Wednesday, July 30, 2008

everyday is a winding road.....




This is a journal passage that I want to share with you from the last weekend. We took a trip to the Cedarburg Mountains and on the way there I had, lets say, “a fancy to write…”

“I’m looking out the window at this moment that God has chosen to share with me. I don’t think I knew what the word awe was until now. no words. All that is left is sound and feeling and sight. The spirit interferes for us with groans that we don’t understand. That verse becomes real today. I’m a sponge and all I can do is continue to submerge myself and soak and soak and soak. I’ve found this hunger and thirst for this beauty we call Africa for something that I’ve only caught the occasional glimpse of. No amount of megapixels could capture the color, the vibrancy or the clarity of the physical. The English language proves inadequate today. There are stories here that I am only beginning to understand.”



Nothing beats hiking a mountain with a group of 30 other people. At only 4500 ft. I definitely got my butt kicked. We hiked up an 80° degree incline (at the least) and then proceeded to crawl, squeeze and balance ourselves through cracks in the heart of the mountain. These cracks varied from openings designed for small children (or those of us who are vertically challenged) to giant gaps that easily allowed our entire group to fit through. Our final crack before the top consisted of a 2x4 ft space we had to crawl through on our backs arms first and then pull ourselves to a 2x10 ft space that we shimmied up and then finally Rambo climb a wall to a tiny passage way that lead to the top of the mountain. Needless to say all the huffing and puffing was worth it. As a side note, i would also like to mention that i had a ridiculous amount of layers on and the weather went between two temperatures, freezing and boiling, thank you.



On another note, the drive there was unreal. Endless valleys of rolling green fields, skies so blue we don’t have a name for the shade. We hit a storm and even that was beautiful. All of a sudden light would shine through and another hidden valley would sneak by. It was like playing peek-a-boo with the sun. We saw prehistoric cave drawings of herds of elephants and people that had walked the same earth thousands of years before us. We looked out around us and for a moment we saw what our ancestors saw, uncharted, dangerous, bewitching wilderness. And then we hopped our happy newly enlightened selves back into the crammed (but heated) vans.




Friends and family give thanks that you have central heating.

Peace. Love. Grace

2 comments:

MLEmary said...

Beautifully written... I got chills. Thank you for sharing your adventures!!!! Your pictures are beautiful Lynny. I'm glad you're using your talents that God blessed you with. : ) I miss you! Wish I was there!!

P.S. The layers comment... haha... I could totally picture it and I laughed.

Unknown said...

...loving it :)