briefly, in photos, Easter Weekend

this was the drive down the mountain. i dont even know why, but it enchanted me so.

i will never tire of seeing zebras. they scream "afrika!" to me. i love them.

the very first turtle i saw here in SA.

the weather was "rain" in the forecast all week. and it did seem to rain an awful lot. but it always seemed to rain when we were driving or at someone's house. when we were "out" we were blessed. blue blue skies.

this little one was so precious. ahhh just look at its delicate little legs.

i love lily ponds.

i loved this bird.

i spy with my little eye a hippo. and this was about all i spotted of him for the entire time we sat and watched him.

probably the biggest rack i have ever seen on a kudu.

o, you know...just an elephant, crossing the road.

this is where the lion was. see the big rock, just to the left is the lion, in front of that tree. amazing!! :)

hi lady lion

this series is what i like to call: "watch simba and nala make a baby." of course, its difficult to see. but it really happened. it was outrageous and unbelievable and awkward.

i told you i LOVE this little guy. SO SO SO stinkin cute. i want one! i love his little body. i love the way he just was spastic. he was freakin adorable.

one evening tannie magda came running to my room and said i must come and see this. she had a very large spider in the tub! it was gross. i can still barely look at it. *shudders*

i just love this shot. something about it is homey and simple and i want to paint it.

this was another massive kudu.

i. love. this. photo. it is like the elephant was hiding out in the trees and bushes. Peek-a-boo!

i couldn't decide if i wanted to shoot in black and white...

...or color.

i love this photo too. i love when the light shines through brightly and illuminates.

it is fall here in South Africa, however, the colors in the next few photos are not from the leaves changing. they are from a fire. but its still beautiful and i love the colors!!

this photo is amazing. i love the blurry elephant in the background and how i got my camera to focus on the leaves in the front. love it...

check out those fall colors?!?! *winks*

this is the beauty and problem of Kruger. its a wild park. the animals dont have signs saying "look here" or tags where you can chase them on your GPS. they are wild. free roaming. below you see the rhino. we were told by a car coming towards us there were rhino in the bushes, so naturally we looked for them. we had prayed ALL day for a rhino. it was the one animal i really wanted to see. so we pull up to the spot they are supposed to be and we are looking and looking. and then we spot it! i snapped this photo the very next moment. can you see it? now you understand how its possible to drive and see nothing or happen to see everything.

i have this exact photo that went out with my Christmas update letter. only it is from me just landing back home in the states and seeing snow. anyway. i guess i need to practice making some new faces that display shock and joy and awe.

look at that rhino!!! amazing!! (ps: there is NO zoom on that photo!)

deciding to cross the road

just behind our car!!!!!! *insert massive open face here* ps: isn't his little butt and legs cute?!?! i love rhinos!

told ya i liked his butt. so square and funny....

trying to make it out by 6 so we didn't get a fine! we lost track of time *smile*. that mountain in the distance, the pointy one, is where we stayed. literally. the place was on the top. it was amazing.

just another view of the college. friends of tannie's and oom's work there and so we stayed in the old hotel turned college/dorm for exceptionally cheap. it was beautiful and a blessing.

this is the only photo i have of collin. what a man! seriously! he was friends with oom and tannie and when he heard i started a school he gave me an entire years plus of Bible curriculum to use in teaching. it was well close to 20 pounds of teachers guides and children's book. i almost cried. i asked if i could pay or give a donation or something! anything! and he just said it was in honor, and his wife, elizabeth. she just recently passed away and he wanted to "pay forward" the life and legacy of her. i readily accepted and tears burned my eyes. he travels all over southern african nations in this truck, with a pop up camper! he travels like this so he doesn't have to be 'put up" by local churches and can sustain himself. he was a gem. it was an honor to spend time with someone that has spent well over 50 years sharing the Good News.

just the outside of my room, looking at the pool.

next door to the college is a very famous and large AIDS clinic. i should remember its name, and the founders name, but he's been asked to travel the world to replicate the system going on down there.

ashley and her mom drove with us to visit friends in the area. she and i would go for walks together and love all the flowers and greenery!

colors!

i. love. this. photo. man alive. sometimes i am completely surprised i capture images like this. but i know i did. thinking about blowing it up and hanging it above my bed...

