I have been home (in America) now for just over 2 weeks and every day I promise myself I will update this blog tomorrow.
There is so much that I have left unsaid - so many stories I've left untold - and now that I'm back in the states it has become so much harder to tell them. It's not simply time and distance; the things I experienced just don't seem as real to me anymore and that makes me terribly sad. I can't hear the village sounds or smell the village air. There are no chickens shuffling around in the grass outside my room. There are no village children staring in the windows at me. There is no clinic to walk to everyday and there are no smiling neighbors testing my language skills with frequent greetings. Everything here is just so disgustingly American.
Every day in Nyinbuli was an adventure. Every moment was filled with possibility and newness. I never knew what was going to happen next. One morning, as I was walking to the clinic with Debbie and Divina, I noticed a snail on the path. It had rained overnight so the creature was probably lingering in the cool clay before the hot sun chased it back into the grass. A snail is not so unusual, except this snail was as big as my fist. When I see a snail here at home it's usually about the size of my pinky fingernail or if I'm at the wetlands I might see a snail the size of a baby's fist. And either way it's gonna be a snail with a flat, circular shell. This snail had a long, tapered, conch-like shell. It was the most incredible snail I had ever seen. Of course, I'd left my camera in my room.
But now I'm home. Things are "normal" again. And I'm expected to step right back into the life I left as if nothing has changed. In fact, I'm not allowed to have changed. Too much is expected of me... I'm too dependable or depended on. I can't leave and I can't have any other plans for awhile because everyone needs me to stay right where I am and refill that gap I left empty for a month and half. When they are all done with me, then I can start to have a life. I'm somehow, paradoxically, overwhelmed by the low expectations of my friends and family.
Ugh, I know this is just "feelings" and not the truth. I am loved and people want me to pursue God and His purpose for my life.
I wish I knew what His purpose is for my life.
Pursuing God is really so much more difficult for me here. There is so much distraction. I'm afraid that I will never have that feeling of total dependence that I had in Africa. I'm afraid because I'm pretty sure when I wake up tomorrow I won't feel the awe and excitement that I felt there every morning. What if I it was all just a spiritual high? What if every thought and feeling and revelation I had in Nyinbuli was just the result of an overstimulated, overly emotional mind? Is it time to come back to the real world and realize that this is all there is for me? Was I crazy to think that I could be more? That I could have more?
I don't think so. I think God has plans for me. I think He wants to do a work in and through me. And I think I want to let Him. Yeah, I'm scared. I'm weak. I'm a lot of other wimpy things. But He is strong and His power is made perfect in [my] weakness. When I am feeling this uncertain and (let's just admit it) depressed, the only thing I know to do is go to God's Word.
Jeremiah 29: 11-13
"...For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
John 15: 5a, 11, 15-16
I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you abide in Me and I in you, you will bear great fruit... I want you to know the delight I experience, to find ultimate satisfaction, which is why I am telling you all of this... I don't call you servants any longer; servants don't know what the master is doing, but I have told you everything the Father has said to Me. I call you friends. You did not choose Me. I chose you, and I orchestrated all of this so that you would be sent out and bear great and perpetual fruit. As you do this, anything you ask the Father in My name will be done.
Isaiah 61: 1
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.
Philippians 3: 10-14
I want to know Him [Christ] inside and out. I want to experience the power of His resurrection and join in His suffering, shaped by His death, so that I may arrive safely at the resurrection from the dead. I'm not there yet, nor have I become perfect; but I am charging on to gain anything and everything the Anointed One, Jesus, has in store for me--and nothing will stand in my way because He has grabbed me and won't let me go. Brothers and sisters, as I said, I know I have not arrived; but there's one thing I am doing: I'm leaving my old life behind, putting everything on the line for this mission. I am sprinting toward the only goal that counts: to cross the line, to win the prize, and to hear God's call to resurrection life found exclusively in Jesus the Anointed.
Ephesians 2: 10
For [I] am the product of His hand, heaven's poetry etched on lives, created in the Anointed, Jesus, to accomplish the good works God arranged long ago.
2 Timothy 1: 7-8a, 11
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.... And God chose me to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of this Good News.
Thank You, Father God, for making me for a purpose. Help me to passionately and whole-heartedly pursue You. I feel weak and alone, but I am neither because You are with me. You are Emmanuel. You are with us.
Thank You, Holy Spirit; I will not fear because You are with me. I will step out in faith, even if I cannot see where my next step will land, and You will be faithful to guide me and to protect me. Even if I fall, I know You will catch me. Even if I fail.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for loving me so totally. Thank You for making a way for me to have such a wonderful adventure with You in Nyinbuli. I pray that You will make a way for me to go back again someday.
My God, please watch over Holly as she continues to serve You in that beautiful and difficult place. I pray that You would use her in miraculous ways. You are good, Lord. Amen.
