may have just bedded down for the day. The guide told us rhinos usually eat most of the night, when it’s cooler, and then in the heat they sleep.

We followed Bella and Luna as they meandered along, chomping away at the short grass. We stayed at a respectful distance, though, of course! This pictures shows about how close we were. Sorry it’s just the rhinos butts! ;-) 

Safari Esther & the Rhino Butts

Here’s the best picture I got of this first family group, this is Luna the “baby.” She was standing still because she had just been peeing. I got a picture of that too, but I was laughing too much and so the picture is shaky because of the gray skies. 

Luna Posing

We went back to our car and drove to another spot to see a different group of rhinos. This one was two of the “teenage” girls (Malaika, age 4 and Laloyo, age 3.5) and Moja, the dominant male in the herd (there are 14 rhinos currently living on the sanctuary). We followed a trail the rhinos had made through the grass that was taller than we were (but not thick, so we could still see), and found them feeding.

The Teenagers Feeding

We moved to one side, and as we watched the three rhinos started moving back towards the road and our car. The guide said they could smell the fuel from the car and were curious about what was going on. Sure enough, when we got to the car they were just standing on the road looking at it from a short distance away. The guides had told us that rhinos cannot see very well, they have much better hearing.

We stood at the front end of our vehicle, and the rhinos were just standing there looking towards us from behind the rear of the van. It was pretty amazing! 

Curious Rhinos - note the mirror of the van in the foreground!

It made the guide and the guard a little nervous, so they told us to get in the van. We did, and being in the back seat I was only about 8-9 feet away from these massive mammals. Thankfully with glass/metal between me and them! Here’s a video I took at that point (sorry for all the noise, my camera makes a lot of focusing noise as it takes video).

After a few minutes, the girls got bored and headed off into the bush on the other side of the road. Then Moja came and stood behind the van. He has had his horn sawn off, because just a couple months ago one of the young males had died from an injury in a fight. Anyways, Moja took several steps nearer, until finally I’m sure he was no more than 6 feet away. Then he backed up a bit and turned to go parallel to our vehicle. When he did, I realized by my sudden panting that I had been holding my breath a bit! :D

Moja lumbering towards the front end of the vehicle

He then went towards where the two guides were standing outside of the vehicle. He turned and faced them, and they moved quickly to the back end of the vehicle. When they did, Moja took a step towards our vehicle, but then changed his mind and “ran” (for about five steps) off into the bush. Our heart beats were all a bit higher after that! It had looked for a minute like he might charge at either our guides or the vehicle. I never felt actually in danger, just had a very healthy respect for these large, wild animals!

That ended our rhino sightings for the day – but not our experience! We drove some good distance (still within the sanctuary) to the lodge where we would have lunch. On the way, we saw monkeys, mongoose, bushbuck (like dear), and birds! Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of the first three, our driver wasn’t the slow down & stop for every moving creature type…. But I did get a picture of this family of Helmeted Guineafowl as they ran to stay ahead of us on the road. 

Helmeted Guineafowl, 2 Parents & 3 Chicks

We got to the lodge early, so I lay relaxing on a hammock and ended up falling asleep for a bit! The lunch was amazing, such delicious food!!! Then it was time to head back home to Kasana.

But on the way, we did convince the driver to stop when we spotted a large swarm of butterflies!!

Butterfly Cluster!

I think there must have been a carcass or some small mineral area or something to attract so many. In an area not much more than one square foot, there were dozens and dozens of butterflies, of probably 7 or 8 types!

Zooming in on the smaller ones

By then the sun had come out again, and we had an uneventful drive back to Kasana – taking exciting memories with us!

My next post will be about some recent interesting insect incidents!

A Jonah Day

It’s Thanksgiving morning as I begin to write this, and I am sitting in a friend’s car in Jinja, Uganda as we stop to pick up some things on our way to Kobwin.

Last night we stayed at a resort on the shore of Lake Victoria, not far from the source of the Nile River. Yesterday was rather challenging….but through it all I am remembering to focus on God’s goodness and faithfulness.

It started in the morning. We were leaving Kasana at 9, but I had to run up to the admin office before then. I wasn’t planning to bring the sponsorship laptop with me, and I couldn’t sign in to access that email remotely. So I wanted to set up an automatic vacation response so people emailing questions would know it would be a couple of days. But I couldn’t find it anywhere in Outlook.

Made it home and it was time to go. In the process of trying to finish things up, I forgot to close my windows (hopefully it doesn’t rain too hard while we’re gone) and I forgot to grab my sleeping blinders. Neither of which I realized until that night.

We made it into Kampala, I got a few things I needed at one of the malls, and we had a good conversation with our driver. He is one of New Hope’s grown sons, now with a wife and a new baby, and we really appreciate him!

{It’s now Friday morning in Kobwin! I didn’t want to write as we drove, because I wanted to observe the new regions of Uganda where I had not yet been!}

So on Wednesday for lunch we went to a restaurant I had been to a couple of times earlier this year. It’s in Entebbe, not far from Lake Victoria. Sitting there looking at the lake somehow felt so restful and just what my soul needed. I had delicious chicken lasagna for lunch (and dinner, thanks to a takeaway box!).

At the airport, we picked up a gal who had spent a year at Kasana and another at Kobwin. Then we really got on the road, back up through Kampala and then off towards Jinja. There was a good bit of traffic, plus tons of slow, big trucks. So the journey seemed long and a bit tense.

We arrived at the resort tired and hungry. Once we got a bit settled in our rooms, we went to the outdoor seating area for dinner. Thankfully Constance & Allison had called in to preorder their food, and I was just eating my leftovers…so we didn’t have to wait for that.

Within 10 minutes of being outside, I could tell the mosquitoes had found me and were having a feast. So I headed inside and counted seven quickly swelling lumps. :/ I had also found out there was no wifi at the resort, which was disappointing because I had been hoping to enjoy a Skype with my family.

I was pretty sore and tired, so I was looking forward to a hot shower Constance said they would have. Fought with the bathroom door a bit that wouldn’t lock easily and wouldn’t stay closed, then thought I heard someone trying to come into my room. I still don’t know what the latter was about, I was too nervous to come out and didn’t want to have to fight with the door again.

