the hyrax & the 30th

i love to read Proverbs every day. ever since freshman year of college i've read 1 chapter a day (corresponding to the day of the month). this habit has helped make an unwise guy like me a little less and less unwise through the years.

in college one of my best friends, Ethan, had the same habit so we would often talk about what we read that day. those were some great conversations. But every month when it came to the 30th one of us would ask the other - "Dude, do you know what a hyrax is?"

nope. no idea. never even heard of it. but apparently, hyraxes are one of 4 things Agur (the author) says are "small, yet extremely wise".

verse 26 tries to tell us why they're so wise and even describe them a little bit = "hyraxes are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags..."

huh. life changing, eh?

but it really did bug us. for years. we asked people. looked it up. we kind of just always pictured a beaver.

but then Crystal and i went to Kenya last Fall. a place where we stayed the 1st 10 days was crawling with these little fury creatures.

there were tons of them running around everywhere and this is one of the pics i snapped of them.
i asked a guy one day - "what are these things?"
"Hyraxes" he said.

case closed. now i've seen them up close and in person.

here's the really funny part. They would always be crowded all along the little path where we would walk to go to breakfast. Usually they would scurry off out of our way when we would come walking by. but i guess they're so wise that they can sense FEAR. because my wife, Crystal, was definitely afraid of them. (in her defense, they did have these massive sharp teeth.)

one day i went out early and was coming back to our room to see what was taking Crystal so long to come to breakfast. halfway back to our room i heard Crystal shouting "Patrick! help me!"
These little hyraxes had her cornered on all sides and she just stood there frozen as they inched closer. there were like 30 of them! she was pretty much freaking out.

it was a fairly funny scene, but of course i tried not to laugh. i just jumped up there and started shouting like a crazy man and clapping really loud and they all ran away.

now every time the 30th rolls around and i read this Proverb it makes me laugh when i come to verse 26. i can see those hyraxes chasing Crystal around. haha... they are pretty wise creatures i guess.

Crystal still says they are dumb.