Sunday, 10 May 2009

Last week was busy, but again good. We were talking about the Bible. As can be expected, we didn't get terribly in depth in only a week. It wasn't so much about the topic last week as it was the speaker/teacher, Andrew Kooman.

Andrew was great to have leading class sessions, to eat with and hang around. He's one of those, really-smart-but-in-a-down-to-earth-sort-of-way, guys. I think most people have someone like this; if you do not, go get one to hang around. I'll wait until you get back.

....

Got one? Good. So far all our speakers have used most of their time with us in classes to lecture or teach. Peni had everyone come to the front of the room to read and he prayed for each person in class, but it was still a time of speaking that everyone was listening to, so I'm categorizing that with lectures. Andrew did brief writing workshops with the class, which meant time in class where we weren't listening to lecture, but writing creatively what we each wanted to write.

Reflecting on the writing workshop portion now, I guess we didn't devote a vast amount of time to the writing, but it felt like a lot of time, and I loved it. I loved the break from monotony of listening to lecture. I loved taking a verse from Genesis and elaborating on it to make a piece of creative [non]fiction. I loved that Andrew told us we could use talents like creative writing for the kingdom of God. I loved that I wrote something I actually like. (I will post it as soon as I elaborate and write some more of the story.)

Yesterday I went on a hike to one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen. We went to Waipi'o Valley and hiked to Hi'ilawe Falls. This is one of the best hikes I've ever done. I don't say this lightly, because I love Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. A lot. But Waipi'o Valley and Hi'ilawe Falls definitely compete with the best CO has to offer. The photos I took haven't been offloaded from my camera yet, but those will be posted soon.

I have a lot of (mostly) unrelated thoughts running through my mind; I'll write about those later.

But lastly, I'm doing research on statistics of war in Central and South America, and the Caribbean. I am looking especially for data on how wars have affected women and children in Latin America and the Caribbean. If you know any credible sources with statistics on war and women and children in Latin America, please let me know. I haven't found much yet.

More soon,

Christophley Wolfgang von Lügenstein IV [ =P ]