Got all ready for my shower, turned on the hot water, and it was cold. My hand ran into a spider web in the corner, and he ran away as I continued letting the water run hoping it would warm up. No such success……I gave up in frustration.

Let down the mosquito net (which had a small hole) and grabbed my tablet to read in bed for a little while. Fought with the confusing bedcovers….It took me a bit to figure out that instead of having a sheet and a blanket, two sheets had evidently been sewn together to make a sort of duvet (a word I learned in N.Ireland!) over the blanket.

This is when I realized I didn’t have my blinders, and the lovely porch light right outside my window would make it hard for me to sleep. Climbed out of bed and turned it off, and as I climbed back in something among the covers moved and all I could see at first was a tail.

“You’ve got to be kidding, please don’t let there be a snake in my bed!!!” was my first thought. Then I noticed a small foot near the root end of the tail and breathed a sigh of relief. It was “only” one of the common 5-6” skink lizards that I usually enjoy watching. But I was still definitely NOT amenable to him sharing a bed with me. He wanted to run away as well – so I untucked the mosquito net near where he was and he fell to the floor and scurried off.

At that point I curled up in bed and had a self-pity cry. It had all been a bit too many failed expectations and frustrations for one night, I guess. If I had been making the decision at that moment about going home for Christmas, I would have gone in a heartbeat. But the decision to stay had thankfully been made the week before on a better day, in a more reasonable frame of mind!

I finished the chapter on Friendship that I had been reading in C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves, and then I turned to my current relaxation reading: Anne of Avonlea. The title of the next chapter was “A Jonah Day,” about a day when teacher Anne Shirley felt like a failure.

A toothache colored her day all dark, and she was irritated and harsh with her pupils. On top of that, assuming that a package contained a banned nut cake, she told the offending student to drop it in the fire….and since the package was actually fireworks it created no small sensation! Then her trouble-maker student put a mouse in her desk, and she actually whipped him for it….something she had said she would never do.

Wow did I ever identify with her that evening! It may not seem like God would typically use a fluffy fiction book to encourage a frustrated, somewhat weepy daughter…..but He did just that :)

“Jonah days come to everybody,” as Marilla reminded Anne, and “This day’s done and there’s a new one coming tomorrow with no mistakes {and no frustrations} in it yet.”

And so yesterday (Thanksgiving) my attitude and thus my day were very much better! Thanks to God’s unending faithfulness and graciousness even in those times when I get so frustrated when things don’t go my way.

On Thanksgiving, I had the privilege of worshipping God as I watched His lovely sunrise over Lake Victoria. I took a shower that, while still not hot was not as cold as it might have been. We arrived in the beautiful Kobwin safely. I was reunited to some dear friends and greeted warmly. We had a delicious dinner. And I had no problem with cell phone signal to call my family for a bit before I went to bed.

Through ALL of it—both a Jonah day and Thanksgiving—God is good :)

You Know You’re Living in Central Uganda When…..

I’ll probably add to this as I go, but here are some fun tidbits about life here :) The bottom few are from a status I posted on Facebook nearly a month ago. All of these are from my personal experience, and are not meant to make any blanket statement about Ugandan/African culture. I’ll try to be sure these are fair & balanced ;-)

