Road Trip!!!!!!!

Well, me and high school friend Jon Fortune are officially on the road. We spent March working our way across the country, visiting friends and family along the way. We just got done with the grand canyon. We weren't able to camp in the canyon (didn't get our permit in time) so we did two good day hikes. Tough hiking when you aren't in shape, but amazing views, and good times. Of course we refused to pay $18 for a tent site, so we slept in our car for two nights. 

In other news, tomorrow we head into Mexico, and hope to have 2 full months there and Central America before making our way home. The '92 Lebaron is holding up like a champ, and we've made it through about 8 Spanish lessons on the ipod. We couldn't be more prepared. 

Above is a picture of the famous Pie Shop in DeValls Bluff, Arkansas. Below is evidence of our Grand Canyon trekking. Will try and update the blog weekly during the trip, but have to go for now.

"Thou Mayest"

 - East of Eden, John Steinbeck

This is my second attempt at writing tonight. The first involved an extended rant about holidays like Valentine's Day and how I dislike them. Then I got booted from a coffee shop that was closing. I walked around the city looking for a new coffee shop.  Downtown Seattle, couples of all shapes and sizes walking by hand-in-hand. I realized I don't begrudge them a thing. I watched a guy playing his guitar, hula-hoop in constant motion. Life is too good to complain my way through it. So best wishes for those couples who are enjoying the day, and I hope it provides them an opportunity to express their love for one another. This isn't my year. Chances are I'll be back in Sudan this time next year, so that probably won't be my year either. But that's ok by me. Tonight I'll steer away from narcissistic reflections on loneliness, and praise God for the cappuccino I'm drinking and the chance I've had to see a new city this week. 

Seattle: Drove out with my brother Adam. He is moving here, so we took his car and I fly back tomorrow. Love the city. Pike Place Market is sweet, energetic, street performers (though not enough really), great food stalls to choose from, and a general hippy/friendly sort of vibe. And I actually speak the right language to talk to people there. Went to a Sonics game and saw the Jazz blast them. It was cool though. Art Museum seemed good, but I don't know how to compare it to anything else. Had three panels from the "Gates of Paradise" originally from the Florence Cathedral. I think this is the only time they will ever be displayed outside of Florence and they were sweet. Maybe the highlight of the trip actually.

Also saw Denver a little bit while visiting our Aunt and Uncle on the way out. Good times with them, and we were able to see Pastor Scott, my old youth pastor, and probably the most influential person in me being a Christian. Denver seems cool too. Hard to imagine moving either there or Seattle and ever wanting to move back to Toledo. 

Life Update: Sudan was great, but for various reasons I left in December. In a few months I will either go to grad school or go back with Samaritan's Purse (in Sudan probably). Unless I get rejected by all the grad schools (possible, darn my 2.97 GPA) and SP doesn't want me back. Then I guess I'll go work at Jimmy John's for the rest of my life. There are worse ways to go :) In the meantime I'll see a few friends around the Midwest, and then in March, me and Jon Fortune are going south, then west, then south with the '92 Lebaron, into Latin America until the car dies. We just hope it doesn't die in Kentucky. 

Some people ask, "why are you doing that?" and I ask in all sincerity, "why wouldn't we??" How is it ever a bad decision to adventure through an entire continent or two if you have the chance? You all can work your 40 hour a week jobs and have families and responsibility. As for me, I'll be kickin it on the beach in Brazil. To each their own.

I'll write some deeper Sudan reflections later maybe. 

Or maybe not. 

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

- C.S. Lewis



Someone broke my 4-wheeler when I was on break in Nairobi. So I was driving a Honda 125 motorbike quite a bit this past week. I drove it 5 hours south and fell three times on that ride. Shortly after that I drove it through a muddy patch and came to a stop to high-five a kid who'd been cheering me on. When I stopped I put my right foot down, only for it to sink into the mud and I toppled over for a fourth time that day. A few days later I was driving it back North, and here is a diagram to explain that day.


1) I wiped out five minutes after getting on the bike. After that the kick-start wouldn't work so it had to be push-started.
2) My buddy Chris Wulliman picked me up and took me aways until our paths split, then he gave me a push start and off I went.
3) Here there were two roads. I took one and figured it was ok because I was headed into the sun which meant East. It was 3PM. It was going the exact wrong direction and it wasn't til I was practically back to the start that I realized my foolishness.
4) I veered off the road to avoid wiping out in a giant hole. I ended up dropping the bike anyhow trying to get back on the road. The bike decided it was done after that. My German Emergency Doctor friends happened to pass in their truck and we loaded up the bike and they took me home.
5) The last 30 minutes or so I was riding shotgun with a German nurse who is totally insane. Like Pyschiatric Hospital insane. She told me herself, along with a number of other "didn't need to know that" items.

