I'm Lovin' It

10 Random things I am Lovin' this week...

# 1: McDonalds…”What?!?!? “ My family and friends at home must be exclaiming. Yes that is right, today I enjoyed McDonalds. Today was not the greatest day at clinical so our dear friend Reagan, the CLC, Community Life Director, (Basically a cross between a RD and an RA), sensed our frustrations and took us to McDonalds for free Ice cream on the way back to campus. I can hear you questioning me again…"McDonalds???? Ice Cream???? Shelly you don’t like McDonalds and you’re lactose intolerant” Yes, that is true, but I got French fries instead. Actually, what I got was chips. I did not see French fries anywhere on the menu but when I came up to the front of the line I asked for some and with a confused face the employee just stared blankly back at me. Then good old Reagan intervened and told the woman behind the counter that I would like some chips. (French fries are chips and chips are crisps and crisps come in all sort of funky flavors like fried chicken and beef.) And oh now I can hear you go again… "But Shelly, you don’t like french fries, in fact you don’t even like regular potatoes” Yep, yep that is true… But I enjoyed every single bite. This outing was precious and wonderful and I loved every minute of it- Thank you Reagan!!!

#2: Cows- and I am not referring to the kind at MickeyDs between two pieces of bread. When I come back to the United States, I already know that I am going to dearly miss having to stop the car several times on the way to my destination because there is a herd of cows in the road. I love doing nursing with cows in sight, and goats, and roosters, baby chicks, dogs, ect.

#3: Cats- Don’t get me wrong-I absolutely love my puppies at home, but I do miss having cats. We have stray cats on campus that were taken in by the director of the program, Reg, years ago. Jeana, my roommate, and I asked Reg if we could steal his cats. He said yes, however I don’t think he thought we were being serious. We have brought a couple of them to our room during this last week. Two of the students here decided to make a “television show series” they post online and they just told us they want to have us guest star as the “Cat Ladies of AE”…um, not quite the reputation we were going for…haha.

#4: Girl’s Night: Sunday night we had “A Night to Remember…” The girls dressed up and then broke into two groups in which we discussed what beauty really is, and what we think is beautiful about ourselves. We got a chance to read what the boys wrote on what they find beautiful in women (they wrote it not knowing we were going to read it). It was a good night of bonding and deep conversation…and some silliness : )

(This is a few of us after we had to put makeup on each other while blindfolded...Beautiful, don't ya think?)

#5: FROGS!!! The night before these pictures, a couple students played a prank and threw a frog threw the window into the Zulu class on the second story. It fell right onto the table in front of the teacher as she was lecturing. That same night they also put a frog in the dining room as a joke, but ended up losing it accidently. I found it at breakfast time, along with a couple monkeys that snuck in through the window during the night..but I didn't attempt to catch those too.

# 6: D-Group: I had my first D-Group meeting this week. For those of you who are not APU or former APU students, I should explain that D-Group stands for Discipleship group. They are like small groups, or life groups or whatever you would like to call it. The one I joined is an all girls group led by two of the other nursing majors and it is focused on intercession, confession, and sharing of what God is teaching us through our classes and experiences here in Africa. I am quite excited to get to know these girls on a deeper level and grow closer to God through it also.

# 7: Letters- There are 10 boys here from APU, and there are also 10 of us nursing majors here. One night the boys decided it would be a good idea to write us all letters of encouragement. They gave them to us at breakfast on Tuesday and told us we could not open them until lunchtime at each of our clinical sites. We all got really long thoughtful notes. Mine included a 4-stanza poem that had a rhyme scheme and everything. Totally Precious. I love our boys-they are amazing!

#8: Kids-Here are a couple of the many children that have stolen my heart.

#9: Sushi- Tonight, I went out to Sushi with Reagan, his amazing wife Leizel, and a few of the other students. It was half off night, so I got a lot of food for the price of what 1 really special roll would be back at home. Oh I love sushi. Wonderful night!

#10: And Last but not least I am lovin’ the Monkeys. By now, out of the 44 of us students here, only 2 of us do not hate the monkeys. They say I will come around, but I object- It will not happen!!!

Stay tuned- Zulu weekend immersion photos and blog to be posted "Just Now" not to be confused with "Now now" ("Just now" means soon, as in it could happen anytime in the future, whereas "Now now" means immediately in the next few minutes")