i know thats a lot of photos. but....it was a very full and good weekend!! i'm waiting for some photos tannie M is gonna send me. so maybe i'll have some more soon, who knows?!?!

pride

i was once told i was very prideful. it was rather shocking. i've always sort of thought of myself as close to humble you can be without actually being humble. (see, if i say it like that, i sound "more" humble, right?!? *wry grin*).

i remember the day vividly. it was a spring day. i smelled beautiful in the air, flowers were blossoming on campus. i was a junior. i remember walking along the path that led from my dorm room to the student center to visit one of my dearest mentors, the campus pastor. i had developed a friendship, a good surrogate father-daughter relationship with pastor haub. he was where i could be found after a puzzling discussion in any class, after a run-in with authority i questioned, after i was told i couldn't do something, after i got a good grade in class. pretty much whenever i was bored too. he had an entire wall of library books. it was a small piece of heaven in that office! :)

he was all kind blue eyes like my dad, too.

but this one spring day i was lamenting getting a 94% on a big paper. at LBC, for this class, that was a B. i was crushed. to be very honest, i can count on both hands the number of times i've received a B. i'm not naturally smart, i just like working hard and studying. like, as in, i'd rather spend my free time studying or debating then pretty much anything else.

i was complaining about how it would hurt my GPA. how now i'd have to work extra hard. on and on i went. suddenly i was interrupted. he asked me what i think of "______" (insert name of one of the girls in my section who really struggled with passing her classes). without thinking i answered that i love her and think she is amazing (because she is).

he then told me, "how dare i judge myself on a different scale. what makes me think i'm worthy to be on a "must get good grades" scale when i think its fully fine for my girls to get such and such for grades. or get bad grades. the reason i care is because i'm awful prideful and think i'm by nature better then everyone else so i have to get better grades."

it shocked the heck out of me.

still does.

but its true. i hadn't realized it, but its true. i do think i'm better than everyone else and therefore i deserve or "have to" get better grades. or better "this" or "that" or whatever. that conversation has stuck with me since then. i replay it over and over and it still convicts me.

i've been thinking about it a lot the past few days. i still like to get good grades. but i've tried to purpose in my heart and not let grades become an idol for me and source of pride like that. its hard. pride, is the very root of all other sins. and its a creeper. it creeps up slowly. usually very well intentioned at first.

reality is, i'm awfully prideful. and judgmental. if half the thoughts in my head were every said out loud i'd shudder in shame and embarrassment!

i'm prideful when it comes to academics, on a small scale, there is SO much more. what are you prideful about?

lets confess together and practice nipping our pride in the butt :)

*pastor Haub, have i ever told you how much that mean to me? how much it meant and means that you'd pour honest feedback into me and not let me settle or be apathetic? o thank you!

briefly, how it was

this is for my dear friend, laura. she has a photo just like it. and she got me this darling scarf i turned into a headband. it is all polka dots and happiness. and i love it. so i wore it to meet the animals on friday.

and animals we met indeed.

this little guy stole my heart. i have no idea what he is. but he is hilarious, was all spastic in his walking. and bright. and look at his big bulgy eyes. i loved him.

i spotted one of only 3 giraffes during our time in kruger. i mean, i actually spotted all three of them. but this is a photo of only one.

this was what i saw each time i glanced out the window where we stayed. it was foggy and misty almost the entire weekend. i wish i had brought The Two Towers with me, or The Hobbit. it would have been good to read about the misty mountains while living in misty mountains. but i had my memory and told the stories to myself, because they are that good. and so i would sit on dew stained grass and render to myself and the flying birds about gandolf leading the nine up and over, and how frodo was so weak and needed dear sam to carry him and how the ring was eventually thrown into the doom filled mountain and how good won and aragon led the final charge and good won. again, yes...again, because its too easily forgotten. good won. and wins each day. it was a very fitting story for Easter; my beloved ring story, my beloved Easter story.

this is hands down my favorite photo from the entire weekend.

perfect photo of life for an Easter weekend, don't you think?

spent the weekend in the first not one, but two accidents of my entire life. here is the damage from the one. sorry mom and dad. didn't want to tell you we had another one, too. but it was worth it to hear your voices, wasn't it?!?! all is fine. i am fine.

these ladies were decked to the nines. they were cute. we talked a bit.

