Scenic Outlook

Yesterday, after we finished checking our email (and I finished blogging, haha) Wally took us to the local supermal to have lunch and check things out. We ate at an Indonesian restaurant (though we did also have the option of eating at "Papa Ron's Pizza" or even "Texas Chicken") and Wally ordered several items for us to share. One of them was a hot plate that came to us sizzling and the other was black bean beef. We also each had a plate of nasi goreng to eat with the meal. Grace was really hungry and not only finished her plate of the rice and meat, but ate the leftovers of Janine's as well! It was pretty hilarious that she was even able to eat that much...but she did.

After lunch, Liz and I went to the ATM center (though Liz's card got rejected for some reason...we think it's because it has a MasterCard logo rather than a visa logo) and then met Grace and Janine downstairs at the hypermarket. Wally had a meeting to get to so we didn't have a lot of time to explore the mall, but I insisted on buying a donut from the Indonesia Dunkin Donuts store (for those curious, it tasted much the same as an American Dunkin Donut).
Wally dropped us off back home and we spent the afternoon reading before we were to leave for our scenic picnic dinner.

Throughout the day I had noticed that I was getting chills randomly (which is bizarre in this climate), and especially when we were sitting in the living room near the air conditioner. I had to put on my sweater because I was so cold, which was really unusual because I thrive in air-conditioned situations. I knew this was not good, but I didn't want to complain.

At 4.30 we got ready for our scenic dinner, and i covered myself as best I could. Some moment of insanity had made me decide not to bring any kind of pants with me, so I wore a long dress and my sweater for our little adventure. We stopped to pick up Annika who would be joining us for dinner.

The drive up the mountain was nice, and it turns out that this scenic spot for dinner was actually on a military base, so we had to check in with the post before we were allowed to enter. As luck would have it, the entrance gates to the specific spot Wally and Joan wanted to show us were locked with chains. But Joan was insistent that there was a way in, so we drove round a bit and Joan found an entrance on the other side of the hill. Of course, this entrance involved fighting off plants and climbing through a trash hill, but we made it to the view eventually. And it was quite beautiful. We could see out over Lake Sentani and the mountains--it was lovely. We walked down a little path to a perfect picture location and just admired the changing color of the sky and the haze that seemed to cover the mountains. We ate dinner in a little gazebo (quickly, because we were supposed to leave at 6pm, when it got dark) and then trekked back to the car in the quickly darkening evening. Joan and Wally wanted to show us a video of an interior tribe on Papua, so we headed to Annika's apartment to watch it.

The movie told the story of the Moi people, who had never been reached by foreigners, and their transition and eventual acceptance of Christianity (at least some of them). I'm still processing that movie, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. I need to think on it more.

It was while were at Annika's that I started feeling really ill. My head felt like it was on fire and I felt light-headed and weak. We took my temperature and it was a whopping 102 degrees. The last time I had a fever I think I was in high school, so it was kinda crazy. We went home and I showered and then went fairly quickly to bed. I had taken some advil and the fever went down a tiny bit in the night, but I was still feeling pretty gross when I woke up. I decided to sleep some more and try to make it to the second half of the training. I took more advil hoping to bring down my temperature, and when I woke up about an hour later, my fever had broken and it was back down to normal. I'm being careful to monitor it today, but so far it's hanging around normalcy. I still feel pretty weak, so I'm definitely planning to take it easy the next couple of days, and I'm praying that it's really just a flu bug and nothing more serious than that. Please pray for that as well, and for my total healing.

Grace was again able to talk to Jeremy last night, which we were all glad for. But I think we all called it a pretty early night.

I arrived at the school right around the normal break time, and class was still going. Break was about 30 minutes later than usual, which was ok because it meant that I got to still do my part of the training today--poems and sentence patterning chart. It seemed to go over well--people commented on the way in which they could see the poems being applicable in their classrooms. We also had the opportunity to write a poem together, which I think was fun. Liz and Grace and Janine said they thought it was good. Again, God's provision, since I was probably only functioning at about 65% capacity!

This afternoon the plan is to go to Jayapura, and I hope I feel well enough to join in that. We'll stop at invasion beach for photos and then eat at Joan and Wally's favorite seafood restaurant. Yummy! Hope to fill you in again tomorrow...

Lesson of the day:
(this one's from Grace)
"Crocs suck."