Stars at Night

27 April
It's Tuesday now, and I wanted to reflect on my late-night trip to the bathroom last night. Yes, I know, not your normal topic of conversation. But I have to admit, we drink a lot of bottled water around here, and I'm not always diligent to stop drinking early in the evening... so the consequences of being hydrated are late night trips to the bathroom. The only problem is the lack of indoor plumbing in any of the sleeping areas here, so you end up having to leave your building, or tent (in this case), and walk a few hundred feet to find the nearest bathroom. Be very thankful for a bathroom right there in your own home! (And a clean one at that). In my current case, we are visiting another FOB and staying with the Soldiers from our Unit in their tent. It is large enough to sleep 6 people, and they framed in walls from wood available for just such a purpose. So I have a nice little room with a bed and a door I can lock. That's cool.

Anyway, back to the original story. What I wanted to mention was the moon and the stars last night. Many of the smaller FOBs are called "black-out FOBs" because external lighting is not allowed at night. You can have lights in your rooms, but when you go outside you have to have a flashlight with either red or blue light (nothing white). This is all for safety reasons and to make the FOB harder to see at night. It also makes it harder to find your way to the bathroom! But last night the full moon was out and it lit up the sky. I just stood there for awhile and was mesmorized by the night time sky. The stars out here in the mountains tend to be unbelievable as well. It's always the same way when you get out in nature and away from the lights of a big city and then check out the stars at night. They're beautiful. My PT buddy was an atronomy "minor" in college, so he's always telling me the names of stars and constellations. I can identify a few of them, but for the most part I just look at them and think about God. There is a song by Chris Tomlin where he sings about God's indescribable qualities. He says, "You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name." Those lyrics come to mind when I gaze at the night sky here, because it is so massive and awe-inspiring. It makes me think of how awesome God is, too. By the way, I have even seen more than a half-dozen shooting stars over the months, too. They seem to be prevalent here, although I'm not sure why.
Gotta go for now. Thanks for checking in with me. I'll post more later when I can.