Ode to Daniel

I am devoting this post to my friend on the mission field named Daniel Bucher.  I think he is the only one who reads this, anyway...

Ode to Daniel, not Dan.

He doesn't eat with his hands.

He has many fans.

He lives in a van (down by the river).

He is not very tan.

Baguio Pictures

Two weeks ago we loaded up the car and headed for the mountains to get a little break.  It was nice to get up above the timber line, where temps are in the 70's by day and low 60's at night. It felt so good to wear long pants and sweats for a change!  This was our last little get-away before baby boy comes.  The girls had a ball cooking hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire, looking at the beautiful flowers, butterflies and bugs, and playing on the playground.  Mom and Dad were excited to find summer sausage and corned beef hash in the grocery store!  We basically ate, sat by the fire, and ate more.  Very nice...

Vacations can wear you out, so we did this when we got back into town...

The night I became a man...

This actually took place back in July, but I just got the pictures to share with you.  When I was speaking at the youth camp, the camp director went out and bought me a balut (bah-loot).  You may have seen these on Fear Factor.  It's a fertilized duck egg, just days from it's due date.  By fertilized I mean it's not an egg with a yoke and a white.  It has a duck in it.  A duck with feathers and a beak and a skull and claws.  And a big hard yellow blob that it's attached to.  I've lived in the Philippines for nearly a fourth of my life now, and I had thus far managed to escape eating one of these things.  It's kind of a rite of passage for missionaries, or a test of manhood.  My dad has eaten buckets of balut, but I was scared stiff.  Well, my time came in front of about 50 jr high school students.  Joe Mauk, the camp director, and another counselor are pictured helping me get through the process.  You start by cracking open the tip of the egg.  Then you drink out the fluid.  This part has always scared me, but so far so good.  It tasted like chicken soup.  Then you peel away the shell and go to town.  It was horrifying.  You can almost see my gag reflex in the pictures...  

Sorry about the red eye.  It took me over 20 minutes from start to finish.  Now I'm a man... or a true missionary.  Eating the balut was a little like my marathon.  A long, difficult, scary, painful experience which I now brag about as if it were nothing.  Ha!  I'm the man!