God is Everywhere

Hey All,
First an apology that nothing got posted yesterday. It was a busy day and while several of us were on computers at various points in the day yesterday none actually made there way here. When a few of us tried we encountered some problems getting on line. Second - thank you to all of you who are posting comments - it is encouraging and challenging - in a good way - to know of your thoughts and prayers.
I just finished a great breakfast - the food here and Mwandi has been far above our expectations - chicken on Sunday nights, hot dogs for Lunch yesterday, a great beef stew on rice last night, pancakes this morning. Dinner and Lunch always come with desert and there is always sweet tea, water and juice during and before meals with offerings of coffee and tea afterwards. Anyway I'm sitting about 20 yards from the Zambezie which is simply amazing on a nicely screened veranda. Our accomodations are very comfortable and pretty western yet it is clear we are in Africa both because we sit in all kinds of beautiful wooden furniture and there are some spectacular examples of local crafts - drums, baskets, carvings.
Yesterday was both great and hard for me. I couldn't wrap my head around all that they do here nor how they are organized. It also was hard to have a comprehensive tour and still really connect with people - this was particularly true at the hospital. Speaking of which please say some prayers as the Doctor said he was quitting this morning - it is supposidly political and our wonderful hosts are supposidly trying to deal with that brush fire right now. We saw the farm, the kandiana (old peoples home and former leper colony) both of which for me we really fun and exciting. Seeing the hospital was hard both because of our inability to connect with people and because at least for me it is not the place I have any real sense of calling to, seeing the school was awesome and the computer lab is going to be a home run. Our Jesus quest will be limited from our planned 8 days to 5 starting today and taking Thursday, Sunday and Monday off as well. I think this is for the best as it will allow us to do a better job but it was hard to hear as I think that will be a place of real connection. We stopped at the OVC (orphanage and vulerable children center) but didn't get the tour which will wait till we can meet with their staff. The under 5 day care was awsome as the kids sang for us but it was also a little heart breaking as over half of these kids are orphans but because they are associated with this aspect of the mission as opposed to the OVC they don't get the funding. We saw the church with the tree that Livingstone preached the gospel from based on his journal and finally worked our way to the hippo house that we will be doing some renovation work on. After lunch we met two representatives from Manu which is a faith based effort that encourages abstinance and fidelity. It was heartbreaking to here that there is a persistent myth that having sex with a 1 month (yes they said month) baby will cure HIV/AIDS. Some of us will be able to do an outreach later in the trip with some of these folks while others will do an under 5 outreach and the rest a relief/ARV outreach. After that we did a comprehensive tour of the hippo house and Bryan agreed to be our project leader there and we started cleaning. Kathy used some of the afternoon time to connect with the vet and we are going to be able to do some good work there. Cleaning took us to dinner and our team debriefing afterwards which was a real highlight for me. I was finally able to do some much needing processing after all that in bed and I think I realized my real calling here is the care of our group and that is a joy for me. Knowing what I can do and what I am called to do gave me great peace and I slept - though once again without the sleep aid I woke up around 2AM and sat there till about 4AM - at least it was good prayer time.
I'm seeing God work, I'm hearing him speak and while I am missing home and family I am glad to be here. Pray for today as from a adjusting to time stand point this is supposidly hump day - I'm tired. Though I just recieved a huge grace as I met Ru who handed me an "African Flyfishing" book and who is organizing some things for me to fish this weekend. He said they boated over 100 fish last Saturday and that it is only going to get better. I'm speaking about God calling Peter via fishing at Jesus Quest today - it is a place God gets me. Love to you all.
Jon