The Beginning of the Bucket List

My time here is just about half way over and I can't believe all that has happened already. This past week I flew to Zambia with some close friends and we were able to do lots of activities. I am happy I had the chance to go on such an awesome trip. My parents are seriously the best for letting me go. Unfortunately coming home I must have eaten something bad because I got sick when I got home, and this was AFTER realizing someone had stolen my card information in Zambia and about $300 in total. That was a frustrating way to start the weekend before having to return back to school and teaching my grade 5 students at Lynedoch. Throughout the week I was able to journal... A LOT! I even read an entire sappy summer novel and started a good book by Anthony Bourdain called Kitchen Confidential.

I'll share some of my journals and where I was journaling from.

Where I sat on the 21st


I decided it was time I start a bucket list since a lot of the stuff I did in the past week was pretty adventurous!
"I've decided i'm at a point where i've done some pretty cool stuff and still there is a bit more i would like to do before my time comes. It's not that i'm trying to think of the end in some messed up way, it's just that when I make goals I have something to work towards. So here I begin the list as I sit by a pool make of stones with a fountain and waterfall, reading a summer love story book. May the list be created so that I can live a fuller life working to see and learn more from the places I go and people I meet along the way.
BUCKET LIST:
-Go to all 50 states (I have about 26 done)
-Go to all seven natural wonders (I have been to the Grand Canyon and Victoria Falls)
-Go to twenty countries (I have been to Mexico, Italy, England, Scotland, South Africa, and Zambia)
-Make every recipe in a cookbook (a slightly healthy one is probably a good idea!)
-Hike 25 mountains (I have done at least 5?)
-Bungi Jump
-Skydive
-Read the Bible cover to cover
-MORE TO COME

March 23rd (I thought about a lot this day but this is just a little)
I've only been in Zambia since Sunday and i'm learning that distance makes the heart grow fonder. I am having familiar feelings of caring about someone as much as myself and putting a person into images of things to come. Do I still need time for myself? Doesn't someone ALWAYS need time for themselves? I have to find the balance. I need time for the word and with Christ. My faith has kept me on my feet here many times and I have to remember that...I need to learn Afrikaans... I think about life back home and what the next few years will being for myself and my family. It is crazy and exciting and I am so blessed. How will things be different when I return home?

I've been reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. I have to read it slow and take notes in order to process it the way I want. I have another one of his books at home with excerpts from this one so it is nice to finally get the full book. I reflecting on some of it over break. I really like his reminder that there isn't real happiness apart from God. I mean it makes sense. How can you be fully happy unless you know that there is something better than everything here at every minute of everyday?! There is plenty of poverty and war around us to try and trick us into believing that there is something other than God, but "God designed human to run on himself" so we must rather see poverty and hunger as fuel for our spirits to become fruitful. I love the quote near the end of this particular chapter then Lewis says

"You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God."