Today’s Top Story: Canadian Tourists Face Incredible Danger!

Thursday was our first official touristy day!!! It was sooooo much fun!!! We asked a couple of friends to come with us, so it was good to have some extra company and to have people who know their way around and who know how to barter! :) We went to a town called Ouidah where there are a number of museums and historical sites.

We went to the Museum of Ouidah’s History. It was pretty interesting – there was a lot of history and artifacts on slavery and voodoo. It was sooo crazy to think about everything these slaves had to go through!! And then we bought our first souvenirs of the trip at this museum!! It is really exciting to finally own a piece of Benin that I can take home with me! Our friends that came with us also bought each of us a picture of one of the symbols of Benin, so that was soooo nice of them!!!

Then we went to a place called the Temple of Python. It was a little creepy because some people think the python is a god and this temple is a place of worship to them. We thought it was just going to be a museum. But we got to do something soooo cool....can you guess?....we got to HOLD A SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!! I had heard about this place before coming here so for the last 2 months I’ve been telling Jamie and Janna that we have to visit the python place because I really wanted to hold a snake!! I think they thought I was crazy and Janna even said that she would never hold a snake. So when we got to this temple, I was the most excited of all and was the first one to hold a snake!! And then our guide started to wrap the snake around my neck...okay...when I was picturing holding a snake, I did think about having it around my neck but I didn’t think it would be wrapped around my neck...so when he started wrapping this snake around my neck I thought, You know that this is how pythons kill people, right? But it didn’t squeeze my neck at all and it was actually a really cool feeling to have a snake around my neck! Now, I know that my Dad is probably having a heart attack as he’s reading this, but rest assured that I am still alive and well!!! :) And even Jamie and Janna held a snake and allowed one to be wrapped around their necks! We were actually really funny to watch when we had a snake around us because there was definitely a mixture of fear and excitement on our faces! :)

Then our friends wanted to take us to the beach in Ouidah. They said that it wasn’t that far and they gave us an estimate of the distance but I am horrible at judging distances and knowing how far they actually are. I was looking for a time estimate instead of a distance estimate. It’s funny because here they really do measure things by distance, whereas in Canada we measure things by time. Interesting, eh? Anyways, we ended up having a second death walk to a beach!! Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as the first one we had at the beginning of the trip because we were wearing shoes instead of flip flops and we are more used to the heat. But we definitely came home with a few sunburns!! But it is always amazing to sit on the beach and look out at the never-ending water (and in this case, the water we were looking at really doesn’t end until Antarctica!!) and just marvel at God’s incredible creation and the blessing that it is to share in it!

So that’s why our blog entries are a little late this week – Thursday was spent being tourists!! But it definitely gave us more interesting things to write about!! :) No, we didn’t face incredible danger but our heart rates definitely increased!

Prayer Requests and Praise Items:
o Continued health and safety (we are doing much much better after our sickness last week!!)
o We have our first info meeting about DRIME in a church on Sunday. Please pray that people will be interested in joining the team and supporting us!
o Pray for me as I start to think about leaving here, going home and adjusting back to “normal” life