~~You’ve gone through a can of DOOM in each of the two months you’ve been here. The first was mostly on roaches, this second has been mostly on ants…..
~~You get to hear it easily when your neighbors are singing praise & worship in the evening—and be encouraged by it!
~~Seeing lizards of at least four different types is a nearly daily occurrence! And tons of new bird species, all beautiful :D And bats, sometimes even during the daytime.
~~You witness thousands of ants “migrating” (at least moving houses), and notice how many different sizes & types there are! {I got a video of it – I’ll have to try to post it so y’all can see. Pretty fascinating, but I’m kind of scared I’m going to dream of ants tonight….}
~~Rain suddenly becomes a whole lot more important than it ever did in the States! {See this blog post by the family I’m here with. I’ve got one rolling around in my head too, but it has yet to be composed.}
~~You’re happy when laundry “only” takes two solid hours of constant involvement.
~~You realize that you’re getting used to showering by cup & basin—so thankful for our electric kettle to heat water (when the power is on)! Morning showers (BRR!) call for two!
~~Trees along the road wear makeup during the dry season (the roads are dirt out here in the bush, and the red soil ends up coating the plants!)
~~Your blister count in a month and a half is up to four. (This is simply because I have soft American hands – three came from helping with shelling/slashing at the family I’m connected to.)
~~You catch yourself staring at your reflection in a shop mirror for several seconds…..because it’s the most you’ve seen of yourself in the past week! (we only have a small round hand mirror in our hut…)
~~You’re surrounded by people who love & care about you – and who will check in with you and pray for you. I am so blessed by the intentionality & community here!

~~~~~~~~~~

~~The smallest things make you sweat. Like making your bed. Or sitting on the couch (especially with a computer in your lap). Even a couple hours after dark, with the windows open!
~~You get excited about a car ride, because it might be the one point you get to feel the AC. And when the daily weather is a broken record "hot & sunny" most of the time, that's important. {Rainy season will be here soon, and then the weather will not be as dry/hot.}
~~You have a slight sunburn/fresh tan on your shoulders from a mid-day walk {and a few times of doing laundry} when it's JANUARY, and your new friends from MN & SD are talking about -36 degree weather and huge snow drifts.
~~Your bed time is sometimes determined by what time the Internet decides to quit working. {ie, the night when I copied this off of FB and was going to post it on my blog. Internet quit, so I’m just going to go to bed and do this another time!}
~~You're learning to be thankful for a result when you flip the light switch....because it seems like often as not over the past week, the power has been out. {On Sunday, power went out at about 3:30 and stayed out until Tuesday night. Even the solar-powered battery for the dining hall ran out of juice!}
~~You go to dinner and get "attacked" by an adorable 2-year-old whose smile stands out in his dark face. And where you are greeted by a handshake or hug from nearly every person in the room.
~~When you know, deep down inside, that you are where you're supposed to be. No matter how rough the day has been, no matter how tempting it is to go back to the easier life.
~~When you're learning to pray in and walk by faith. When you're reminded that God didn't bring you here for nothing. That He's got a purpose & a plan, and that He's going to teach you AND use you. No matter what.

{I needed the reminder of those last couple. God is good, ALWAYS :)}

Harvest Time

One of the main dietary staples in central Uganda is posho. It is made from ground maize (similar to cornmeal) and cooked in water to create a stiff mush. We frequently have it for lunch here at the Institute, always with a soup or sauce of some sort to put over it. In the past six weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to witness/help with the gathering of the maize.

Here at Kasana, the children who have been placed in New Hope’s care are part of family groups. A Ugandan father (and often mother) are in charge of each family group, which has between 15 and 20 children. These family groups provide a home for those who come in as orphans, emphasizing NHU’s focus on bringing the Fatherhood of God to the fatherless.

Each family group has land to grow maize and for a garden. The dry season is beginning to come to an end, so the past couple weeks have seen many maize fields harvested and re-plowed for the new crop that will be planted when the rains come. I pitched in on two maize harvesting days, one with Ebenezer family and one with Worcester (pronounced Wooster) family.

Everyone who is a staff member at NHU, and all the Institute students, are placed with one of the family group as “associates.” The family I teach for and I are both part of the Worcester family for while we are here. A couple weeks back, the kids and I went to join the family in harvesting their maize, which is all done by hand. I was proud of how hard the kids worked!

In the maize fields are lots of weeds with tagalong seeds, leaving scores of prickles in one’s clothes. Harvesters grab the ear of maize (which has been allowed dry on the stalk) and pick it off the stalk, either before or after shucking the husks. Then the ear is chucked to one of the growing piles of harvested maize. Sometimes termites have taken down a stalk and eaten out the cob of an ear – but if the maize is still good, it’s still good.

Both times, we started early in the morning. But it warms up quick here, and soon it is hot work. Most stalks only have one ear of maize, and sometimes that ear is tiny and underdeveloped. After retrieving the ear, the stalk is broken down to mark it as completed. The team of harvesters work their way from one end of the field to the other, with at least some degree of regularity. And when you finish, there’s thanks and celebration.

One evening last week, I went over to my family group because the father had told me they often garden at that time. Instead, the mother and the four girls in the family were shelling the corn. Two girls worked a hand-crank shelling machine, while the others shelled by hand. Already they had three big bags of maize kernels as well as a large, ever-growing pile on the floor. I helped shell some by hand, though the mother gave me the easier ears. And I got a big blister on my thumb, even with wearing work gloves!

Now there are four big bags of maize sitting in the family’s living room/dining room/circular “hut” with a thatched roof but open to the breeze. They are waiting to be taken and ground into meal which the family will eat as posho. I thoroughly enjoyed learning a bit about the harvesting and getting to help out with it :)

Ireland Update 7

This was all nearly a month ago now….but I’m finally sitting down to write about our last week in N. Ireland. I had written about the first two days in the plane coming back, but I lost my tablet that had that on it. So that’s part of what’s been holding me back – I hate writing things a second time. :P

If you want to see pictures from our time in Ireland, almost 500 of my 1,300 pictures are posted on Facebook! Mostly with detailed captions J

Day 21 - Tuesday, June 18

Tuesday was our big sightseeing day. We started off by visiting Carrick-a-Rede, a rope bridge that used to be used by fishermen to get from the mainland to an island. The bridge has planking that is less than two feet wide, with a rope mesh extending maybe another foot or so to either side. The sides of the bridge are intersecting ropes that come up about four feet to the rope handrails. The bridge is over a chasm which is almost 100 feet deep and 65 feet wide. So crossing it was a bit of a stretch for height-sensitive me. But it was totally worth it!

We hung out for quite a while on the island reached by crossing the bridge. Tons of gulls and guillemots were flying around the cliffs of the island, probably trying to get situated for nesting season. Their calls were so loud that I was looking around for a big group of seals! I actually lay down on the grassy top of the island and just watched the birds for a while, so that was fun. Most of us ate our sack lunches as a picnic on the island as well.

