the glory and the horror

In case people didn’t know already, I’ll put it out there. We’re moving to Denver! Kathleen’s first choice for fellowship offered her a spot in 2010, and we took it. This brings us closer to both families, gets us back to the mountains, and looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Of course, the minor complication is that we finish residency in 2009, so we’ll have an extra year to figure out what we want to do. We have some ideas, and they generally involve leaving Houston one way or the other. We’re a little sad to be leaving, especially since we’ve made such great friends at Christ the King Presbyterian through our community group.

Also, FYI, the title of this post says “and dreams” but really, there aren’t many dreams in this entry. I just wanted to go ahead and let all you friends and family know where we’re going next. The funny thing is, while I was thinking of something to title this post, the Faith Hill song, “Wild One” popped into my head and there’s a line in there about having future plans and dreams, so I ran with it.

I know you probably don’t care how I got the title, but just in case you were, now you know.

For a few pictures at Madikwe, click here.

I’m trying to decide if I want to go with Flickr or some other service for some higher resolution pictures. For now, Facebook will do.

Steven Curtis Chapmans daughter killed by car in driveway

Steven Curtis Chapman’s youngest, Maria, was killed in a tragic accident in their driveway, where one of her older siblings accidentally hit her while backing out, it seems.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for that older sibling. I don’t think I’d be able to drive again for a VERY long time.

Maria was also one of his adopted kids, and I can’t say how much I have admired the Chapmans for their efforts in educating the wider evangelical world about adoption and living a life of selfless love in adopting on their own.

Tagged by Sam:

What three skills or hobbies would you learn if you had unlimited time, money, and tools?

1. Nature/wildlife photography. This was also my recent answer to the question of what non-medical thing would I do if I could do anything else for a living. The recent trip to southern Africa and our eventual move to Denver, and the generous handing down of a DSLR from my dad has rekindled my love of photography. So I am actively pursuing this new hobby. I enjoy being in the out-of-doors, and capturing the beauty that God gave us. I do not have unlimited money/tools, but I did find some good deals on lenses that have been serving my purposes just dandy. See my Facebook account for a few pictures. I’ll try to get more up here eventually.

2. Spycraft. Yeah, not exactly a hobby, but definitely a fascinating skill. The art of hiding things in plain sight, the secrets of reading people and human nature. Too much Tom Clancy in my younger days, perhaps, but I still feel like those skills would be infinitely useful in everyday life.

3. Carpentry. I know Sam also put this down, but I’ve always had a spot for carpentry and solid wood stuff since middle school shop class. In college, Scotty’s handiwork always had me wishing I could do it like he did. I even made something for my dad one Christmas in Scotty’s shop back in Oceanside in college. One of my old shop projects was the shoe rack in my parents’ foyer for years. Possibly a decade. My father-in-law does a little bit, and I’m hoping that when we’re in Denver, I can learn a thing or two from him.

Bonus: And since I thought of another one, I’ll throw it in for fun.

Camping/backpacking/wilderness survival skills. That’s pretty self-explanatory. I no longer subscribe to Backpacker magazine, since I really wasn’t using the stuff I was reading about, but I still get Outside, and I drool when I read it. This ties right in with #1. It’s a good thing we’re going to Denver in a few years.

Our last few days in Swaziland were relatively uneventful. We left early Saturday morning to try to catch an earlier flight out of Swaziland, should there be room on the plane. There was. We still didn’t get that flight because one of our tickets was a non-changeable fare class and it would have cost us some ridiculous amount to change for a 3 hour difference. It wasn’t worth it to us.

So Kathleen and I hung out in Matsapha International Airport (which only HAS international flights to and from Johannesburg) until our later flight. She had a King Pie, which was like a flaky meat turnover sort of thing. It was unremarkable, but good enough to hold us over.

We made it to Johannesburg with plenty of time, and headed over to our hotel, Sunnyside Park Hotel, in Parktown, a suburb north of downtown Johannesburg. It’s considered an area of town with lots of nice historic Victorian homes, but from what we could see, lots of stuff is behind tall walls/fences that hide a lot from the street. Lots of Johannesburg is like that, actually.

We did manage to go to the Apartheid Museum and took a tour of Soweto that evening. The museum is incredible. It’s multimedia, but it’s largely a walking tour with lots of placards and such to read, a good bit of video collected from over the years of various people making speeches, including the various architects of apartheid, Mandela, and others. There are also plenty of photos, blown up magazine articles and newspaper headlines, and even a few actual “relics” from the era including an armored personnel/riot police carrier with the cracks in the plexiglass and all.

Soweto is an interesting township, especially compared to Johannesburg proper. It appeared to us that there were FEWER walls and barbed wire loops. They had some, but nothing like some of the neighborhoods in Johannesburg. I know the crime is infamous in Johannesburg, but it did seem a little ridiculous. That said, we were only in town for about 24 hours, so we really only scratched the surface.

I will post a bit more later. I should just post this so people have something to read.