The sloth that was anything but

Another week has passed, and here we are, Friday morning, bleary-eyed. It's YOUTH RETREAT weekend! So this week, as if it weren't packed enough, has had squeezed into every spare moment preparations for next week so I'm not thinking about it over the weekend.
On the plus side, I'm really pumped about the retreat. I have a great group of 9th and 10th grade guys. Pray for us, Satan has been hard at work trying to deter all sorts of people and things from going/happening. But God will prevail, of that I am convinced!
Yesterday morning, with sleep still crusted over my eyes, I stumbled out the front door to put a load of laundry in the wash. The laundry is in a maid's room on the ground level, next to the carport. The rest of the house is a second and third story. So you have to go out to get to the laundry which is underneath your house. ANYHOO, there, smack in front of me, climbing my stairs was a gigantic thingy. At least at 5am that's what I was thinking. And, of course, whatever it was, my brain was telling me it was going to kill me (hey, I live in a jungle) and I'd better LOCK MY DOOR and SHUT IT REALLY FAST! In that order. Stupid 5am brain. So I flipped the deadbolt, slammed the door shut - and the reverberations from that chunk of steel smashing into the door frame had to have woken my neighbors, I'm sure. Anyway, by the time I'd rattled the windows, I realized the tail was too long and bushy to be a nyeke (little rodenty-thing that runs amock) and it was probably - yes.... A SLOTH. They abound here. Then I eased a little, thinking, "Now who has ever been mauled to death by a sloth?" (scenes of the killer rabbit from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail play here...). Slowly I opened my door, staring my stalker in the eyes... who would flinch first?
Surprisingly, he didn't amble up to me. He didn't even crawl. He turned tail and trotted off at a fair speed for the safety of a massive banyan tree across the way. I MIGHT have been able to catch him had I wanted to, but really, that wasn't my priority. I had laundry to do.
So once again, the talons of doom have grapsed, but not seized, and I am still safe in the land between the lands. Hope your weekend is wonderful.