The story of the innocent bystander..

Hi all,

my new years resolution of blogging is holding up well, maybe I should add that to my prayer requests.. :)

Quite a few people have been asking me the same question the last week or so and I've decided to do the dangerous thing (you know me, I'm all about risk taking) and answer the question full on:

The tale starts on a cold, windy night in East Texas. A gail is blowing outside and there are just 2 people about..

Innocent bystander to Ben: 'So Benjamin, what do you think of the US?'

Ben slowly turns and looks the innocent bystander in the eyes and motions to 2 nearby chairs, 'You get the coffees, grab a seat and I'll explain all', he says.

The innocent bystander runs off and grabs 2 cups of coffee, Ben's is strong, large and black (not really important to the story but just so you all know how I take it..), then quickly joins our hero of the moment and sits down listening in awe. (hihi a little bit of poetic license there).

Ben leans back and takes a sip of his coffee, sets it aside and leans forward to answer the innocent bystander's question:

The US is what I expected and yet nothing like what I thought :)

Yes everything is HUGE!! The vehicles are enormous beasts and it is honestly impossible to walk anywhere here cause everything is so spread out!! And Wal-Mart could cover a blog post on its own!! Food and drink come in HUGE portions and to put it subtly some of the people aren't quite petite either :P

But to be frank it is not as bad as I expected it to be.. America is often portrayed as ignorant, arrogant and small minded.. I have found non if these to be true.

The people here have been nothing but welcoming, friendly and genuinely interested in me and Mercy Ships, I am thoroughly enjoying learning about the diversity of this big country and the necessary teasing that I can bring into that.

America is as interesting as I always thought it would be and I would be lying if I thought it was heaven on earth (everybody knows that is Scotland!) but I will help stand up for it when the American bashing is coming from anybody but me!

Haha slightly odd post, but do y'all expect anything else from me..

God bless,

Ben

PS re-reading this it is even more strange than I originally thought.. but its too late in the day to go changing it and I'm definently posting after all that typing!! Goodnight!