"For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

So our team has been studying the book of Romans together. And although I've read it before, reading it here I get different things out of it than I did before. Like the verse above, I know I've read it before but this time around it had so much more meaning for me.

Everyone knows it's not easy to be a Christian. In the States we always talk about how difficult it is to avoid temptation, not to care about money and possessions too much, or to love our neighbors as ourselves. Yeah, it's hard and I've struggled with those things so much too.

However then I came here and I've been meeting people who really know how hard it can be to be a Christian. They not only struggle with the same things we do, but then they have to deal with their families who don't approve of being a Christian. Could you imagine being a little kid and going to church all on your own? And then when you got home your father would beat you since you went to church? But then you'd continue to go every week despite that?  Being the first and usually the only Christian in your family isn't rare, and I can't imagine being persecuted by my own family like many people are here.

So yeah, what the heck are we complaining for? There's absolutely nothing that can separate us from God's love and we don't even have to deal with the worst of it! The people I've met here don't even have the worst of it. I can't imagine going through what they've gone through and there are countries where it's not even legal to be Christian. We give so much power to the little things that keep us from God but like Paul says in Romans 8:31 "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

As for my life here, things are just going along. Everyday I'm treated less and less like a stranger and guest at my house and just getting more and more used to life here in Cote d'Ivoire. This week I started helping out at a school for handicapped children and it's been pretty interesting so far!

My first day, I barely had time to even get off my bike before a 16-year-old mentally disabled boy came up to me and gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek! I wasn't quite sure what to do because everyone else was kind of freaking out. Apparently he has a habit of being a little over-friendly when he greets! Two of the days I'm there, it's with deaf children. I tried teaching them how to play tennis... it's definitely harder than I thought it would be to explain something without words and without knowing sign language. But the kids were great and very understanding!

This coming Wednesday, I'll have been in Africa for 6 months! I wish I had some deep thoughts and good reflections about the first half of my stay here, but all I can think is "Holy moly, it's been six months already!" And I can only imagine that this is the point where time really starts going by fast so I need to make sure to be present and appreciate every moment of my next six months here.