Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

I have a new favorite thing.

Stretched out in the hammock,

suspended between two palm trees,

staring up into the pale blue sky,

viewing the filtered sun through the rustling palm branches,

listening to incredible worship music from Hillsong,

accompanied by God's amazing percussion section --

the incoming waves

thrashing the shore

at our beach hut.

Wow! What a great worship experience. What a great day of rest!

You see, the village children have gotten a bit ... well ... persistent! When these particular oyibos (no skin people) arrive at their beach hut they attract a crowd. We are a bit unusual. (Weird, clueless, suckers, ... are other words that are probably used to describe us!) Our driver and the neighbor boys are invited to play games with us. (Totally unheard of!) The children all get handfuls of sweets. (We need to bring tooth brushes sometime!) We give water to the vendors. (Why would anyone do that?) I buy things I don't need just because they have families to feed. Suckers? ... probably. But we chose to be that way! However, that does increase the distractions during our search for tranquility whenever we take a rare trip to our beach hut alone (well, yes, and the 9 people it takes for us to be there --- which I explained earlier)!

So, I decided that the only way to truly have some peace was to bring my iPod Shuffle.

When I climbed into the hammock to rest a bit I had my ears filled with worship music. And, wow! What a great experience.

I can only imagine that I'm the first human on earth who has listened to Hillsong worship whilst stretching out in a hammock (brought back to us from friends who went home to Venezuela) suspended between two palm trees at a beach hut near Lagos, Nigeria.

We are blessed.

I have so many new favorite things that I could have never imagined prior to this amazing experience called NIGERIA!

God is always good.