A Blessed Time

About a month ago, Glenn and Candy Ornee and the Morgan family came out to Arusha for a short visit from Reality Carpinteria. What a blessing they were! (Thankyou so much guys for just coming out and enjoying great times with us. It was such a refreshing blessing). The previous blog was about one of the adventures we shared with them. We also did some ministry in Massai land and went to the Ngorongoro Crater on a short safari. So i just wanted to share some photos of the animals and also some pics of our time in Massai land.

In Massai land (the same trip as the previous blog) we had an awesome time. Just seeing the Massai, attending church with them, praying over them, and watching there wide eyes and big smiles as we let them swarm over the piki pikis was a blessing and a joy to all of us. But the most spectacular part was watching there eagerness as they waited in life for something they always dreamed of...their very own books! I love africas hunger for schooling and knowledge. They respect knowledge and tools that are given to them to obtain more of it. We miss that so much in the States.















The Ngorongoro Crater...I love that place! Its the perfect game park for a day trip. You can see it all in a day and the game in it is pretty consentrated. The vast Crater floor has plains, forest, rivers, and a large lake. But I think my favorite part of the Crater is the buffalos. I've never seen bigger bull buffalo than i've seen in the Crater. Any buffalo is an animal that you should definately respect. They have one of the most acute senses of the big five, they will never stop coming for you (I've read stories of buffalo continuing to charge after they have been hit by several big bullets that hit the heart and literally tore it into shreds), and, worst of all, they have a really really bad attitude. However, a big lone bull buffalo is a whole different story. He's beyond having a bad attitude: he hates the world, he's beyond dangerous: he's black death that waits in shadows for some unaware human to walk by who he can bestow his rage upon. I have a healthy respect and awe for the raw power and the attitude of never stopping and never backing down that a big bull buffalo posseses and does not fail to exemplify on one to many occasions. Oh, i love just watching them lumbering across the plains like they rule the world and will take down anything that doesnt agree to that. I love there huge thick bosses, long curved horns, and massive mud-caked body that literally contains tons of muscle. They are so majestic and...well i guess i've said enough about buffalo. We saw a lot of other animals that day to. we saw tons of lions and 5 rhinos! it was a really succesful safari.

A Real Adventure

(This story is a couple of months old, because I have not been able to access my blogger acount for a couple months).

The other day, we went out to Massai land on the piki pikis. This was the first time we had gone on a safari with piki pikis. On the way there the three dads rode, and the rest of the families went in the car. It was like 200 kilometers to the place where we were going.
While we were there, me and sky decided to hike up onto this really cool hilltop where I had been before. On the top of this hill it isn’t covered in bush, but in that really cool terrain of golden meadows and patches of dark green and lush forests. The other cool thing is that it was kind of a new thing for me and sky to get to go alone in a place like this since there were buffalo up there. My dad said that the Massai couldn't believe that he let us go up there alone.

Once you get to the top, you come to kind of a flat valley between three higher hilltops. So we were walking along up there, making quite a bit of noise, when Skyler said, “what’s that?” It was a hartebeest, coming right out of the forest and he hadn’t seen us yet! Hartebeests are like wildebeests but they're all tan and gold. This was a big lone bull so he was really big and muscular. We quickly got down in the long grass to see what would happen. To make a long story short, Skyler and me stocked him all over the place, but he had really good senses. The closest we got was about 50 yards. Oh! But it filled my heart just to be up there in the fresh air! Sucking in nature, with hearts pounding as we scan for buffalo, and crawling through long grass for hundreds of yards trying to get close to a wild bull hartebeest. No tourist vehicles, not tame animals, just Skyler, nature, and me.



Man, I know, without a doubt, that being in nature and interacting with it and all its tricks like that is part of who I am. That is where I find peace and satisfactory joy, not sitting at home, typing this blog, and worrying about all the projects I am behind in for school.

Anyway, the homeward journey was another adventure. Skyler and me got to ride on the pikis for a while and that's where the fun began. The first part was rocky, so that was hard in itself...but then the rain came. Puddles started to form with rocks buried under them. It was hard to stay on the bike going through some of them, but I was ok. The cold of my soaked clothes was getting to me when I herd the first astounding crack of lightning (there had already been thunder and lightning but, when the lightning is so close that the sound of thunder is at the same time as the crack of lighting it gives a sound that is unearthly!). The first time that happened, I felt it in my bones, and my helmet shook. I was immediately thinking about what my reaction would be if I heard another one of those. I thought I might drop the bike out of shock if it happened again. Everything sounded deathly quiet compared to that strike, as I clutched to the handlebars in anxiousness and held on for dear life. I can’t describe how small and helpless that lightning crack made me feel: so cold, with nowhere to hide, totally exposed to nature with no defense. I love that raw power of nature that God created, which tends to put wimpy little humans into their place, haha!

And then the hail! The hail was soooooooo painful, it was coming down really hard and it stung like crazy. I mean, on a piki even the rain can hurt, but these were huge drops of hail. We soon had to pull off the road and get under some small bushes. Then the car came behind us, and we told them how we couldn't ride because of the hail, but by that time the hail was pretty much gone (the storm was still raging though). My dad explained that it was best to ride it out, and that there were some river beads he wanted to get across before they flooded to high. My mom said, "Oh! Get chase in hear!" because we were all shivering like crazy!!!!! But I said, "No! I wanna ride!" Even though I was really shook up I wanted to keep riding for the adventure, and I new that I would regret it later if I didn't. So we climbed back on and continued into the unceasing rain.

We soon found the flowing spots that my dad wasn't so sure about but we went through them without too much trouble. The scariest parts for me was going through puddles that had jumbles of rocks in them, throwing you all over the place, and then going up the steep rocky road on the other side. And oh the cold! The experience would have been a ton more fun to experience at that moment if it wasn't for the bighting cold that made your hands hurt when you weren’t even doing anything with them (just having them attached to your body hurt)! But of course the cold makes the story much more macho and exciting. Besides it was part of the experience that made it so raw! But man, we went through some crazy puddles and rain-soaked sand. One of the puddles was a little over waist deep but you couldn't tell that it was that deep from looking at it. So when you went in, you and the bike just plunged into the depths (or so it seemed) of this puddle and water was actually shooting over our heads as we road through!!!! I eventually dumped the piki in a big puddle and it was time to let someone else have a ride, and time for me to heat up in the car.

While we were out there having a cold blast, my dad was inside telling my frightened mom, "Thos are boys becoming MEN, Tammy!"

What a weekend! Out in the bush is where I would choose to be any day, whether stalking elusive hartebeests on gorgeous hilltops, or reeling at the shock of the raw power of lightning.

Praise the Lord for his nature!