According to legend, the floors of Nijo Castle in Kyoto, Japan were crafted to squeak like the song of a nightengale — to warn the Shogun and his bodyguards of prowling ninja.

Here’s a brief clip of the that sound (presented here on the website).

H, W and I visited Nijo Castle this afternoon … in a new world record time of one hour.

Castle, castle grounds, castle wall, and garden in one hour. H bought a Coke Zero in a vending machine. The boys laughed about this and that. We discussed our own ownership of the property — where we would put our own stables, how we would play capture the flag, where Dad would build his recording studio, where we would construct a soccer field. (There was lots of eye rolling when I suggested we should install a library.)

It was a wonderful moment with two of my sons.

It was a moment full of all the beauty of any nightengale’s song — and a moment void of prowling ninjas.

When we started this journey, our itinerary was a list of PLACES we would visit.

Looking back on our journey so far, it is PEOPLE who are the milestones. We REMEMBER the steps of our journey through the litany of people we met — and loved.

These are a few dozen steps of the many hundreds of thousands of steps carved in to Mount Huashan in central China. We went there for the view — and the exercise. A small number of stair climbers were there to work … step by step … balancing massive loads of building supplies for new trails and repairs on their back. (He’s barely visible at the top of this section of stairs.)

One of these porters passed us as we were resting on our descent. He played a flute … while walking and balancing his load of concrete mix bags … and he paused to play a mini concert when he saw me listening.

We finished our descent of Mount Huashan just as a group of elderly women finished their climb. (!) They were singing what sounded like Chinese show tunes. Heartily. And their tuneful energy exploded when they saw us lingering to listen.

Monday afternoon in Xian, China:

Two blocks of vendors hang calligraphy brushes and stack thick parchment rolls in stalls under canvas umbrellas. A dozen women in comfortable clothing move through the delicate choreography of a sword dance, as their teacher — an elderly man — leads them through lunges, body sways, and toe points with encouragement in a cadence. A calligraphy artist balances his massive brush in one hand, dips it in a mixture of ink and water, and marks his parchment with slow stroke after slow stroke. And, while customers prod, poke, and blow on various items in his stall, an instrument salesman turns away from his stall to play a xun.

The woman in this photo was once on the verge of closing a profitable real estate deal in Nairobi’s Kangemi slum neighborhood. Her mind was changed, however … and the deal never happened.

Instead, the property became the home for — and she became the Founder of — Akiba School. It’s a private, Christian elementary school and high school. Many students there are sponsored and loved by folks at our church in Virginia.

We have three bits of sound from Akiba to share with you.

* A student introduced himself to us today after S. led elementary and high school students in music club. Turns out, Augustine wanted to share his thanks with some Virginia friends who have helped him over the years with school fees. His audio greeting is the first bit of sound below.

* Second, a clip from S’s music club class. Elementary school students sang a round for the first time.

* And third — another elementary class is memorizing a poem written in Kenya’s national language, Kiswahili. Their teacher wrote the poem … and the class plans to recite it in unison at a national contest in the next few days.

Some new friends competed in a raucous 9-on-9 soccer tournament over the weekend — playing for pride against friends and neighbors in a Kenyan election spectacle organized to promote a candidate running for a seat in parliament.

Four of the men in this team photo are involved with something called Light and Power in Nairobi’s Gatina neighborhood. They’re working together, they’re worshiping together — some are living together — in an effort to make it through massive challenges in their community to find education, jobs, shelter, food, and safety.

Their weekend games were rough, wild, and physical. They played on a gritty field that is dangerously uneven. One sideline is a meandering stream of sewage. I saw one player with only one shoe.

Our friends were eliminated from the tournament after a semi-final, shootout loss Sunday morning. Still, we returned for the final Sunday afternoon.

