so i finally uploaded more pics of us bungee jumping in SA. you can find them at thechrismorgan.com/gallery. if you want to download all the pics in the album (so it’s nice and easy), you can get them at files.thechrismorgan.com/bungee.zip.
dr. bowdle… he makes my life so difficult. history of chrisianity is known campus-wide as one of those classes. people fail this class twice and give up. they take it in the summer just to get away from taking it with bowdle. i decided that they must all have just been low-intelligence people. i was wrong. i went through all the chapters up to my midterm (12 chapters, 3 units). each unit has a pre-test. i knew 0 answers to the questions on the pretest after just reading the chapters.
so now i’m done with the initial read-through of the chapters. i’ve started going back through the chapters and typing out the answers to the questions. yesterday i spent all day doing the first four chapters. i just finished my second chapter for today. it took nearly 3 hours. i have 6 more chapters to go back through before i can even start cramming for the midterm. and i only have until august 31 to finish the class.
dr. bowdle… you win.
i’m gong to take a break… then back to work. i need to get two more chapters done tonight… then 4 more tomorrow… then cram for 2 days… then the midterm monday. then i start all over again working towards the final.
prayer is appreciated.
it hits them hard!
so the night between saturday and sunday i didn’t sleep… i was really really tired when i left stacy’s, but by the time i got home and got my bed cleaned off i wasn’t tired any more. so i stayed up… i went to church sunday morning and was up and not too tired through service. i realized that i’d be getting tired early afternoon but in order to combat jet lag i decided to stay up… so i planned a couple of things for the afternoon. i was planning on cleaning and emailing people to let them know i’m safe and all… then 2:30 came.
i hit an incredible wall. i slept 16 hours. i woke up at 7 AM. so if you’ve been expecting an email and haven’t gotten it that’s the reason. i feel pretty bad about it as well as having skipped out on all the stuff i had planned. but what do you do?
anyway, we got back safe and sound.
love,
chris
this is my final post from SA. it is now wednesday night. our flight leaves friday afternoon, but my internet access is going to be limited between now and then. i’ll be arriving saturday afternoon in TN, so there may be a quick arrival blog but i’m sure i’ll be swamped with things to do when i get there.
love,
chris
what a rush. i have today (monday) and tomorrow to finish 18 computers. seeing as it’s the end of monday already (6:20 pm) i’m in trouble… i have basically committed to one last ditch effort to getting these things done. i have 3 that i have now deemed garbage. two more that i probably will not have time to figure out what’s their problem. that leaves me with 13 boxes. 4 getting Windows XP, 9 getting 2000 Pro. my last ditch effort is getting one of each done and then imaging their hard drives to then copy to the other boxes. the problem is that i only have 1 (maybe 2 if i can force it to work) hard drive that i can use to transfer the images around. either way it’s going to be a long night. both the xp and 2k boxes are defragging right now. that’s the last step before i make the images. oh, and after i image them all i’ll still have to install SP4 and Office 2003 on all the Win2k boxes tomorrow… or wednesday. either way it’s going to be a huge pain in the butt. not to mention that i have a ton of stuff to do before we leave on wednesday afternoon. luckily most of my laundry is done.
i’m close… ish.
prayers are much appreciated.
love,
chris
i climbed a mountain.
which mountian, you ask? well… the drakensberg mountain… at least one of them.
we went on a week-long holiday to the drakensberg mountains! it was fully approved by our supervisors. and it was amazing.
when we got there i decided that i wanted to climb a mountain. i looked around and there happened to be a very big one right next to us. so wednesday i climbed it. i had planned to take at least someone with me, but for various reasons all 4 of those who would have gone with me dropped out. so i went alone. for 5 hours i heard nothing but the sound of wind and my feet crunching grass (and climbing rocks).
it was much much harder than i thought it would be. it was 2 1/2 hours up and 2 hours down. most of the time the climb was sharper than a 45 degree slope. at the top it was sheer rock. oh, and the wind. the wind was harsher up there than any i have ever felt. i was worried that my 20 lb. backpack was going to be blown away (it was actually moving in the wind). at one point i was actually knocked down by the wind. at one point i was climbing a face and decided that it was too windy. one bad gust could throw me off the mountain. so i found easier ways to the top. but you have to see some of the pictures i took of it. seriously, it was amazing. i’ll post them as i can.
anyway, we’re back safe and sound.
much love,
chris
so i don’t want to get into gory details about all that i’ve been up to, but it has been an incredible adventure. dr.’s moodley and cuellar told me before i left that these would be the best 10 weeks of my life. before i left i doubted it. i thought yeah, i’ll be fun and challenging. but i’ve had a pretty awesome life. i doubt that these 10 weks can top the rest of it. i have had single weeks, a few weeks, single days that would top a week, 2 weeks, or day here. but overall, for the past 8 weeks i have had more adventure, more new experiences, more challenges, and more rewards for my ministry than in any other span in my life. this will have been the best span of 10 weeks in my life on the day i leave.