Next, we stopped at a coastal town (don’t remember which one…) to do some shopping. Several of us went to a used book store and found some neat old hymnals. I also got an old copy of C.S.Lewis’ book “That Hideous Strength” and a devotional on 1 Corinthians 13 that looked interesting. Just started reading the latter this morning and am SO glad I got it! I also liked walking around looking at the architecture of the town. At a bakery, I tried a “fifteen tray bake” and liked it! They’re evidently a traditional Irish treat, kind of similar to what many people call magic cookie bars in the States, but with marshmallows and cherries instead of chocolate and nuts.

Later in the afternoon we went to Giant’s Causeway. It’s this amazing geographical formation on the coast, probably formed by volcanic activity as Ireland separated from Scotland. Basically, it is a VAST structure of thousands of usually hexagonal columns of varying height that fit together like a giant puzzle. You’ll have to look at my pictures or Google it to see what I mean because it’s hard to explain. Anyway, the structure runs from the base of a mountain out into the ocean as a peninsula – and it’s great fun to scramble around on and explore!

After we looked around there for a while, we hiked up the shepherd’s trail to the top of the mountain overlooking the causeway. Part of the trail used switchbacks, but the last part was a steep 162 stairs! We were glad to reach the top. Once we had enjoyed the view, we followed the trail along the ridge back to the visitor center. Everything was so green and pretty, and out on the Giant’s Causeway I loved watching the waves crash onto the pillars of stone J

That evening we were on our own for dinner in one of the coastal towns, so a couple of the other girls and I ended up at a hamburger place actually. The inside was decorated in a ‘50s American style, with a poster cut out of Elvis and such. We were fairly amused J We had the best sweet potato fries I had ever tasted though!

After dinner, we reunited with a couple of the other team members and waited at the meeting place for the rest of the team, including the drivers. They were late and it was chilly…so we ended up crowding seven of us onto one park bench. Folks driving by us were staring and waving…and we ended up watching and laughing at some pigeons that looked like they were wrestling up on a balcony ledge. Once we got back to our youth hostel, one of the gals and I took a walk on the beach watching the sunset. It was a good chance to talk J

Day 22 - Wednesday, June 19

That morning I hustled down the beach for about 30 minutes so I could get back to the place where we had been Monday evening. I climbed up onto one of the island-ish rocks and just enjoyed sitting there with the wind blowing around me and the birds circling and calling. And the sound of the waves crashing. It was wonderful – good time for reflection too.

After breakfast, we got all of our stuff packed and loaded up. We still did some sightseeing around the area before heading out though. First stop was Dunluce Castle, now an old ruins that may date back to the 1300s and was occupied until one day in 1639 the kitchen fell into the sea! According to Ireland’s National Trust website, these ruins may have served as C.S. Lewis’ inspiration for Cair Paravel!  We had fun going a little ways into a cave/tunnel right under the cliffs the castle ruins are on. We didn’t go into the castle itself, because we would have had to pay. But we had fun climbing on the rocks around it!

Our next stop was at the small town of Ballintoy. Looked into a pretty church there, then went down, down the hillside to the coast where we scrambled around on more rocky outcroppings. Then back to the van for sack lunches and time to bid farewell to the beautiful Irish North Coast. After driving a couple hours, we stopped at Glenariff Forest Park to go hiking, but sadly the main attraction—a hike to a beautiful waterfall—was closed because of winter storm damage. We still hiked around though.

We had planned to go to a lighthouse near Belfast, but traffic delayed us too much. So we ended up eating at a tiny restaurant in Belfast that had an interesting mixed menu of pizza/Italian and Chinese/Asian food. It was delicious though! And then it was back to the home sweet home of our cottages…at least for a couple more days.

Day 23 - Thursday, June 20

The next day we literally had nothing planned. I’m pretty sure that’s the only day that happened on the whole trip! It was wonderful. We just hung out, played games, relaxed, etc.

That evening after dinner I went out to the observation deck on my own. I had a lot to think about. The trip was fast coming to an end, and with it my time at JBU was truly concluding. I’d known for a long time that I would cry about graduating and having to say goodbye to that place and everything it had meant to me for four years at some point. I expected it to happen in May, but it didn’t. It happened that night in Ireland instead. God was really gracious through that, reminding me of some important things. Later, one of the gals and I took a walk up Joe’s mountain and just talked about stuff – so that was good and helped me process things some more.

Day 24 - Friday, June 21

Spent a good part of the day in Belfast. A couple of us went to the Titanic museum together. The ship was built in Belfast, and the museum is located near the area where the gigantic ship was created and first put off into the ocean. It has an interestingly broad range of topics, clear from the early industrial history of Belfast all the way through the science of deep sea exploration. So it has relatively little on the crash of the Titanic, and more on the ship’s complete story from beginning to end. Quite interesting!

Once we got back into the Belfast city center, we grabbed some lunch and ate on the lawn of the city hall. Then we went together to go shopping at Primark, Ireland’s version of a department store similar to Macy’s. I wasn’t in a shopping mood though, and felt very out of place in the crowded store. So I meandered my way back to a coffee shop. Watched some street performers on the way, and just spent some time writing the previous Ireland Update and a few post cards.

When it came time to meet up with the rest of the team to ride the city bus back to Lakeside Manor, where we had parked our van, I was in full-fledged shut down mode. I’m still not sure completely why. In a way I guess it was culture shock. I just felt very very out of my element. After being in small towns for three weeks and almost exclusively with our small team, to suddenly be in the big city surrounded by hundreds of people really put me on edge for some reason. It’s not like I don’t know how to function in cities….spent my whole life until college in Dallas, and lived in D.C. for two months last summer without ever having that feeling. But that’s what happened. I just had to crawl in my shell for a while. Once we had ridden the bus out of the city center into the more residential area, I started doing fine again. It was pretty odd.

Day 25 - Saturday, June 22

Another very chill day – lots of playing table games and such. That evening, the owners of the cottages where we stayed hosted a BBQ for a ton of their friends. They invited our team too, so we went over for a while. Got to talk to an Irish gal and hear about what God is doing in her life – it was really good! It rained some during the evening, and we saw a *gorgeous* double rainbow that went all the way across. It was so very pretty!

Later, all of the main people we had worked with in Killyleagh – Wally, Heather, Samantha, Sam and Craig – came over for one last time. We just had a great time hanging out, including a dance party for most people. But then we had to say goodbye to our Killyleagh teammates L

Day 26 - Sunday, June 23

Went back into Belfast for a day of seeing C.S. Lewis related sites. We started by attending a service at St. Mark’s Church, which has a number of Lewis connections:

• ·         Jack’s grandfather was the pastor of the church during Jack’s childhood
• ·         Jack’s parents were married in the church
• ·         The baptismal font where Warren and Jack were both baptized as babies is in the back
