Definiton of Uncomfortable

When I got back to my room in Pietermaritzburg today it felt a lot like coming back home. It's weird how it's only been two weeks and I already feel used to living here. Coming home always feels great because you get to sit back, relax, shower, and sleep in your own bed. Coming home is great because you get to feel comfortable again. The only problem with us coming home today was, like my roommate put it, "I'm so tired of living in the wild right now". I couldn't agree more, but I think to fully explain it, I have to tell you about my weekend.

The plan for Friday was to leave after lunch and get to Umzinto (a little Indian town outside Durban)in 2 hours. Everything that could have gone wrong did. Reagen was driving one of the buses, but he forgot his license, so we had to stop and wait for him to go back and get it. One of the professor's car broke down and we had to wait 2 hours for a tow truck. No one knew where we were going, so we had to stop and check for directions 3 times and we made a bunch of u-turns. Finally, 5 hours later, we arrived at the campsite.

Saturday was supposed to be a beach day, but again things kept going wrong so we were really only at the beach for 2 hours. The rest of the day we spent waiting and walking around the downtown market. Let me just say that I have never sweat so much in my life. I would have felt completely disgusting and embarrassed, but everyone was sweating just as bad and some were sweating even more because it was so hot and humid and there was no AC in the cars.

Sunday was a different kind of adventure. We split up into groups and each group was assigned to a certain church. My group was told to meet at the bus by 7:10. When we got there, the pastor said, "so you guys are preaching right?" We laughed a little and then realized he was serious so in 3 minutes we had to come up with a 30 minute preaching. We decided to split it up and have 5 people speak for 5 minutes or so and I volunteered to be one of them. This whole time that I've been on this trip, I've had psalm 8 in my mind because it says "Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth". I shared this passage with the congregation of 200 and I told them how God has showed me that he is the same God no matter what part of the earth you're in. I don't really remember what else I said because it just sort of came out on the spot, but I got good feedback so it must of been good i guess.

After church we went to the pastor's house for lunch. The food was delicious and was probably the best food I've tried since I've been here, but again it was so hot. Humidity, heat, and plans gone wrong tend to be irritating. Overall the weekend was good because I did have fun and I learned a lot. I also got to experience a new culture and build on friendships and meet interesting new people, but being uncomfortable was a price I had to pay.

Now about my roommate's comment...we are coming from a really tiring weekend and we just want to feel clean again. Pietermaritzburg is just as hot, though maybe not as humid, so our room was really stuffy. My roommate, Kayla, went to pick flowers to make ourselves feel more at home, but as she was walking outside a huge snake came out of the bushes and a cat attacked it. When she came back in I pointed out the moth that looked like it was on steroids because it was so huge and was lying on our floor flapping its wings weakly and she took it outside. When we opened the windows to get fresh air about a million mosquitoes flew in. Ok maybe not a million, but there were a lot. There was a spider under my bed and a black beetle on top of it. Oh yeah, and the mysterious bug that gave me an allergic reaction on my feet seems to have bit me under my knee because now my leg is swollen and hurts. I also have a 3 inch rash under my neck from an allergic reaction to a spider bite. I just don't like bugs right now and I don't like the heat. I didn't want to complain about it on my blog, but I figured whoever is reading this should know that there are good days and there are bad days. There are amazing parts of South Africa and there are some not so amazing parts. Also, if you are feeling like you wish you were here, just think about this blog and you'll feel a little better about life.