You Set the Tone

There was real hope. It was raining late into the night, and so I was hoping that the trip this morning would not materialize. However, God had different plans for me. There were small blessings in the surprises, however, we started at 8 AM.

However, there is something to be said for starting off on the right foot. I moseyed on down to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, and when I went to use the towel, guess who was staring back at me? A cockroach! That’ll get the blood flowing early on in the morning, and it certainly does nothing for morale.

As I sat in the van, God was working on me though, questioning my sour attitude (and it was DEFINITELY sour) and asking who I was really doing this for. Thanks for the reminder, God. One step at a time out of the doldrums and back into reality, and eventually I began to have a little fun.

Thus began the adventures for the day, and there were quite a few of those. The first was off-roading in a van. I’m telling you, if I had access to a pimped out jeep, I could have some serious fun in the back roads here in Fiji. We ran into a section of road that literally had a foot of mud. Tire tracks on both sides, and a FOOT OF MUD. Needless to say, the van didn’t fair so well, but there must have been some angels pushing, because there’s no way the five of us standing in the mud could have pushed that van through. So the feet got a tad dirty (sarcasm!), but the rest of the drive was grand, because it was literally like rally racing. Slight left turn, hard right turn, huge pot hole, big hill, hard left turn, pot hole, cement bridge, huge hill climb... just like heaven!

The camp site up in the mountains is pretty intriguing. Nestled between hills, and surrounded by pines, it’s a pretty beautiful spot. If only it had safe water, accessible roads, and electricity, it’d be a perfect spot. C’mon, you kinda laughed at that last sentence! We hacked back the jungle with two lawn mowers, two machetes and a weed wacker. It only took us 4 constant hours of work to get it all done, but now it is nearly ready for camp. I’ll try to get some pictures the next time we go up.

The afternoon involved a trip into Nadi. I needed to exchange my sulu for a slightly larger one, since bigger is always better with a wrap-around, and also to pick up some new sandals. After the usual, “Hi, I’m from Canada, no I’m not a tourist, no I don’t want to look at your shop, no really, I don’t want to look at your shop” and then just walking away, I got to all my destinations.

After that, I hopped onto the internet to catch Jordan online. I’m seriously not enjoying the whole distance thing, but there is another month and we’ll at least be in the same country and able to talk to each other nightly with consistent communications, rather than intermittent ones. Still, I am fortunate to be able to even talk to her while I am here, and for that I am indeed quite thankful.

And tonight? Tonight was spent with me, myself and I. I cherish these moments, because I am feeling a little worn out, and having a night to myself to just worry about... well, myself, is nice. I can do things that I want to do, and not talk to anyone if I so choose. Lets me recuperate for the coming week, and refocus myself.

I don’t know about you, but I need a night or two every once in awhile to simply process all of my experiences and learn from them. I don’t need to be doing anything thought provoking or special, I just need to let my brain rest from people and activity for awhile, and it will do it’s thing. I walk away a little more enlightening and feeling free.

I set the tone for my attitude, and ultimately for the day. Mr. Cockroach didn’t help things at all, but I need to make that choice to enjoy myself and remember who I’m serving. One month to go, and I hope it will be a month that I can serve with all my heart. But that’s up to me to paint that tone, isn’t it?