• ·         The pulpit is the same one which Jack would have watched his grandfather preach in
• ·         On the door of the parsonage is a doorknob with a lion’s head
• ·         One of the stained glass windows was given to the church by Warren and Jack later in life in memory of their parents

It was SUCH a beautiful church – just loved it! After the service, a guy who goes there gave us the C.S. Lewis tour of the church, during which he explained all of the above. He also pointed out various things about the symbolism of the church. I enjoyed it all J

We also stopped by the house where Jack and Warren lived as children – Little Lea. We couldn’t go in, because it is now privately owned…but it was still neat to see. Our last Lewis stop was at the statue of The Searcher, commissioned in honor of the 100^th anniversary of Lewis’ birth. It shows a man looking into a wardrobe, and on the back of the wardrobe there is a copy of a letter Lewis wrote to a young lady asking about the Christian symbolism in the Chronicles of Narnia.

After that, we went to St. George’s Market in Belfast, which is basically a large building with a whole collection of vendor booths – everything from food to vintage stuff to handmade items. It was fun wandering around it J

That evening was our last one together as a whole team. So the leaders took the time to get each of us a coke bottle with a Gaelic name on it and make up a definition for the names that had something to do with what each one of us had contributed to the team. It was a time of lots of laughter, but also of encouragement. Sam came back for one last time, and a few of us ended up staying up until 4 a.m. because going to bed meant saying goodbye to Sam. We watched the sky turn light, since the sun comes up super early there.

Day 27 - Monday, June 24

The next day we spent the morning cleaning the cottages and packing up all of the JBU equipment that gets stored at Lakeside Manor during the year. It went by super fast, so that was nice. I also got my own stuff packed up. Before lunch we took one last hike up Joe’s Mountain to bid it farewell.

After lunch we went to Castleward, the former manor home of a rich family. They turned it over to the National Trust fund when they were too in debt to pay their taxes, or something like that. Now it’s basically a museum. It has lots of interesting architecture and artifacts. After getting a really great tour of the house, we walked around on the property for a while, and found some really fat pigs in the farm near the lough.

That evening we went back to Strangford for a final team dinner at a nice restaurant, the Cuan. After we finished, we went to Asda to buy any foodstuff we wanted to take home. Then it was time for our team to say goodbye to three of our members, who had to go to Belfast because they were on different flights out of Ireland.

Day 28 - Tuesday, June 25

We got up early that morning to finish up last minute things at the cottages and depart for Belfast. It was a long day of traveling. We flew from Belfast to Newark to Houston to XNA, the regional airport in northwest Arkansas. In Newark things got really stressful and crazy. Long story short, our layover was too short for everything we had to do, and half of our team didn’t make it onto the flight to Houston. I did, but in the process I accidentally left my backpack behind, and it’s still lost. We were worried that the other half of the team wasn’t going to make it to Houston in time to catch the flight to XNA – but amazingly they made it just in time. We were all so relieved when we saw them get on our little three-seat-across plane to go up to XNA. Then once we landed in XNA it was really time to say goodbye.

The End.

My parents had come up to Siloam Springs to pick me up. We stayed in our tent that night at the Arkansas welcome center, though I didn’t sleep very well. Lots on my mind, plus jetlag. The next day the three of us spent the day at Natural Falls State Park. That was fun. I got to show them a few of the places where I enjoyed spending time during my day-long excursions out there on my own. Then we drove back down to Dallas, back home. But as much as that will always be home, I have a lot of places now that feel like home. And I miss the places and the people that make each so special. But that’s what life is….moving on, saying goodbye, but holding tight to the memories and the lessons.

Speaking of lessons….if you want to read about what I learned over in Ireland, in a spiritual/reflective sense, check it out here. Thank you to each and every person who partnered with me in this trip through prayer and through financial giving! I couldn’t have done it without you.

Ireland Update 4

Day 8 - Wednesday, June 5
That morning, we presented at one of the public schools outside of Killyleagh. There are three main schools in the area. In N. Ireland, there is not separation of church and state, so we could sing Christian songs, talk about God, and pray. A couple of us went in our superhero costumes and shared the back story of why our characters were at the "School of Incredible Misfits," which is our setting for our skits.

It was a lot of fun to see some of the kids who are in my group at their school. They were super well behaved there, sitting quietly and such - which helps explain why they are so hyper at Kids Club! ;) There was one especially sweet part. One of our team guys is "Rubbish Man," what we would call a garbage collector. So he talked about how people don't appreciate his super power anymore because of big machines and such. Anyway, after we talked one of the other gals on the team stood up to talk about God's super powers of characteristics such as compassion and patience (our theme verses are Colossians 3:12-17) which are the focus of our curriculum. But first she asked the kids what kind of super power the kids would want to have, and one of the little boys piped up that he would want to have rubbish powers. So cute :D

Kids Club seemed to have much smaller attendance that day...and I actually ran out of lesson material before I ran out of time. Which was nice in some ways because it meant I covered everything - and we could just review the previous days in the extra time. The superpower of the day was humility...which will come back up in a bit.

That evening after dinner we went back to Killyleagh to do separate girls and guys events. The girls gathered at the church where we had a dancing game for them to play on the Wii. We had also taken materials for the girls to make friendship bracelets, or had a conversation ball with questions. The guys just gathered back at the pitches to play football (soccer) again. A couple of our team members also went to a kids' soccer event. Anyway, one of them had been planning to help facilitate the bracelet making, but she wasn't there. So I was kinda on my own getting 10 girls set up and taught how to do a super simple bracelet pattern. I had been really looking forward to talking to the girls and getting to know them better, but because of working on the bracelets almost the whole hour and a half flew by in the blink of an eye. I was pretty disappointed about that...so I'm hoping that next week I'll get more of a chance to visit with them.

Because of that, I was kind of in a stinky mood. Things hadn't gone the way that I expected, and I wasn't being very humble about that inside of myself. After our team sharing time around tea, I just had to go for a walk and talk through some things with God. I went up to a hill on the property we're staying at, where there's a little platform that raises one up above the Gorse bushes which have been blooming beautifully ever since we arrived. Even though it was 11 pm, there was still some light and the western sky was still beautiful with the sunset colors. (Because of our high latitude here, I've heard that the sun rises by 4ish a.m. and it doesn't set until after 10:30!) It was a really good time for me to work through a bit of stuff from the day. God really reminded that I need to learn the characteristics that we're teaching the kids!

Day 9 - Thursday, June 6
