Crazy experience of the week--yesterday there was a bush fire across the street from our house. It was getting remarkably close, too close for comfort, to one of our friends villages so we went over to have a look see. It was really intense and quite a big fire, the wind kept blowing it up and spreading it like crazy across the dry grass. So we proceeded to become Zambia fire fighters. There was at least 10 of us out there trying to get the thing out but it was coming in on a few fronts. So some people grabbed water and the rest of us grabbed branches that were green off of the trees and started whacking out the fire. It was intense, we were out there for about an hour and a half and came back very very sooty and dirty. It was nice to be able to help out a bit for once. They could have done it without us but it was really nice to help a little bit. A nice bonding experience haha. And it was a cool version of service, which leads to my deep thought for the week...

Deep thought of the week--sometimes we tell God we are willing to serve him, but then we put all sorts of qualifications on it. I won't serve here, I will serve here, I will not do this, I can't do this and so on and so forth. So really we aren't saying we will serve God at all we are telling him what we will do, which isn't the definition of service at all. I've really been thinking about this since I've come, especially since we aren't really doing what we thought we would be doing. But, the fact of the matter is that I think all of us that are here keep saying we are here to serve. We have had some good conversations as to what that actually means. I think we all told God that we are here to serve him in whatever way, sometimes when it comes down to it, we freak out when he asks us to do something a little out of our comfort zone. Service isn't always glorious though, sometimes its serving guests when they come over, sometimes its doing the dishes because you know everyone else is tired, sometimes its just sitting and listening, sometimes its putting out bush fires threatening the homes of people you met last week. After all, whatever you do for the least you do for God. Love your neighbors and love God...thats about it.

Excellent experience of the week--hard to pick one from this week but this one has stuck in my head for a few days now. Last Friday we were in Choma, town, to get a few things. There is a missionary couple that lives right near where we were staying and they are fantastic. They informed us that in the evening there would be a gathering of all of the missionaries/chrisitian white people in Choma at someones house including dinner and dessert, so naturally we wanted in! Both Ian and I went and it was fantastic. Not only was it excellent to be able to speak English to people and not have to over anunciate or slow down or try to strain to understand them, but the fellowship was great. And...there were people there from Germnay, Ireland, New Zealand, England, the US of course, and Portugal. It was pretty ridiculous...all those countries in the middle of Zambia. It was pretty cool to look around and realize in an incredibly obvious way that there is always more to the world and to God than ever meets my eyes. No matter how much you learn or travel or any of that there is always more to be learned, more people to meet, more faces of God to see.

Exciting future prospect--this weekend we are going to Livingstone to see the falls and to go on Safari! We are all pretty excited, it will be a nice little mini vacation where we can be tourists. So I'm sure we will have good stories after this weekend...pretty much everyday we have some ridiculous experience or meet some ridiculously amazing person, its pretty fantastic. Amazing what happens when you have time to slow down a little bit...