Beans and Rice

At lunch today, by request, Patsy fed me red-beans-and-rice. It seems a little strange, but I have actually missed the beans-and-rice since leaving South Sudan. Of all the things I might have anticipated, that would not have been one.

This afternoon, I called my friend Bill, for whom I had collected the bugs. He came over to get them, and he was excited. It will be interesting to see them after he has a chance to mount them properly. He knew immediately about the "speedy spiders," which I had been told were female scorpions.

The speedy spiders are "Sun Spiders," or solifugae, an order of arachnids distinct from both true spiders and scorpions [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae]. Their bite is probably not poisonous, but their jaws can cause a mean wound.

Since I have been back in Rocky Mount, I have had a lot of "catching up" to do on things that went undone while I was gone. And I have tried to rest a little to get over the "jet lag." But I have also been doing some thinking -- some "processing" -- about what these last few weeks have really meant.

I don't think I have yet understood all of what God has been doing through these days, but I think I am seeing  certain things with some clarity.

There is a war on. It is the same old war between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Darkness, but for whatever reasons, it appears that the Lord has chosen to prosecute this war in a fresh way in Southern Sudan. In His process, He allowed me to go there to have some small part. Now, my friends Jermaine and the Fusion team are there on the front lines of this particular battle, and they need our prayers.

The enemy is not to be taken lightly; he is real, he is powerful and he cheats.

But our God is a mighty God, and He shall win the battle!