On Thursday morning, Tracy gave us time and encouraged us to spread out to pray/journal/reflect. Wednesday before lunch I had found the location of a bird blind on the property that I had seen on a map - and on the way to that I had seen a spot by a creek that I knew I wanted to return to with my journal. So on Thursday as soon as she gave us that time I made a bee line for that place. Sitting out there for a while was just a really great time for me to continue talking through some things with God, and it was an important opportunity.

Our super power of the day at Kids Club was gentleness. I don't remember anything particular about that day....I've just been getting to know the kids in my group better, and learning which ones are an especial challenge and which ones are more cooperative.

Thursday evening we had Sports Camp with the teens again. I played Ultimate Frisbee with mostly girls and a couple guys for the whole time. I also shared my testimony during half time that evening with the Frisbee group. I talked a little bit about a hard time I went through when I was 13, and just how deeply it had impacted me. I had only realized this past semester just how deeply it had all wounded me - and that for most of middle/high school I hadn't really trusted anyone (including God) very much because I just stuffed my feelings inside a lot. So I tried to encourage the kids that when bad/hurtful stuff happens to try to talk it through with people and to stay in communion with God during that time - and that He can and will redeem all of the things which He allows to happen in our lives.

Day 10 - Friday, June 7
Friday morning we did another school assembly (with the same content) at a different school. The kids loved telling me that afternoon at Kids Club that we had come to their school :D

Friday's super power was patience....and it certainly was convicting to talk to the kids about patience when I don't always feel like I do a good job of being patient with them. It's just hard to know how much to try to corral behavior issues, because we have such a short time to teach the lesson and try to get across the concept we're trying to share. I wish we could just have a couple hours to just hear from the kids about where they're at.... I did have extra lesson time again, so we were able to do some more of that on Friday - just trying to encourage the kids to think about how they could practically use the super powers we're talking about.

One of the local moms actually came into our class for a while, because the kids were definitely even more on the wild side than normal. And it definitely helped some - especially with one of the girls who is typically a primary distraction. It's always hard to know when to just ignore distractions and keep teaching or when to try to address the "trouble makers"......especially when I would love to just know them individually.

Friday afternoon put me on edge - almost to the level of Monday. And then as we were leaving the church to go to dinner at the house of one of the local teachers, the teen guys were crowded around our van. We team members were waiting in the van for the leaders, and the local teens were trying to get our attention I guess. One guy climbed over the top of our van and they were hanging off the back even when we tried to drive away. The whole situation just put me over the edge I guess. My introvert side needed to recharge, and I just felt like curling up in a ball and crying.

Thankfully the dinner was pretty informal and I was able to sit outside by myself for a bit to calm down. I debated going to Sports Camp that evening or going back to our cottages with Becci - and I'm glad that after dinner I felt up to going back into it. Sports Camp went well - we played Ultimate again with the same group of mostly girls while most of the guys played football. A big huge praise is that throughout the week the teen guys have gradually become more willing to be attentive to the guys on our team sharing their testimonies during half time. Please be praying that God will continue moving in these guys' hearts. They have tons of potential, they just don't know how to use it I guess.

Day 11 - Saturday, June 8
I was so very thankful for a day off on the weekend!!!!! We all needed that time away from Killyleagh to recharge a bit. In the morning I woke up a bit on the early side, so I climbed up Joe's Mountain to have some Quiet Time up there, which was just really beautiful :) But, it came at a price. On the way back I stumbled twice, wrenching my ankle that I had sprained pretty badly over a year ago. The first time I was mostly ok, but the second time it hurt super bad. And it was on practically flat ground...I felt so stupid :/ So my ankle has been swollen and sore for a couple days. I probably won't be playing Frisbee at Sports Camp on Monday because of it.... :(

That afternoon we went out to Tollymore Forest, which is similar to what we would consider a national park in the States. It's *beautiful*, at the foot of the Mourne Mountains (which includes the highest peak in Ireland!). Most of the JBU people who go there think of it as a Middle Earth/Narnia place :) It's got beautiful forests and a trail running along a large creek. In some ways for me it reminded me a lot of the sort of places my family goes to often....so I missed having Dad or Mom or Nathan there to experience it with me. So in a way it wasn't that unusual for me - but it was a bit prettier and greener than the places I've been in the States.

We hiked around there for a couple of hours. Thankfully my ankle hadn't been completely re-sprained, so I could still walk on it all right. But I did have to be more cautious than normal, and so was more apprehensive about just scrambling around rocks over the stream than I would have been otherwise. And certain angles/motions would give me sharp twinges of pain. Speaking of physical issues, one of our guys took a tumble at the park and could use prayers for healing. Also, one of our gals has a cold, and another guy pulled a muscle playing football. So we could all use prayer for stamina and safety!!!

After we finished at the park, we went into Newcastle, which is also at the foot of the mountains. What's more, it's right on the sea coast! So I went wading in the ocean a bit :) SO MUCH FUN!!!!! The weather was completely sunny and definitely on the warm side - especially for N. Ireland - so there were a lot of people on the beach. I just loved standing there, feeling the waves of the ocean drag the sand out from under my feet :)

Day 12 - Sunday, June 9
Today has been a great day. We started off by praying before church for about an hour with Wally (that's the nickname of the YFC guy, if I haven't mentioned that before). He has such a beautiful heart for Killyleagh, it is always a pleasure to worship God and pray with him. Then we split up into two groups to attend church again, as we had the week before - but we flipped which church we went to.

The group I was with attended the Presbyterian Church. We were in charge of the youth Sunday School class, so we were only in the service for the first part. It was fun because most of the students in the class were the gals that we've been playing Frisbee with. They are all super sweet :) I shared another short testimony, this time about God's faithfulness in guiding me to JBU and how He provided for my time there! Mrs. Balzer did a great job sharing from the story of Jesus raising the widow's son, about how Jesus was both compassionate and powerful!

After church, our team again split up for lunch at various family homes. A couple of the team and I went to a farm house outside of Killyleagh. Before lunch, the husband took us up to the top of his hill, which has a *beautiful* view of the Strangford Lough (pronounced lock - it's basically a big bay from the ocean that Killyleagh sits at the end of). We also got to feed a little lamb which had been born prematurely and needed special care. It was SO cute and SO soft!!!! Lunch was delicious - and it was so much fun to learn more about Ireland from the host family, and to talk about some of the differences between Ireland and the U.S. :)

Once we got back to our cottages, I lay down for a 30 minute nap, and woke up an hour later...just in time to grab dinner before we headed back to Killyleagh to lead an evening church service. Dr. Balzer led a devotional based on basically the same material that we're covering in Kids Club. And he did a great job :) Then this evening I played a game with several of the other teammates, and have finally gotten caught up on my blog!!!!

