SKYFALL 007: Take 3.

Going to the cinema with dad is a treat. There are only 3 cinemas in all of Botswana, so we don’t go often. We went to see SKYFALL 007 today, but instead of telling only about today; I am going to tell the whole story.

2 weeks ago my dad and I had come to Gaborone for mostly work purposes, but also because we needed to have our van looked at. With the van in the shop we had to ride around with my aunt and uncle Veith- which isn’t bad, it was just a little annoying to me. On the second day of our trip, we all decided to go see SKYFALL 007. I love James Bond and Daniel Craig’s performance as Bond especially.

The scene is in M’s car, which is racing down the road toward M16 head quarters. Ahead of the car the traffic is stopped and a police officer makes his way toward the car. M is frustrated and hops out of her car and says; “Oh! For ___ sake, don’t you recognize the car? Just- get out of the way!” to (or rather at) the police officer.

The officer attempts to apologize, but is interrupted by M16 exploding. The screen suddenly goes black… and it stays black. At this point I leant over to my dad and hushedly said “wow this is a really dramatic pause.” As it had already been nearly a minute since the screen went black.

It was right about then that a light bulb turned on above my aunt Veith. It was the backup generator lights, but she did also have an idea. “I wonder,” she said as she walked out of the theater and back in again. It turns out, the power had gone out in the game city mall and most of the rest of Gabs. The mangier was extremely upset (perhaps even more so than we were) and gave us a voucher to come back to see the movie and I thought that this was just awesome. So after that we went back to our various hotels and rested until it was dinner time.

The next day I stayed in the hotel and did some school and watched television and the like. But the day after that was freedom day. Our van was done in the shop, so we planned to go back to Game city to the cinema to finish SKYFALL and then to pick up the van from the shop, which just happened to be right across the street from the mall. But on a whim, my dad decided to go to the car shop first and meet us at the theater.

So we went our separate way. I went with my aunt and uncle (Note: Mr. and Mrs. Veith are not actually related to me, but in mission work the co-workers of one’s parents are like family). We made our way fairly slowly as we had tons of time to spare.  On our way we looked in shop windows, I asked questions about things in culture that I don’t understand, and they would try (very very very very very hard) to explain it in a way that made sense to me. I pity them because they really did try, but I just didn’t get it.

Anyway, we arrived at the theater with more time on hand than we needed. My aunt got in line to vouch the tickets for her and her husband. I stood back and waited for the line to shorten. I have no idea why, but all of the sudden she turned and told me to give her my voucher also. I walked forward, proceeded to hand it to her. I reached out my arm and she did the same. As she laid her fingers on it- the power dropped; again.

I couldn’t believe it. And by the incredulous look on her face as she glanced around, I guessed that she couldn’t either. Uncle Veith looked around with his eye brow crooked (speculation: the look on his face was that look like; “Oh, COME ON!!” but he’s a rather quiet person and probably wouldn’t say that. EVER.) I on the other hand just laughed, “…loud and long and clear….” No actually it was more like a cackle but anywho, the ironic part, I suppose, is that I had been joking about it with my dad the night before.

This time though, I was more serious 1 because I really wanted to see that movie, and 2 because I’d just taken a taxi (I’ll explain this later), which is never fun. We rushed to get into the theater on time. When we got in it was just starting. 007 was riding across the roof tops of the grand bazaar after a man who for some reason is the bad guy, and so the film goes. After the unnamed man realizes that he’s boxed in on a bridge, he wittingly jumps on to a train. The operative that had helped box said unnamed man in looks around unable to find him. He then appears ridding the motorbike at full speed onto the rail of the bridge effectively flinging himself on to the train.

A violent fight scene ensues and ends with M’s order “Take the bloody shot!”. Then the SKYFALL theme played through, and as it ended… wait for it… the film slipped off the projector wheel. At that point I was not sure what to do. We were down on the last day it would be here. But I decided to put that aside and I went and told the ticket taker that there was a problem, and it was fixed with relative ease. My dad and I were able to finish the movie, and I am so thankful for that. I wish my dad and I could do this more often, but then again, that would make going to the movies less special. I love you dad.

Trip to Gabs: day 3

I spent the day at the hotel today and didn’t really do much yesterday. I find that once my school is finished, and the televisions start to loop, there really isn’t much to do. Fortunately there is internet here and so I was able to do some internet surfing. I’m not going to write about that because that would be boring for everyone.

No, I wanted to write about what got me thinking today. I heard somewhere that our lives are made fulfilled by two things: 1, God, and 2; the work that we’re given to do. But what are supposed to when we don’t have anything to do? I am puzzled. Because when you have finished your work (in theory) you shouldn’t have any more work to do.  I wonder then why I feel so incredibly bored. Perhaps I am over thinking this, but I have been plagued with this thought for a while.

Perhaps it’s because I was alone all day, or it could be because of the fact that I’m used to practicing 5 different instruments a day, or it could be that my muse (I write stories) is… difficult to access if I can’t get into the proper mood. Whatever the case, boredom is a place that I try to avoid (like the plague).  Now, I just want to clarify, it’s not like I can’t be bored, I just don’t like it. It just doesn't feel right.