if we have spoken longer than 20 minutes you know how dearly i love Monet and lily ponds. he is the reason i love all things blurry and out of focus in photos, in life. i was in my hay day for about 30 minutes while sitting at kruger and watching the stillness. i'm gonna paint like Monet in Heaven and have lily ponds and waterfalls in my backyard.

i love shooting in black and white and then converting to antique on my computer. i could sit by gentle lapping rivers all day, every day. especially ones that have baby hippos in like this one did. look closely. very closely. 

it was a tropical eden on the mountain. what are these flowers?!?! the color! Oh, the color! i loved them. wanted to steal them away home with me to my dear little lapa.

tomorrow i will write more. just now i am off to clean and organize the mess of the school and my house.

birthdays and a baby!

these two just had their baby. it was a girl!!! she is lovely!

little Merryn Lila is a week old yesterday.

i love her. i love her name. it fits her, perfectly.

her arrival was a bright spot on the year for me. she is loved.

its crazy to believe my old roommate and dear dear friend is now a mom!

its one thing being in different parts of the world with your friends, but when you become an aunt to new babies, it just ups the anti (is that how you spell that phase?!?) even if i moved "home" ellen and dan aren't "home" either.

dear little merryn is blessed to have such amazing parents.

i couldn't be more proud or sure of ellen being a mother. 

merryn, auntie bekah loves you so!!

...................................

this girl, my sweet christine, had a very big birthday on thursday. 

christine, i love you. love our silly conversations and sweet times in prayer together. thank you for holding me up and believing in me so so so much. your phone calls, overseas, the last two years to me in the states, were a source of great joy. you bless me. love you!!

(taken at jade's wedding this past summer)

christine, this is my all time favorite photo of us. do you remember? only 1 day after we met!

..........................

my dear jadie. i have no words.

i think of you and i think of you flying on a moments notice to come hold me as i cried and cried in my bed. to do the hard emotional tasks of cleaning out cars and memories and homes when i couldn't. when i just sat and watched in a semi vegetable emotional state. when i think of you i think of us playing piano and worshiping late into the night and waking my neighbors. when i think of you i think of our extreme competitive spirit that led us to a truce to never play "organized" games together so we stay friends and happy (hahahhaaa). 

i think of the times we'd lay giggling in beds in various countries and states and houses. i think of waking up in sleepy mexican towns seeing chocolate brown eyes and cute faced boys watching us as we wake in their room. i think of hilarious times with sean and carrie, and the gas man, and hilda and her son, and her house!! i think of peeing statues and donkey rides, and dulce de leche, and "quiero helado, papi!" i think of you praying over me. me praying over you. 

i think of me introducing you to Rita's and sheetz hoagies. i think of you taking me to mickey and real mexican food.

(morning of jadie's wedding)

when i think of you i think of someone who is equal parts smart and silly. driven and caring. i love you. oh, i love you! thank you for being always dependable for me to be raw and honest. for believing and hoping for others, for me.

i love you, mrs. matthews. 

love celebrating the good and bad and everything in between. love that you lived here on the farm for a year so you understand so many of the things i see and experience and call "home" now. i love you. happy happy birthday, jade!!

ps: He. is. RISEN.

oh, glorious day!

Pirates under the stars

last night we drove up the mountain to watch some movies.

it was a beautiful day, hot and sunny.

leah, kelly and i thought what fun it would be to take a movie, the projector and a sound system, and go watch a movie.

so that is what we did.

we set up everything. it was such fun. i had the ultimate joy of going door to door and gathering the employees from up at the top of the mountain.

oh to see the smiley faces of theirs as they opened doors.

at one point it started to rain so we moved the projector under the lapa and watched from there. it was such fun. 

it was like a drive in. only better. 

today, i'm grateful for moments of bringing joy into the other employees on the farm.

i'm also grateful for reminders of jumba juice. i can almost taste the goodness of a jumba smoothie.

and i'm grateful for coffee. from my new french press each morning. and this phase from a cute little restaurant in Monterey CA makes me happy.

*sorry for the poor quality of the photos. i'm not the best "dark" photo taker. or photo taker in general :)

PS: somehow this never got posted. i wrote it last Sunday. anyway 6 days later you'll get to see it thanks to blogspot's "write and post later" feature.