Up Next:
Tomorrow is a very important day at Kids Club. It's basically our day focused on salvation - so please be praying that the kids would have open hearts and minds, and that the Holy Spirit would give us teachers and leaders the right words to say.

The first week of ministry went really well in many ways, and so as we look at our last five or six days of focused ministry, please be praying that we would continue to have lots of patience and love for the people (primarily kids) who we are working with!!!

Oh, and this is a little thing.....but the lens on my camera is having issues. I have no idea what happened to it...but it's not auto focusing correctly - which *really* stinks. :( There's not anything I can do about it from here.....and even when I get back to the States I'm not sure what I should do.....so yeah :P (Update: the problem has ceased to be a problem, and after a couple of days my camera was back to normal! Yay!)

Ireland Update 1

Sorry for no pictures - we don't have much internet here, and I think it's more important for me to spend time with the team and sleep :)

Day 1 - Wednesday, May 29
In some ways today has been an overly simple day. We flew into Belfast, spent the afternoon there, then drove out to the cottages where we'll be staying the rest of the month. On the other hand, it's been a fantastic day - even though our team of 14 students and the two leaders who travelled with us has been rather sleep deprived. Our flight left Newark, NJ at 9:15 p.m., and we arrived in Belfast at 9 a.m. local time - and the leaders tried to keep us busy so we wouldn't sleep until tonight!

In Belfast, we enjoyed lunch at John Brown University's house there, Lakeside Manor. We then rode a bus to do a bit of touring. Went around the Queen's University campus a little, then through a museum and botanical garden. Visited a local coffee shop, and then came the BEST PART of the Belfast day: we went to the C.S. Lewis reading room, which we entered by going through the actual wardrobe door from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie!!! I was very thrilled and would have shrieked a bit if we hadn't been in the middle of a library where students were studying for finals - but it was still an immensely exciting experience :)

Once we got to the cottages where we are staying, between Downpatrick and Killyleagh, we unloaded our stuff and started settling in. A rainbow over the distant mountains of Scotland which we could see greeted us. We ate a delicious lasagna dinner, and then we students hiked up a little hill to a viewing platform. The hills here are immensely green, but right now the yellow Gorse bushes are also abundantly blooming all over!

In the evening, I started tracking birds. Loving the selection here - quite different species from the U.S.! It didn't take me long to identify European Goldfinches or to find a Tit nest in a water pump with a broken-off handle. At 9 or 9:30, the leaders finally "allowed" us to go to bed (trying to help us make the six-hour time transition). I hadn't slept a wink since we got off the plane, so I was glad to crash, and I basically slept straight through the night. Here in Ireland, the sun doesn't set until nearly 11, and it rises at about 4 (I've heard) - so the days are very long! All day on our first day we had beautiful sunshine weather - though there must have been some clouds when we came to the cottages because there was a rainbow.

Day 2 - Thursday, May 30
After breakfast, we started in on some training/preparation work for our main ministry, which will occur June 2-16. We tied cording onto name tags, learned the songs we will be teaching the kids, and heard from David Wallace about what to expect from the kids here. David Wallace is the Youth for Christ representative who has been stationed in Killyleagh for the last three years, and he is our team's main contact/coordinator.

Most of our student team also went to the top of a taller hill, called Joe's Mountain, where we climbed onto a pillar from which we could see a 360-degree view of the landscape. It is beautiful :) In the evening after dinner we drove to the ruins of Inch Abbey, founded in about 800 A.D. It was really neat with holes where the stained glass windows used to be, no ceiling, and luscious grass for the carpet. The Jackdaws (similar to our crows) were nesting in the holes in the wall. We also played Ultimate Frisbee in a grassy patch beside the ruins. Again, I thankfully didn't have an issue sleeping through the night. The weather maintained its inordinary sunny quality, which made me happy.

Day 3 - Friday, May 31
Today we focused on more specific preparation for the Kids Club (aka VBS program) which we shall be leading for elementary-aged kids during the ten weekdays. The people who will be teaching the lessons (including me) went through the curriculum which Mrs. Balzer wrote a few years ago for a different town.

Our theme for the VBS is Incredible Kids, talking about character attributes from Col. 3:12-17 as "super powers." As a result, part of what we did today was to plan costumes and "super hero personas" for each of our team members. We'll be doing brief skits each day to set up the lesson topic for the day.

Another program we'll be doing is a sports camp for the teenagers, which will be held three times a week in the evenings. Each night of that, we will have a "half time" when a couple of our team will share their testimonies. I will be sharing mine on Thursday at about 7:45 p.m., which would be 1:45 in the afternoon central time. I would appreciate our prayers for that, as well as for all of our outreach opportunities. Our Kids Club will be from 3:30-5 Ireland time, and the sports camp will be from 7-8:30. We will also be doing presentations in schools, though I don't yet know any more details about that.

This evening we went to Downpatrick, the nearest larger city, which has an Asda (Ireland's version of WalMart). It is also home to the grave which is most commonly attributed to hold St. Patrick's remains. This area of Northern Ireland is the heart of his area of ministry, so we will be visiting several sites related to that.

Our Crazy Weather and My Fun Day

We've had crazy weather this winter...both in Dallas and here in NWA. I haven't been in Dallas for the crazy weather, so I'll mostly talk about the NWA part :) The crazy weather has been in the form of snow - and TONS OF SNOW!

It snowed a bit on the weekend my parents brought me back to school - Jan. 9. But it wasn't much. It did stick around for several days though.

Our second snow storm came on Jan. 20th. It started early in the morning, if I remember right. I walked to my 9:00a.m. class through the falling snow and enjoyed taking some pictures of it :)

I would guess it snowed 2-4 inches....so not too much. Most of the snow disappeared in about a week, except for places where there had been a big pile of it.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous the weekend of the 29th, with highs in the 60's! I went for a walk to downtown and took pictures - I may have even been in a t-shirt.

It changed pretty quick after that though. On Feb. 1, it started snowing at about 1a.m. and continued to snow for well over 12 hours. It was basically a blizzard that morning - that's what a weather website was calling it! Campus closed down at 10:30a.m. and all classes for the rest of the day were cancelled. My prof. had cancelled my 9:00 class even before campus closed. I heard that only six classes were held that day.

Since that was a Tuesday, we were supposed to put the newspaper together in the evening. Because classes were cancelled, we decided to do it in the afternoon instead - so I had to walk the quarter mile or so to the honors house where the Threefold office is.

The snow was still falling at that point. After I finished laying out my pages for the paper, I went to dinner in the cafeteria. While I was there, one of the other students got the email saying classes were cancelled for the next day as well. It was so funny how cheering broke out in the cafeteria, kind of in waves as more students figured out what was going on.

So the next day my friend Brooke and I decided to get outside and take snow pictures! It was about 10*, but we didn't let that stop us :D We had a blast for nearly an hour and a half.