Anyhow, during that ride (between items 4 and 5) I was sitting there cursing myself for wrecking a bike and then I realized something. I'm riding around in the back of a truck with a few Nuba people, holding up my broken bike with my legs, sitting next to a Nuba guy who's not a doctor and has performed 17 emergency C-sections in the last few months. Bouncing around and banging my head on this metal bar like 30 times. Drinking an ice-cold water from their cooler. And I thought, "Wow, my life is awesome right now."

"Everything that is done in the world, is done by hope."

- Martin Luther

After we finish building a church their is a giant party called an If De Ta. Lots of people come and pack the building and its basically a really long, high-energy church service. Lots of choirs, and singing and dancing, and thank yous, and sermons, and random diatribes by random people who don't really have much to say. This is Komo Church yesterday. The service lasted like 4.5 hours. I did get a little sleepy at one point, but overall its a lot of fun. I walk around and take photos as an excuse to move around and play with the kids outside instead of listening.




Above is Komo Church before the celebration begins. Below is Me and Pastor Santino. He's a nice guy and he's travelled with me to visit some churches before. Dude's real short. He had to stand on a cinder block to see over his new pulpit.

Correction

I was chastised a little while back for the opening of my last blog, so I think I better explain what I meant better. I'm not referring to the guys in the field at all, who are all great and thoughtful people with good hearts. It just seems that as an organization (and yes the individuals setting the tone) don't really care about why we do what we do, but if something looks good at first glance then we plow ahead and never stop to think it through. For example, someone committed us to rebuilding every church destroyed in Sudan, without having a clue what that actually meant, or thinking through the missiology of it. Anyhow, I do love and appreciate almost everyone in this organization and there is no where I would rather work than the Nuba Mountains in large part because of the awesome team we have here.

"If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say."

- Winston Zeddmore, Ghostbusters

That quote has nothing to do with this blog, but it may just apply to the average Samaritan's Purse employee. Not that they are all about the money, people just don't like to ask the hard questions about what our programs are really doing. Once something is set in motion everyone assumes things are good without actually thinking about them. I digress...

So 2/3s of our team flew out for a conference last week and I was kind of left in charge of Kauda our main base. I was excited about that until I realized that the 1/3 of people left was the totally unhelpful group. Still not a bad week, got to do some stuff I don't normally do.

On Saturday the people who had flown out were supposed to come back, along with some extra people who needed to stay the night before flying out in the morning. Total we were planning on having about 30 people on the compound that night. So I stressed all day, counting beds and blankets and making sure we had enough food. I had our guard kill two goats (this is normal meat here) and the ladies were supposed to cook it all up. I spent about an hour myself cutting up tomatoes for a giant salad we made. And just when we went to pick them up at the airstrip, a giant cloud formed. The plane got half-way there and the wind started blowing hard enough to rock our trucks and lightning started striking everywhere. When torrential rains started a moment later it completed the scene, and the plane turned around and landed somewhere else for the night. All our preparation for nought. This is what we refer to as the "Nuba Factor".

But my adventures were just beginning as the Nuba Factor struck once more. I told one of the ladies I would drive her home because she stayed late to help cook. Normally it is a 15 minute drive. Of course thats assuming the rain hasn't just destroyed the road. So I got stuck for about an hour and dug out with a shovel and my hands. Then I dropped her off and got stuck in the exact same spot on the way back. I dug for another hour. I couldn't figure out what I was stuck on, as all my wheels seemed to be on the ground, but when someone realized that my 30 minute trip had taken about 150 minutes they sent someone to help. Apparently my wheels weren't locked (4-wheel drive related thing) and when he locked them I moved effortlessly. Fun times.

Then I got home at 10:30 and spent about 45 minutes in a cold shower, cause thats how long it took me to scrub the mud out of my arm and leg hair.

Other interesting Nuba occurences:
1) Sergey, my Uzbekistani friend, killed a cow with his truck. A week later a letter was sent to all NGO's and the UN asking who did it and saying that the owner was threatening to go to the local sorcerer to put a curse on him. The letter also stated that the sorcerer has power of thunder and other harmful things. Fortunately the matter had already been cleared up by then, so no one has been struck down by lightning to my knowledge.
2) Troy, my Missourian friend, was asked to help transport a dead woman from the hospital back to her home to be buried. He did and then they got stuck in the mud for hours. Him and the dead body. Shades of "Little Miss Sunshine".
3) We had four quads drive in a convoy from Kauda to our southern belt (a place called Morro). I was really annoyed with the trip for a while cause I thought it was unneccessary, but then I realized something: How many times in life will I be able to drive 4-wheelers cross country with 3 buddies, and call it a part of my days work.
4) I avoided the return drive because there were some VIPs visiting and one of them thought it would be fun to make the journey by quad. I reluctantly gave up my quad, and took his place on the tiny-4 seater plane. So I sacrificed my exciting 4 or 5 hour ride through mud and bad roads, for a boring 20 minutes on a plane :) I've flown more times in Africa now than in the rest of my life combined.

Thanks for the love and prayers people. Hope to see some of you before too long.

love, shaps