The championship was funded by City Councillor and aspiring Member of Parliament Linett Mirehane. She and her entourage hosted the game, literally. They arrived in cars decorated with campaign posters. Dozens and dozens and dozens of supporters flowed on to the field … dancing, playing drums, and wearing yellow t-shirts with her name and picture. Ms. Mirehane then settled in to a plastic chair to watch the match inside a tent just beyond a corner flag.

At halftime, I asked her about her ploy for the Gatina community’s football hearts … and whether she had plans to come back to those hearts after the election.

I know it’s been many weeks since we were on safari … but we want to share this giant audio journey of our time with lions, elephants, hippos, vultures, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, wildebeest, zebras, and the rest of Creation.

It’s a quick-moving yet ponderous 15-minute epic … and likely will mean the most to the seven of us in the jeeps … but it’s awesome, and we invite you to come along.

The clip begins with S playing a thumb piano on the eve of our first foray in to the bush …

Get out of bed, Jerusalem!

Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight.

These were the words I happened to read this morning from Isaiah, as we woke up to brilliant sunshine today in Musanze, Rwanda.

Adding to the morning glory, the daughter of our current hosts was reciting this poem to the rest of us at breakfast:

I tried to explain the Rwandan genocide to our boys in a few minutes this morning. They really tracked with the information — from colonial rule, to the creation of Tutsi and Hutu labels, to civil war, to mass murder … but they stopped me when I started talking about reconciliation and forgiveness.

“No way,” was the essence of the their response. “There’s no way everything has been forgiven.”

That conversation preceded a day-long tour of help projects for Rwanda’s most vulnerable people — many of them widows and orphans from the genocide. Our visit was organized by World Relief, an organization that connects churches with these kinds of projects around the world.

It turns out that the first man we met was able to speak to the boys’ doubts about reconciliation.

Nicholas Hitimana led us through a hillside of geraniums — not the kind of geraniums you plant in your yard, but the kind that smell divine … and fetch large profits from businesses that make things like perfume. He runs a farming cooperative that harvests and distills the plants. The cooperative is now breaking even, and there are plans to secure millions of dollars in funding over the next few years to expand production.

All of the hundreds of farmers in the collective are or were poor, and many of them are genocide widows. Nicholas introduced us to some of them in a village he founded for them. The village is called Hope.

On the outskirts of Hope as we said our goodbyes, I asked Nicholas about the work he does … why a man with multiple doctorates, a stellar resume, and a brilliant business plan is investing his expertise and the rest of his life in helping the poor.

I pass along what Nicholas said … because he also speaks of reconciliation.

Listen for the bird that starts singing during his last answer:

We have just returned from safari … with TONS of stories to pass along.

This is our first: four lionesses struck down, then slaughtered, a young wildebeest outside our two, canvas Serengeti tents … as we “slept” inside.

There will be lots more to say about the spectacular and terrifying experience. For now, we’re posting an audio postcard from the long night. It begins, we’re told, with the lionesses vocalizing with one another after the kill … then I *think* a pack of hyenas approaches to try and intimidate the lions away from the fresh meat … and it concludes with the lionesses vocalizing again, with what are surely full bellies.

(It’s best with headphones.)

Picture above courtesy of our guide, Simon Belcher. Awesome.

The men in this picture are singing Gnaoua music. Their ancestors were West African slaves, taken from an area once known as Ancient Ghana. They created their music to heal their pain, to exalt the memory of their ancestors — and to simply live in a hard place far home.

Here is a song they sang for us inside a tent in Merzouga, Morocco — they sang it twice, by request. It’s called “Soudani” from their album “Gnaoua: Music Khamlia”:

I’m told this is a heartbreaking and deeply passionate song — about HOME.

There’s an obvious tie-in, of course, to our journey … to our home here AND our home back home. Our song, so to speak, is now telling the story of our world adventure home and our Virginia home — even our greater Home — a little bit of all these things at the same time.

We don’t look as cool as the Moroccan musicians in these pictures, but we are singing a song of our own on this journey. It’s a song of healing, of deep memories, and of life in homes far away from Home.