Most of the trees were really pretty because they were covered in icicles that were glistening in the sun :) I would guess there was about 6" of snow from that storm.

Our adventures included following deer tracks through the woods to an area I had heard looked like Narnia,

walking across the soccer field to get back to my dorm,

me being "forced" to eat snow after I shocked Brooke by saying I couldn't remember eating snow before (I liked it - I just look funny because I was laughing so hard at Brooke's shocked-ness),

and taking pictures of each other.

On Friday the 4th we got a little more snow - but not for too long. It just made everything pretty again :)

While Brooke and I were out and about, I had further shocked Brooke by admitting I had never been sledding before. I mean, come on - I'm from Dallas - when does Dallas ever get enough snow to go sledding? (Well, last year and this year it has...but I haven't been there either time!) So the next day (Sat. 5th) we got together to go sledding. But first we had to get the six inches of snow off of her car.......that took a while...and then we had to get her car out of the parking spot. And once we finally did get out, we weren't sure where we would find sleds. So we went to a hardware store and got "drip pans" instead - they look like giant cookie sheets. We think they're meant to be used under running generators, but not sure. Anyhow, we went with two of Brooke's other friends over to the honors hill which is THE sledding hill of Siloam and had a lot of fun sledding :)

(This is us trying to go down with three people on the cookie sheet - it didn't work. Two people worked great though :D)

And I loved it! :) After we finished sledding, we made snow cream (like ice cream - but made of snow and condensed milk - YUM!) and enjoyed it together :)

The snow from that storm is still around, although it had been cleared off most of the roads and gotten very trampled down everywhere else and was actually getting a little dangerous, what from the melting and refreezing it's done. But the weather wasn't done with Arkansas yet!

Tuesday night (8th) another snow storm was forecasted to hit our area. After I finished my part of laying out the paper in the Threefold office (at about 1:30 in the morning), I walked back over to my dorm. The snow had been falling for 30-45 minutes at that point, and was just a light dusting on the ground. I loved it because it was dark outside, so the snow falling through the light beams from the street lights was really pretty, and I could listen to the snow falling, and I felt like Lucy discovering Narnia :)

I went to bed in pretty short order, and woke up at 6:30. I got an automated call that classes were cancelled for the day because of the snow - which made me so happy because I had been feeling very overwhelmed about that day's homework. So I went back to sleep until 9. When I got up and looked outside, I could hardly believe my eyes. It had snowed so much that I could hardly see the cars in the parking lot - there were just lots of car-shaped white humps with antennas sticking out of them! It continued snowing until about 2 that afternoon - a total of TWO FEET!

That afternoon (yesterday) I trekked across the Quad (breaking my own path through the snow that was up to my knees!) to work on my homework assignment for the next day - it was fun, but it sure was cold toooo!!! When I was at dinner, I once again witnessed students' jubilation at learning classes were cancelled for our fourth snow day of the semester. That freed me up from worrying about homework that would have been due today, so I went to a movie night in a friend's room. I also hung out with some of the girls on my hall and talked with Nathan on the phone for an hour :D

So that brings me up to today - and was it ever a fun day!

I woke up at about nine, spent some time talking to Mom on the phone and doing other stuff until 10 when the Health Center opened for the day. Went down there and rode the bike machine for an hour (went 10 miles) and did some weights stuff. While I rode the bike I was reading John Perkins' autobiography for one of my classes.

After that I ate lunch with several friends of mine, and they invited me to play Wallyball with them. So we played that for an hour and a half or so, and I was actually doing all right at it! When I had tried it before (back in my freshman fall) I had done poorly...but this time I was actually a tiny bit co-ordinated!

After we finished playing, we decided to go sledding. But this time, we went to the big tall hill near the 100 stairs. We'd heard about a slope there that somebody found.

(I "stole" this picture from one of my hall mates of when they went down the big hill yesterday. We didn't have this sled today)

By the time we got to it, though, there wasn't much snow on parts of it because so many people had gone down it. So we promptly put more snow on it! As we were putting snow on it, the twins and I ended up sliding down it (without any type of sled under us!). I actually got stuck partway down on a vine type thing that was attached to something at the top and the bottom...but I was able to get myself loose.

After everyone in our group had gone down the hill, we had to hike up the 100 stairs which was a tad dangerous because they were covered in snow! But lots of other people had been going up/down them, and there was a handrail to hang on to, so it was fine :) The next time I went down, I tried to use my "sled" - but it decided it didn't want to go down the hill. My body, however, decided to keep going without the sled! That time hurt a lot more - and I got a bruise from it - but it was still fun :D The crazy thing about this slope is that as you're going down you're kicking up a lot of snow that flies up in your face - and then at the bottom there's this mound of snow from everyone sledding down - so it's quite the ride :) The third (and last) time I went down I used a friend's inner tube - and that was definitely the best :D

Lynnette and I then decided to walk the Dogwood Trail all around the campus - it was her idea and a bit crazy, but we had a ton of fun. It took us about an hour to go the 1.8 miles, following deer trails or human trails...but we were still walking in snow that was at least to half way up our legs. We made the mistake of going the uphill direction though :/

We wrote our names with our fingers in the snow. Lots of other people had been doing it too. At one point we saw four or five dear crossing the trail - we felt so sorry for them being out in this cold and having to walk through the deep snow!! There were also lots of cute little birdies out singing :) Of course I felt even more sorry for them than for the deer!

When we got about halfway around the trail, we stopped and lay down in the snow for a while - it was kind of cold but it actually felt nice too! It was so quiet and peaceful and the moon was up (it was only about 4:30p.m. at that point) - it was just wonderful...I could have almost fallen asleep :D

We came back around to the parking lot area for the library, and there was a big mound of snow around a lamp post - so I suggested that we climb up it - and we did, crazy as it was for us to do that :D It was pretty difficult to climb because of sinking into the snow anytime we tried to step up. But we did it in the end!

Of course, once we quit walking in the snow and were walking on the cleared sidewalk is when I started to realize just how COLD my ankles and feet were. I was very glad to get back to my room and take off my snow-packed boots and socks and take a nice warm shower! But the hot water made my feet hurt so bad because they were so cold--they're all right now though :)

Since then I've just been blogging and doing some homework reading and enjoying the last of my snow day...tomorrow I have a test in my one class, but then it will be the weekend all over again! While I'm enjoying the time off, I'm also ready for all the snow to just go away. This weekend it's supposed to get up to 50 degrees, and by next Thursday the high is supposed to be 70, so I'm really looking forward to that! And then my parents come for Family Weekend!!!!!!!!!!! :D

I've had such a wonderful day - thanks to all my friends who made it possible! :D