White Light White Heat and Lack of Air Conditioning

Hello People,

Summertime is here and Hazel has a bun in the oven. While, as I found out yesterday, heat is essential for baking actual bread, it turns out that its not all that pleasant when growing a baby. At least so Hazel tells me and well, I'm inclined to believe her. The heat has been climbing here recently. I don't mean Georgia heat. I don't mean wilt the flowers, distribute emergency air conditioners to the elderly heat, but I do mean "we don't have air conditioning and we live in a sunny place just north of Africa heat." This has left us in a what-to-do sort of situation and we've had to get creative. I've mastered the art of turning our apartment into a wind tunnel. This helps. I have it down to a science when to close certain curtains, when to open others, and where to place each fan depending on the time of day. This helps as well. Sometimes, however, these things are still not enough and then you have to get adventurous.

If you have kept up with our lives in Telmar then you know that we love the ferries. I feel the need to clarify something about this. You see, when I was a young warthog and I thought of a ferry boat, I immediately thought "Tom Sawyer's Island Disney World. By which I mean steam engine, slow moving, novelty transportation. This is not so in Telmar. If it was the case you would have a lot of ferry boats finding themselves unintentionally out to sea because of the strong current in the Strait. No, much like the double decker busses, the ferry boats here mean business. There are only two bridges across the Strait so these ferry boats are fast moving weapons of mass transportation. They move a lot of people a lot of places. Still, you can't beat sitting on the top of a ferry boat feeling the wind in your hair with the city stretching on either side of the water. With this in mind, Hazel and I set out to find a cool breeze and a day out and about to escape from the heat in our building.

The city where we live is, in a way, made up of many villages, each indistinguishable from one another, and yet completely different. There is no gap or difference in architecture. Its been one big city for far too long for any of that. Hazel and I had heard rumours for sometime now of a mysterious ferry boat that leaves from one of these little villages near where we live. Supposedly it traveled on and on up the Strait into regions yet unexplored by Hazel or myself for an hour at a go. Now remember what I said before. This is not your Disney World ferry boat. The thing moves. An hour up the Strait is a fair piece. So yesterday morning we set off in search of this fantastical ferry. I will not leave you in suspense. We found it. The rumors were true.

Hazel and I rode the ferry boat for an hour before it reached its final stop and the same thing struck both of us that keeps hitting me over and over again recently. This city is huge. I'll let Hazel post the pictures that we took, but let me tell you, it doesn't stop. Seriously, you don't believe me. I know this. You may think you believe me. You may even say you believe me. But in your heart of hearts you say to yourself, "no way." Hazel and I took this picture from just around the corner on our street. This picture shows a tiny piece of the city.

The road really does go on and on and living here is an adventure. In a city this big its easy to get caught up in the sheer size and franticness of it all. Honestly, its a really cool place to be and we really like it here, but yesterday I found myself feeling rather small. And then I started reflecting on the words of David in Psalm 8. As big as this place is, as frantic as life is, and as easy as it is to make ourselves forget, we have a God who cares about us and loves us. He has given us glory and honor and I hope that I can do the same for Him.

Psalm 8

O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him; And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, And You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!