30 Hours

I was kinda freakin out about my flight since i hadn't heard anything from any of my people for a few days, but I get to the airport and the first thing i see is a sign advertising my hotel, so i smiled at that sign and then someone came up and asked me if i was pete and said ppl were waiting for me. I almost hugged her b/c it's like 60 km from town and at night taxis are sketch, especially for a white dude packing six G's in his pocket lol. Funny story, my bag didn't make it even tho i had a day headstart lol, i packed a little bit of extra clothes in my carryon b/c i was predicting that somehow. Lol i can deal with that. It's a nice breezy evening w/ a nice rain, but i'm not having a beer or cafe at my hotel, i'm good like that. Here's my long email/journal entry from my last 15 hours of flights lol. So glad to be off a plane and showered. I like to write lol, it's therapeutic for me, my pen is still stuck in my jacket and i assume that all the tiny dots i passed flying over the giant lake in Ghana were hippos lol, doesn't count...

Aug. 25 Brussels, Belgium to Accra, Ghana Flight Boredom= Write long email/journal about the deep nothingnesses of my life:)

So I’m flying over the Sahara desert right now lol, my outlook reminder just popped up and informed me I’m supposed to be in chapel in 15 minutes. I don’t think I will be making that appointment J It is a giant red dusty blob as far as the eye can see. Can’t see any hippos or giraffes from up here, but it is quite cloudy. I flew sorta past Barcelona headed towards the Mediterranean Sea. We flew over the island of Mallorca which for some random reason is a place I really want to go. I’ve flown over the Mediterranean almost 10 times I think and I still have never gotten to actually see it. A cruise or backpacking around Greece, France and Spain on the sea would be high on my list of travel places I want to go to. I can’t remember where that St. John’s crazy last name place is, but hopefully it’s close to the Mediterranean.

What a ginormous and yet small world we live in. It overwhelms me. Flying brings out the kid in me, I’m glad that aerospace engineering didn’t suck that passion out of me. I’m always giddy when I fly, and yet despite being so excited, I still have the best naps on planes lol. I watched an African documentary about tracking animals in the wild using computers and technology in order to the culture and language of people in the bush. Not sure what I’m going to film a documentary on, lol, maybe this will just be my scouting trip, especially since my only video camera is my jank phone haha. The rest of the movies are awful, but that’s good b/c I have been reading and sleeping. I woke up from my most recent nap while they were showing Shrek.

I’m listening to Jack Johnson, I was supposed to go to his concert tomorrow night in West Palm with my my second favorite half ecuatoriana, bummed that I am missing the show. You joke that I think all my music is deep, lol that’s not true. Jack Johnson sings songs about surfing, love, sharing & recycling (he recorded the soundtrack for Curious George, which is awesome). Some are deep, some silly and some are just chill. I respect him b/c he’s pretty confident in himself but in a very humble and self-sacrificing way. He sings like someone who knows who he is and he believes that love always wins even if it sucks for him at the time. He even says stuff like, “What is the purpose of my life if it doesn’t have to do with learning to let it go.” I’m not sure that he’s talking about Jesus, but I respect how he recognizes that we take life too serious, we cling to our own stuff too seriously and we are too selfish. This morning for my devotion I was reading this book that reminded me of Jack Johnson actually lol, but I decided that he has a good grasp on grace and that it CLEARLY frees him to live life freely and at peace with himself and others. The author of my book says, “As Christians our standard of living can never be “right or wrong,” but the Cross. The principle of the Cross is our principle of conduct. Praise God that he makes his sun to shine on the evil and the good. With him it is a question of his grace and not of right or wrong. But that is to be our standard also: “Forgiving each other even as God in Christ Jesus also forgave you.”

I think simple truths are often the best, so I really liked that and I like Jack Johnson for that reason too lol, not that I’m comparing him to Jesus at all. I love tho how God will use my circumstances, music, reading and his Scripture to converge to smack me over the head with a truth that I need to learn b/c I am very stubborn when it comes to trusting God and walking confidently in my identity as His beloved son. For me I can see how my mistakes and others has led me on a journey to understand grace and be free to accept all that comes my way, knowing that I have a merciful and gracious father who has a freakin amazing plan for my life and loves me too much not to let me experience it. I haven’t even gotten to Africa yet and God’s already been speaking to me lol, I love traveling. I’d much rather be delayed or lost with someone amazing and fun than experience amazing places by myself though. Music, writing and Papa God will have to suffice in the meantime. I love writing so instead of journaling today, I wrote to you J Hehe, if I could text faster you’d have even more books to read, I like writing b/c I can process while I’m doing it. Anyhow, I’m about to land in Ghana and then will have a two hour connection to Liberia. Not 100% positive someone’s going to be there and where exactly my hotel is lol, but that’s what makes it interesting and teaches me to trust that my Father in Heaven loves his son and has a perfect plan even when it’s way different than what I want when I treat him like Santa or something.