I'm not one for resolutions, probably because I never succeed in keeping them. I can't remember the last time I bothered even making a resolution.
I read somewhere that it takes 14 days to form a habit. I did succeed in establishing one important habit this year (beginning in October) -- I wake up every morning around 6AM and read my Bible. My motto is "no Bible, no breakfast." Waking up early was really hard for me at first, but I forced myself to do it, and now it's no problem. I can see now why everyone says it's best to read your Bible in the morning, rather than haphazardly later in the day like I used to do.
Forming that habit has inspired me to try another challenge. My resolution is to blog every day for 90 days, no matter what (unless I come down with a horrible case of malaria, in which case I hope you'll excuse me!). I don't expect to blog daily after the 90 days are up, but I think this jump start will help. I'm going to take Sundays off, as a day of rest. The internet here in Karamoja may occassionally fail, but I think I'll be able to keep up with this pretty consistently if I make it a priority.
I haven't written on here in a while. To tell you the truth, after you've spent a certain amount of time in the same place overseas (I've spent almost 12 months in Karamoja since 2009), everyday life no longer seems blog-worthy. The things I do, day in and day out, are just the mundane routines of life -- baking bread, snotty babies trying to pull out my arm hair, killing cockroaches, pulling ticks off my legs, walking to the clinic, teaching Sunday school with a translator, dinner and games and movies with my fellow missionaries. I've fallen out of touch with people, because I can't imagine anyone would care to know about these little things. But I've been reminded that a lot of my friends and family don't really have a good idea of what constitutes "everyday life" on the African savannah, so my goal is to share a little snapshot with you every day.
For instance, today I walked up to the Wright's house with Caleb Okken, who's ten. He wanted to visit Jadu's kittens. We strolled up and saw Jadu munching on something bright green - a baby snake (I think it was a boomslang). You know you've been here for a while when you hardly flinch at such a sight! [I started writing a fun fact about baby snakes, but I don't want to terrify anyone... just rest assured that this is actually the first baby snake I've ever seen here, and I'm thankful for that!]
Speaking of Caleb, he's reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time, and he's getting REALLY into it. My brother, sister and I are total LOTR fans (books and movies), so I love all the intense questions Caleb throws at me. This afternoon he and his teacher, my friend and former hut-mate Erika Bulthuis, were having a little LOTR review time at the end of school, and they invited me to join them. Erika had a list of study guide questions that she couldn't answer, so she thought I might know. I'm not quite a walking encyclopedia (unlike some people I know) so I couldn't answer every burning question, but it was such fun to dig into the books with them. I'm hoping that from now on Erika, Caleb and I will read portions of The Silmarillion aloud every Wednesday when Caleb's school day is finished. He's not ready to read it on his own -- the names alone would slow him down too much, and the language is more difficult to understand -- but he's so eager to learn more that I think he'll enjoy delving into the history of Middle Earth with the two of us.
I spent most of the day lesson planning, and I made three loaves of bread. Now it's 5:00 -- where did the day go? My to-do list is insane right now. Funny how many tasks get put aside in the midst of the holiday craziness, and now they're staring me in the face. The holidays are over... time to get back to business. The Wrights are on their way to Kenya, driving Anna back to boarding school, so I'm on vacation until next Wednesday.
Much love to all my friends and family,
Ngakiru (Emily)
No comments:
Post a Comment