speaking of leaving, we leave 2 weeks exactly from tomorrow. the rest of our days are packed full, and i’ll post about it after it happens (no use killing the surprise). i think i’ll be ready to leave. i have work enough to keep me completely busy for the two weeks already. sadly, i know that there will be enough interuptions to make it double how long it should take. i’m going to have to pick and choose what to get done and what to leave for the next person to finish.
this week we’ve been having a VBS. it’s tons of fun! today i gave the bible story of the resurrection of Jesus in Mark 16. our theme for the week is Super Heroes. i emphasized the fact that Mary Magdalene was a super hero because she told people about Jesus even though they didn’t believe her. i kept it really simple and then had the kids give me back the main details of the story when i finished. it’s a strategy i picked up from the leader of the VBS (a guy named Darlington from Zambia).
i also uploaded a bunch of pictures to my gallery. you should look at them. i look super cool! oh, and the random rock face between the bungee-jumping and the zoo pictures was a face (40-50 ft.) that i free climbed. i felt like such a man.
i’m beat. so i’m going to go to bed… eventually. it’s 9:40 and i haven’t really eaten dinner yet, so i should do that.
much love,
chris
“Come to the edge,” He said… “We are afraid,” they replied…
“Come to the edge,” He said… “We are afraid,” they replied…
“Come to the edge,” He said… So they did…
And He pushed them.
… and they flew
I flew. Four seconds of free-fall. 100 meters down. The largest Gorge Swing in the World. Oribi Gorge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18_E5f_EWvk
That isn’t us, but it’s the exact jump we did. I gotta say… those four seconds are quite possibly the best four seconds of my life. I will surely never forget them.
lappy is slowly but surely dying. the hardware inside is fine, but the wear and tear of the past 2 1/2 years has not been kind to the case. i keep seeing the damage from that wreck i had with the ice so long ago getting slowly worse. yesterday the spring that closed the lid went out. i tried (and failed) to fix it. i can still close it manually, so it’s no big deal. but i feel the end of a friend coming soon. i may try to replace her around graduation… maybe not. it depends a lot on my financial situation then. for now, she’s running fine. i just have to be careful with her (which i have always been).
i keep thinking: “it’s a laptop, it’s made to travel” but apparently not. after so long of being in backpacks, even with the greatest of care, she is slowly fading. still, she’s a great laptop and a constant friend.
please read the post below this one because it’s actually important.
long time no see. ok, so not really such a long time, but SO much has happened. i went to albert falls for a week. it was good. however, we had to be in the kitchen by 6 AM. and we usually didn’t get out until 11 PM. however, we got three great meals and had some great times. the last two days were awesome! we went on a game drive… literally. dylan and i stood on the tailgate of a truck holding on to the door of the topper while we drove on the road and off-road. it was great but quite cold. we could stop and chase (on foot) any animal we felt safe chasing. it was great.
the next morning we went to the actual falls of Albert Falls. i got to do some real bouldering… with real consequences. i was about a yard from a waterfall. don’t worry, the holds were an easy green climb and i was very confident i had a great hold on every move. i’m not that dumb. i got some freaking amazing pictures!
we came back and got to hang out with some absolutely amazing people. we went to a driving range. there was only one left-handed club: a pitching wedge. Tiger Woods uses his pitching wedge around 130 m. i hit two nearly straight ones that flew over 150m. i’d say i did ok for the first time ever holding a club other than a putter.
the next night we went bowling. they had a DDR game at their arcade there. i did 4 songs total on heavy… my legs felt like total jello. i drew a huge crowd though. practically the entire arcade stopped playing to come watch.
we bowled one game. i won by 30 points. i got about 135. they don’t wax their lanes at all, so i had to stop using any spin whatsoever, which was quite difficult.
monday we went to prison. that was… incredible. we got to talk with some of the guys. this was a max-security prison… we got some time when we could talk to some of the guys from a christian group so i didn’t feel threatened really. we were escorted by the guy who runs all the religions in the prison. it was quite eye-opening to see all the stuff that the prison does.
new rubik’s cube record - 1:35. yeah, i win.
last night we spent the night at a friend’s house. they have the cutest kids ever! these friends were the first people we met from this church. they picked us up from the airport.
the cuellar’s have been in town since sunday so that’s been a trip. i’m trying to remember what things i didn’t know when i first got here so i can translate some of the stuff that they wouldn’t know. it’s fun.
anyway, that’s pretty much what i’ve been up to (the reader’s digest version at least) these past days. i’m loving it here. you guys should comment with reasons for me to go back to the states. otherwise i may just stay here. i could probably stay here for free indefinitely. the people in this church are generous enough… a week with one family then i move to the next… be with each family about once every 18 months… yeah, i don’t think i could out-stay my welcome being there for such short times. anyway, if you guys don’t come up with some good reasons to come back, i may just stay here.
love,
chris