Return to Tenegar

Early this morning, I hopped into a Mercy Ship land rover and made my way to the Medical Clinic Construction site in Tenegar. I jumped out of the land rover ready to work and get dirty! I was greeted by a pile of fire ants and began to dance trying to get the ants out of my pants! Holy cow, those little ants move fast and their bites sting. After I recovered from my ant dance we had group prayer committing the day to God. I was assigned the job of white washing the clinic walls. After about five attempts at making the white wash the correct consistency, I was ready to paint! I painted all day long. The African men and local villagers kept coming up to me saying, "thank you, thank you!" It was really funny when one of the men said, "I didn't think you could work." Oh, he should have seen me back in the days of "A to Z Lawn Service!" After hours of painting, I was putting out a proper sweat wondering if these men ever break for lunch. Just at that moment, a beautiful African lady came into the clinic carrying a huge container of food on her head. I was really craving my peanut butter sandwich, but chose to embrace the eating experience and try some proper African cusine. I grabbed my bowl of rice and joined the other men in a circle on the clinic floor. Then I stared at my bowl of rice and saw a fish staring back at me! Yikes! I was thinking, "Lord, help me eat this so I don't offend these people." I spooned pieces of rice out around the fish and slowly chewed. I was relieved to hear one of the men say, "if you don't want all of it, I will eat it!" Oh, man I was so thankful for that answer to prayer. I ate a little more rice and handed over my bowl and fishy friend to a thankful, hungry, African man! After we were done eating we spent a small time singing and having devotional time with the construction workers. The majority of the men that work on site are Muslims, but God is using the Mercy Ship team to reach them, even in their remote village, through a daily task such as construction work. Throughout the day, I met a few more of God's creatures. A milliapeed freaked me out, some huge black bugs walked past me, and a toad jumped and scared me to death! One of the coolest things I came across was something the locals called "shy grass" or "sleeping grass." It is so neat. It is a type of plant, ground cover, or grass that looks lush and green until you touch it. When you touch it, it immediatly becomes shrivveled and dead looking. It is crazy! I ran around the clinic, kicking and touching the grass to see it shrivle and then "come back to life". God's creations are amazing. It was a great day and now I am ready to hit the hay!