Odds and Ends

A great weekend was had by all!

Mark went to a conference in Brits, near Johannesburg, for Students for Law and Social Justice. The focus was the implementation gap between the constitution and reality. Super interesting and right up his alley. He made new friends from all over southern Africa (and met an New Mexican J). A Justice of the SA Constitutional Court (equivalent to our Supreme Court) was there, and Mark got a picture with him/her. He also slept under the stars and was happy to come home to my cooking.

He has another week of Civil Law every day from 9am-1pm, and is doing a presentation tomorrow on how French Civil Law affects Louisiana state law. Interesting!

Meanwhile, I got to spend time with Zambia friends, Keisha and the lovely, hospitable Tembos. We had a lot of fun together and did a fair bit of reminiscing. I am amazed at the awesome things God has done in each of our lives in the past four years. Gina is a high school rock star! And Ruth is a stud in her church and as a mother. 

Hopefully we'll have pictures soon. We both didn't use the camera much but will bum pictures off of other people. These are a few from Mark's weekend.

And here's what I'm doing today! Hanging with the Peterson's kids. A little consolation since I miss my nieces and nephews so much!

I've really been enjoying Derek Webb's album "Mockingbird" again, and I think it sounds mennonite.

And some other thoughts:

Fear seems to be prevalent in CT. More than Mumbai, more than Kitwe, Zambia, and definitely more than my experiences in the US. People often caution me against going to a specific place, against hiking alone; they tell stories about when something bad happened to someone, generally caution me to be careful…

It’s fairly easy for me to brush off these comments. I follow smart guidelines –don’t walk in remote places or late at night, don’t carry my phone out (even though it’s a pretty ghetto phone anyway), don’t stop to talk to strangers,

Sometimes, like Tuesday, I feel like I’m being rude when I know there’s someone trying to get my attention – in this case a conductor on a minibus who wanted me to go to town on his bus – and I just ignore them and keep moving. But it’s the smart thing and worth risking offending him.

But yesterday I read something and have felt a lot of fear since then. I know that God is in control. And I’ve been mulling over what it means to love people who do really bad things (see last post)…

You can see from all the elipses here that I have come to no conclusions about this but am praying and ask for you to pray for me, that this spirit of fear would leave.

IN other news,

Women here don’t seem to spend a lot of time on their hair, and I’m glad because I fit in a lot better because of that. It’s a bit humid and super windy, so it would be really hard to maintain the look anyway. And I have a brush and blow drier as my styling implements.

There is an untouched market for stylish flannel-lined jeans. I don’t like being cold and am thankful for my warm legs when I wear them, but they are SO “mom jeans”! It’s painful for me to wear them in public, and I don’t wear them if I’m going to see someone I know because they’re so awkward-fitting. But they are nice and warm, and I’m thankful for that.