Cool Story

So, I have a pretty cool story for you. Actually, it is not as much cool as it is funny. But I will warn you in advance, I am typing this online and not in Word first. Please ignore the bad grammar (I am doing that because there will be a lot of pictures I do not feel like worrying about the formatting afterwards, this way I can just do it all at once).

Anyways, something wierd happened about a week ago. All of a sudden EVERY person in the whole city of Wau knew my name. I could not walk more than 10m without hearing someone yell "Daniel!" I was confused. But what confused me more was that they were saying "Daniel Bryan" or "Daniel Brown" So I was thinking to myself:

"Okay Dan... you started summer camp a few weeks ago, I guess word spread that the only white guy in Wau's name is Daniel, and I guess there is some famous guy named Daniel Bryan, so they just yell that since it his name is Daniel too."

So I convinced myself that word spread around town what my name was... Well, then I noticed older guys saying the samething... So then I thought:

"Okay, that is wierd... that guy is like 30, camp is for students through Primary 8... how did word spread to him being in a completely different age group?"

I had to get to the bottom of this, so I looked this Daniel Bryan cat up...

Okay, so that is Daniel Bryan. It became abundantly clear why all of a sudden EVERYONE "knew my name"

....This is me...

This is me at a football tournament that our parish is hosting.

Yes, my beard has gotten rather unruly.

But as soon as I googled him I realized they did NOT know my name.... they knew this WWE star and saw that I was a white guy with a beard too.... it was just 100% coincidence that we are both named Daniel!!

I was a bit bitter. One sister asked me, "Daniel, are you not shaving for style or because you are lazy?" I said, "Sister... Jesus had a beard, and we are called to be Christ like." Okay, so it actually is just out of laziness that I have this beard...

But, this is what I was going for with the beard...

Or this...

Why does no one say, "Francis of Assisi!!!!" or "Jesua!!!" (Jesus in Arabic, not a typo**) when they see me and my beard?!

In their defense, not every picture of St. Francis has a beard. So they are off the hook for that one. But in almost every picture, Jesus has a beard! So, why do I hear "Daniel Bryan!" not "Jesua!?"

I joke around about my beard and all, but it should make you think... where do religion and Christ place in my mind... Behind Daniel Bryan or at the forefront?

No, I do not think my beard should make everyone think of Jesus, but putting my beard aside, when we see other people do we think of them in terms of pop-culture and how beautiful or not they are... or do we think of them as being children of God with Christ dwelling in them?!

Jesus dwells in every single one of us (yes, even those that you struggle to love and frustrate you to no end), how often do we bring that to mind?

Peace and Love,
~Dan

Shenanigans!

New Years and Christmas have both passed, and 2013 is starting off well! I just thought I would share how each of those 'big days' went with a few pictures! : )

I talked about my Christmas day before, so I will just post a few pictures! They are all taken from a part of town that we call Loyola (it is where the Jesuit fathers stay and work). It is set up on a hill a few kilometers away from the downtown, market and where we live, so it was the perfect opportunity to take a panoramic picture of all Wau.

This first picture shows most of the downtown of Wau off in the distance, with the closer houses being the Loyola area. The white dot on the horizon, on the right side of the picture is a hotel, we live pretty close to that hotel!

 Same as the first picture, you can see Wau off in the distance, with the Loyola area up front!

You can see the big UN tents over on the left side and a bit in the center. The UN camp is huge!

Now that the pictures finished loading, I notice it is hard to see everything... I was just using my phone... sorry about the quality! : (

As for December 31st, we had a fun game day for the children! To celebrate the new year, Christmas and the feast of the Holy Innocent, we organized a day with some games and prizes to be won for all. Then the day finished with lunch!

Each game was worth a ticket, and tickets could be redeemed for prizes (suckers, biscuits, pens, notebooks etc.) We had a...

 three legged race!

 a fishing sort of game with bottles and sticks

 sack races... and many other games!

And, as mentioned, we finished with lunch for everyone!

All in all, I think the day went pretty great. Although, I think I miss-priced the prizes... sweets were 2 tickets, pens were 5 and notebooks were 7, i gave out about 200 sweets and just about 20 notebooks. haha As soon as they would get 2 tickets they would come straight for the sweets! (But eventually we ran out and they had to save up for the pens and notebooks and other prizes)

The beautiful thing was- One boy bought about 6 lollipops and I asked him if he was going to be sharing them to everyone else... and he said his sisters were at home that he was going to share with! So that was really nice to hear!

Anyways, overall, the holidays went pretty well and all had fun! : ) New Years day was pretty anti climactic. Just life as normal! I did stay up until midnight though, we had a nice prayer service in our community right at midnight... great way to ring in the new year! :)

Peace to all!