Roadtrip Insanity

Well... We are finally in Michigan after an incredibly long five days. The trip was fun (I guess?) but also incredibly... eventful, to say the least.

I shall explain:
Day number 1: This was the only day that went smoothly. Hooray Utah!

Day number 2: This is where things got interesting. We left early the next morning. The woman at the resort we stayed at suggested the scenic route. Oh, it was scenic alright. It was about two hours of extra driving time filled with scenery (she told us thirty minutes). We managed to find a Subway where they told us we were 8 hours away from Denver, which was our destination. We thought it'd only be three. THEN one of my family members had to go to a medical clinic for reasons I shall not mention. It was a dinky little place in some hodung town in the midde of nowhere. We were there for a couple hours and then were on our way.

Day number 3: We woke up and it was drizzling. We tried to turn on my windshield whipers, only to discover one of them was stuck because the nut was stripped. So we went to the car dealership to get it repaired. They didn't have the right nut, but they put on a temporary one. It was a good thing, because later that night a massive storm came across our path. By massive I mean... Buckets of rain, cats and dogs if you would like to put it that way. Lightning... HUGE LIGHTNING. My mother was frightened. And thunder. It was interesting. But we made it to Nebraska.

Day number 4: We left Nebraska and headed for Chicago. It wasn't too bad in the beginning, but at night it started storming again. (FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NOT ACTUALLY READING THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE BORED, THIS PART IS MORE INTERESTING). My dad needed to figure out what hotel we were staying at, so we pulled off and went into a McDonalds. While we were in there, the storm worsened, and about five minutes later we hear "The tornado sirens are going off! GET IN THE BASEMENT!" So, we went into the basement and waited for the sirens to go off. It was only about fifteen minutes, and then we were finally able to make it to Chicago.

Day number 5: After a nice day of sight seeing in the windy city, we were once again on our way, this time to GR. Well, once we got on the highway, we noticed there was an abnormally large amount of traffic. As in, it wasn't moving. At all. So after two hours of waiting, we had moved about one mile. We finally managed to get to an exit. We went in a Burger King and asked what the hold up was, and discovered that the highway was flooded for about two miles. In other words, we couldn't get through. So we pulled out the grand old atlas and figured out an alternate route... but of course that took us about an hour. Then the alternate route didn't go as planned bc the street we were on was closed bc of flooding. BUT a couple hours later, we finally found our way and got past the flood.


So... I am now sitting in our hotel at the Prince Conference Center at Calvin. I am alive, as is all my family and Steph (who a man in Nebraska thinks is my adopted twin, thanks to my mother). My car also survived the tornado. Hooray!

Cristina, I think your trip went slightly smoother than ours. Haha.

YOUTAW!

Yes, I am currently in Utah at a resort about five minutes away from Zion. It's amazingly beautiful here and so awesome to see these canyons which God so perfectly sculpted. But driving here... through the desert... reminded me of Africa, AND the fact that I need to post about it.


So everyone keeps asking me about my trip. I don't really know where to begin, or how to respond. It was not what I expected, but at the same time more than I expected. It was not what you typically think of when you hear the word "Africa." Yes, we had electricity. Yes, we had clean water and showers. No, the food was not gross, in fact I think I gained weight. No, we were not staying in grass huts in the middle of nowhere. We were in a city fairly urbanized city, which resembled the states once you got past the electric fences, panic alarms, lock down gates, and watch dogs which accompanied every house. It was really dangerous. Stealing is huge there, smash and grab is huge there... Yeah, one of our combi's got stolen. But it was amazing. The children were amazing. The work we did was amazing (yes, even filling the ginormous container). Visiting the squatter village was amazing in a very sad way. It was all perfect, because it was God's plan.

I miss everyone I met. Especially Nafe and Jever and Ben and Cindy. They inspired me. Their hope and joy taught me a lot.

It's nice to be home, but at the same time it's incredibly sad. I can't wait until I go back to Africa.

The pictures aren't working right now, so I'll post them later.

I miss everyone in CA already. :(

Home

Yes, I am finally home and settling down (a little).

Africa was amazing. I'll have to post more later.
I miss everyone there SO much. SO SO SO SO MUCH.
:'(