The beauty of Africa

Although I consider it's people most beautiful, you can't deny the awesomeness of the African landscape.
What a wonder to behold.

I found myself transfixed by the beauty of each morning ~ the colors of the foliage, the sound of birds that wake you up every day, and more. The photo below is my view out my window at the missionary's home, in the A/G compound there. I loved to get up when the rain woke me in the middle of the night and just look out the window for a while and listen to the sounds.

I really love the Jacoranda and Acacia trees...

and the giraffes...

I came home with about 50 giraffe photos, reason being they are my favorite. I think they are so tall and graceful, and until going to Africa I had never seen one run. I had only experienced them at the zoo, where they are just standing there, or maybe walking a few steps. It was so incredible to see several of them together, running. They are still graceful, in my opinion, when they are running. I think they are such beautiful creatures.

Barb had never seen one with it's legs bent, leaning down in the water for a drink. She said, "I would love to see that and have a photo of it. In all the years I've been in Africa (30) I've never seen that or gotten a photo of it." Less than an hour later, we saw a giraffe doing just that! She had the top down in the land rover and I got up on the seat, went through the roof and snapped a few photos. What a day!

Comments

Relevant Church doing something...
incredibly RELEVANT!

I just heard some news today that really inspired me. A church here in Tampa, Relevant Church is doing a new thing this month called the "30 Days Sex Challenge." (I've never visited the church but Pastor Trinity - our children's pastor - has visited or has met some people from this church and he was very impressed.) Realizing that this is a major element missing from some marriages (the frequency factor) their lead pastor, Paul Wirth, has issued a challenge for all the married couples to have sex for 30 days in a row. At the same time he has issued a challenge for all unmarrieds to completely abstain from sex. Of course we know the Bible says that those who are unmarried should not have sex in the first place but the point is, a lot of unmarried's aren't obeying the Lord's command to abstain and this is just one pastor's way of trying to get them to see that indeed, there is a better way! (God's way!) At the same time, many married couples are no

This Could Have Ruined Everything... (But It Didn't!)

No one would ever guess what happened to me this weekend in Jacksonville, Florida...so I'm going to tell you. :) As I was preaching at the Fearless Tour at New Hope Assembly of God this weekend, I got choked up, literally. For probably 2-3 minutes I coughed profusely and greatly struggled. Then I drank some water and kept preaching. Everyone was gracious to give me a few moments to get my bearings. If you were there, you'll remember it! What no one realized at the time was that I swallowed a bug that flew right in while I was preaching! So disgusting! I said nothing because I was at a point in the sermon where I was really connecting and I knew if I said, "I swallowed a bug," everyone would either laugh profusely or be really concerned, or start feeling sorry for me. And at that point whey wouldn't be thinking about the message anymore, but the fact that I had just swallowed a bug. They would then imagine what it would be like, and feel grossed out which

Why You Should Never Hijack a Comment Thread
Social media etiquette 101

One surefire way to kill your influence in social media and wear out your welcome fast is to become involved in derailing somebody’s comment thread with your own agenda. Networking and hijacking aren’t the same thing. It’s surprising how many people don’t understand that this is a guarantee for tearing down a platform as quickly as you build it. Passion is good, even necessary. I appreciate people's zeal for their personal core values. What is not appreciated is the attempt at a redirection of a comment thread when the comment has little or nothing to do with an original post or is twisted at best. Social media provides ample opportunity for all of us to share what’s important to us on our own platform. Eliciting others’ responses and developing connections largely depends on our ability to communicate and compel. Some people are open to receiving private communication from others although they aren’t always able to answer personally or at length. But hijacking a comment threa

Deanna Doss Shrodes

Search This Blog