Among the many things that we experienced while in the Philippines, we experienced a fairly noisy environment. We were well away from the big city bustle, but that didn’t keep the noise down. But before you begin to think that the noise bothered me, think again, it didn’t. The neighbor dog barking wildly, Two-stroke motorcycles, diesel cars and trucks and other forms of locomotion, many without noise suppression, constantly passed by Rehoboth in a fairly steady stream. Now I can only speak for myself, but it didn’t bother me. I quickly became used to it. The night proved to be in contrast, with nary a sound beside the wind, an occasional conversation drifting by and some insects clicking and clacking in the dark. While it is about the same noise level as home, it was somehow magnified by the contrast between day and night. I enjoyed those moments before heading off to bed, maybe holding a deep conversation with a team member, or just taking my time back up to the dorm to sleep. Even as a laid my head down for sleep, I could hear the peaceful silence, even through the steady snoring of some of the other men. I liked that. I wish that opening the windows wide was something you could do during Montana’s extended winter season.
One morning, I woke early to try and capture a time lapse of the sunrise. It was great, I woke up, put on my clothes and a headlamp, grabbed the camera and my bible and climbed the water tower at the back of the property. I positioned myself toward the expectant sunrise and waited for a glimpse of light to form. The light came and I started to snap away every ten seconds. By the way, I now want to purchase an intervalometer to do this automatically, or the D7000 with the feature built-in. As the sky started to show some more shades of color, my heart fell a bit when I realized that it was going to be a cloudy morning. I continued snapping away and read a few words of my morning devotion between every shutter release. Even though it was cloudy, it was beautiful, watching the tropical trees sway with the wind. I even witnessed a neighbor harvesting some coconuts from a nearby tree. It was truly peaceful watching the world around me wake up, even the gradual increase in ambient noise. It was in these moments that I was able to experience God.
