Rain Forest International School

Today we slept in. As Carlin mentioned in our last post we’ve had about 6 hours sleep in the past 36 hours. So to make up for it we slept until noon. It was nice not to have to rush to catch the next plane. We will have to take one more plane tomorrow to make it to our final destination, but today we were able to relax a bit.

We went to Rain Forest International School for a bit of a tour. Scott and Lee, two of the hostel parents that Melanie knows met us and gave us the tour. What a cool campus! So many things reminded me of my time in Japan at CAJ. As we walked around and met various teachers and staff I just had the feeling, “I’m home.” Even though Africa is very different from Japan, the sense of community there was something that I felt was very much in common between the two.

What a beautiful campus!

To make this sense even stronger, as we were driving in, one of the hostel parents mentioned that they had a new teacher named Ellen Elison, who had grown up in Japan. Maybe I'd know her. I thought that name sounded familiar, but Japan is a pretty big country with lots of people, so perhaps, but how likely is it? But then we met her. And yes I do know her, in fact I graduated with her brother and was very good friends with him. I can't believe I met someone that I knew from Japan in Africa! She was pretty surprised too, and we spent the next hour and half talking and catching up.

Me and Ellen! What a small world!

To top that off, we met another new teacher who happened to be from Canada and learned that she had done the one year EDGE program at Rocky Mountain College (the same college both Carlin and I graduated from). What a crazy and small world God has made!

After meeting old friends and making some new ones, we watched a soccer game between the school and a local club team. It was pretty exciting and RFIS won 3-0!

RFIS is in the yellow

I suppose things are a bit easier when the opposing goalie is taking naps!  

It was a very heated match, with some questionable reff-ing (at least that's what some of the fans felt)

 We then went with Scott and Lee back to the hostel and had dinner. We spent the evening chatting about their life, what brought them to Africa and being hostel parents. What a blessing it was to meet them.

Another building at the school

What a great day! I am so excited to be here! God is so good, and I can't wait to see what He has in store for us on this trip and in the years to come! But now, we have an early morning tomorrow to catch a flight to our final destination, so it's time for bed. Goodnight!

Love, 

Stephen (and Carlin)




Tidbits:
Temperature today: 30ºC and humid
We got matching bug bites from little things called Moot-Moots.