grace.kindness.peace.disruption.pain.processing.rinse.repeat.have a nice day.

Thank you to everyone that has posted or emailed recommendations for my upcoming car road trip out west. If you've been to the Grand Canyon and have some advice, I could really use your help. I'd appreciate any advice you would have for the North Rim, South Rim, camping, hiking, etc at the Grand Canyon. I might be by myself, in which case hiking into the canyon would not be an option … unless you know otherwise. I hope to get some breathtaking views of the canyon, have time to read, journal, pray, and the like over a few days there. There are permits and other fees that I'll need. I'll gladly take any advice you have. Thanks!

It turns out that I've been wasting countless hours my entire life, or at least since I've been folding shirts. The Japanese have come up with an amazing new way to save time for you to do better things, simply by folding shirts faster.

The posting of this video has been shamelessly stolen from Broken Stained Glass.

We poda poda’d to the Hastings amputee camp. On the ride out, before I dozed off, Pastor Felix gave me a brief overview of what would happen at the camp. For the ambient noise I could only make out part of what he said, but I did hear on thing in particular that I feared he might say; we would be asked to say a word of encouragement to the amputees. “A word of encouragement?,” I thought. I was thankful to hear of the upcoming task; Micah had been blindsided with the request the first time he visited a camp several weeks ago. At least for my first visit I had fair warning. But, just what could I say to encourage? If I had a week to prepare I would have still come with the blank slate I carried. I did not know what to expect, what I would encounter, how I would react, or how they would react. I leaned forward quietly and dozed off, hoping that somehow our visit would run long and we would not have the time to share whatever sorry, unqualified bit of encouragement that would have to be made up on the spot.

We arrived what I think was about 30-45 minutes after we boarded – not bad for $0.33 per person. Pastor Felix bought a few meat kabobs on the side of the road and he ate them as we walked to the camp. He explained that we were on a fact-finding trip only to hear of the conditions of the camp and the needs of its inhabitants. We would promise them nothing, as IMC (Pastor Felix’s employer) would partner with other organizations to fulfill any needs; he could not ensure that anything would come, but he would be an advocate for them.

As we entered the camp we were instantly the center of attention. No one got up, but everyone’s eyes were on us. Such attention was nothing new to us in our ninth week as an obvious minority, but there was something slightly different about their stares, something more piercing. There was no hustle-and-bustle of city life to draw away their eyes. We were their only entertainment. Read more

Before anyone slams me for the lame-ity of my last post, I confess it. Life is going well – lots of good time with friends and family, good books, even a little exercise here and there. There are many more stories to tell from my time in Freetown; I hope to get at least one more up there today. So, for all those needing their Matt fix, it's a coming.