So as the son of a pastor, I had to ask “what exactly the bible has to say about it”. I thought of Job first, but was inflicted by much more than boredom, Esther- nope just in mortal danger, Daniel- no only politics; but Solomon.  Ecclesiastes says “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him, God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

This tells gives me the impression that one should keep busy, so I wonder- how do I apply what I think I’ve found? I’m not sure. I do enjoy the work that I do, but do I do enough? Or is it that in the times that there is nothing to do that I’m supposed to wait, practice patients (Romans 5:4; “And patience, experience; and experience, hope”). That still, I don’t know, what I do know, I will have to pray about this and ask for guidance. And in the mean time, I’ll continue to wonder.

Pics from trip to Gabs day one.

Trip to Gabs: Day 1

Yesterday, we arrived in Kang between 9:00 and 9:30. If you have read about my dad’s work you would know that the S.B.T.P. (SheKalagari bible translation project) office was kept on the same plot that we lived on for the last three years. However, with the fact that we had moved to Ghanzi, the office had to be moved as we were no longer renting that particular plot. So between 9:00 and 9:30am, we arrived at the plot to begin moving.

On the way there one of the songs that I’d listened to was SwitcFoot’s “This is Home”, a phrase that I’d often associated with Kang. Because it seemed that after every vacation, every work related trip, every retreat; I wanted something deeper than the comfort that hotels offer, something more meaningful than the volumes information I gathered from Animal Planet, NatGeo, and the like, something more satisfying than the entertainment that was so freely handed to me. In Kang I had found the place where any adventure could be found with a stick to act as a sword, bow, spear, etc- and a back door to walk through. This was a place where I indulged imagination for hours, going on quests, and in the words of a popular Disney kids show, “…having the best day ever!”

I looked around the yard upon arriving, perceiving every detail. Half of my favorite fort tree had fallen, a tree that had once supported the rubbish bin was missing completely , scores of weeds had grown in our absence and the tomb stones in the pet cemetery (I’ll explain this more later) were stacked a few feet from where they’d been planted.

If you head us speaking at your church last year, you would know that my bedroom was actually in the building that housed the S.B.T.P office. I walked in to my old room first thing. I looked around. There were scars in the wall where I’d nailed my posters to the concrete walls, scorch marks on the floor from where some of my experiments had gotten a little out of hand, scratch marks in the floor that were left from when I’d rearranged my room. I breathed in the smells that I knew so well, the odor that the rooms of teen age boys tend to have, the smells from when one of our first dogs- God rest her soul- had had puppies on thanks giving morning (which we never fully got rid of), and the other smells of the village which before furlough had seemed so calming and homely.

Beyond the fact that the room had been stripped bare to furnish my new bedroom in Ghanzi, I felt that there was something missing. We all went about taking down the office furnishings and loading them in to the van. And by the time we got the first load packed in the look of it reminded of an M.C. Escher painting. We took it about a mile by my calculation to the shopping center that is owned and run by the Marniwicks. The office space we’d gotten was fabulous and hugeish. There are some pictures of it at the end of this post. I loved it. Greatly to my surprise the office furnishings, given their tangled appearance, came unpacked with relative ease. And by the time we (my dad and I) got back to the office Uncle John and Pontsho had already put most of the furniture back together. We went on putting things together and helping, but my thought were elsewhere. 

When my dad and I finish helping with the office, we went to lunch at Ultra stop. While we waited for my meal my mind swam. How could it be that in the place that I knew the best, I knew the entire yard like the back of my hand, how is it that I feel like a stranger? Why do I not feel that refreshment of returning to home? And a list of other questions to numerous to write down. At the end of all of them, the only conclusion that I could come to was: This isn’t home any more. This hurt. How could this change so quickly? I had only been away for 8 months. I’d lived in that yard for three years and never did I dream that in less than one year, I could be so changed as to lose home.

At this point I have lost home again. The paradox that I keep finding myself at is that I never realize that somewhere is home until I lose that place to memories. But the first words of Switchfoot’s song offer me hope that maybe one day I’ll realize the value of home be for I lose it again.

I've got my memories
They're always
Inside of me
But I can't go back
Back to how it was
I believe it now
I've come too far
But I can't go back
Back to how it was
Created for a place
I've never known

Weekend 1

Dad and I are going to Gaborone! I hope it’s as fun as the last trip was. We’ll be leaving Monday early, and we’ll arrive in the mid-morning in Kang to help moving the Sekalagari Bible Translation Office to the new premise, and then we leave Kang for Gabs (Gaborone) and we hope to arrive there in the early afternoon. Personally I enjoy a good break from the Ghanzi, but this will have been the second in three weeks.

Looking back on this week, I realize that I haven’t written any descriptions of the area, and I think I’ll spend some of the drive time soliloquizing a few. In the mean time I hope everyone has a good weekend. God bless all!

A bump.

I am starting to feel a rift between my dog and me. It’s just kind of strange for him to act like this. Today I woke up late but my sister, Kathy, wasted no time in telling me that my Boelie had escaped the yard again, but also that mom had caught him and given him a spanking for it. But also yesterday, I’d found him in the garden asleep, and I’d given him a swift dart over the nose with the crop.

I don’t know if dogs have rebellious stages, but I assumed that they didn’t. Either way this is starting make me wonder what to do.

I had the first successful meeting with The Council last night, I felt like it went well. Having meetings over group chat on Facebook was not as difficult as I would have imagined, but still I wish I’d been able to have actually been there. Communicating only through text just isn’t the same as Talking to people. It’s one of those little things that really makes me treasure being able to stand face to face with one of my friends.

I found something in the garden yesterday, a water melon plant! That is fabulous! Assuming the dogs don’t dig it up, we may actually have our own fresh watermelons. I feel very exited about the idea.