As you can guess from the title of this blog… the first week of my sabbatical was very memorable. The 30 days started off with getting our 3 boys packed in the car and driving 14 hours from Abilene to Destin Florida. It was quite the adventure! From changing diapers to changing the overhead movie in the car, to getting hit in the back of the head with a sippy cup, we finally arrived at our destination. The beaches were absolutely perfect and to say the water was beautiful would be an understatement. We spent the next couple of days, swimming, building sand castles and playing bean bag toss with total strangers in the hot Florida sun. Even with 3 boys under the age of 5, it was pretty relaxing, but the fun didn’t stop there. It was on the 4th day that the excitement really began. My brother-in-law had informed me earlier that he wanted to catch a shark, but I really thought he might be joking…oh he wasn’t! We purchased about $200 worth of fishing gear (with our 7 day Florida fishing license) and once the sun had set, we headed out for the beach (isn’t it more fun to do dangerous things at night?) We had heard that most people shark fish by casting their line from the shore…. Not us, we got in a Kayak and headed out with the line, hook, weight and a bloody fish head and got out as far as we could and dropped it…then headed back to shore as fast as we could without tipping the Kayak over (we might have made the morning paper if that would have happened). Needless to say, after repeating the same process 3 times and 2 hours later, we caught us a bonafide reef shark! It was pretty exhilarating reeling him up to shore, and it was an experience i’ll never forget. (Don’t worry, we released the shark after catching him). The rest of the vacation was absolutely wonderful and i’m just so thankful and grateful for the opportunity to experience the Sabbatical. I have been reading the book “Not I but Christ” by Watchman Nee and to say that it has been transformative would be an understatement. I am extremely excited about continuing in the book and seeing what the Lord will reveal to me in the next 3 weeks.
-Aaron
Video of the Shark Catch is below: