A Lesson in Bravery

photo credit: Rachel Pieh Jones | www.djiboutijones.com

The story, A Child of Two Worlds, was published a couple of years go in the New York Times, but I just came across it today. It really resonated with me. I don’t know if it’s because I sometimes think that if I’m to live in Uganda for the rest of my life I might be too scared to give birth, or if it’s because of the description Rachel Pieh Jones gives of her daughter at the end:
“Except for when I woke her to nurse, Lucy slept through the first night, her face serene and flawless. I kissed her rosebud lips and smoothed her hair and sang lullabies. This was my Djiboutian American daughter, a perfect combination of my two worlds. Born to American parents, in a Muslim country, on a day of infamy, she epitomized the people and places I had come to love.”

She has a video on the Desiring God website. I don’t have kids and I have never done anything as dramatic as give birth in such conditions, but before I moved out here people, even those who didn’t really know me, kept telling me how brave I was. It’s a weird feeling because so many times you feel anything but brave. I think that her video sums it up perfectly. We are not brave because being brave indicates that we have summoned up some kind of courage from within. But rather, we are desperate, breathless, and fully dependent of God. It would be a huge mistake to think otherwise.

If you enjoyed this, check out the post: Bless Her Heart (And Other Reactions)

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5 Things I Have Learned From Not Living at "Home"

Eliminate Your Expectations

Before I moved to Uganda I spent so much time on the internet reading blog posts about people who had moved to other countries and what their experiences were like thinking it would give me some idea of what I was getting myself into. I had no idea what to expect, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t know what I wanted to expect. My limited knowledge of what it is to live in another country opened wide the door for the unexpected; and boy has it been a wild ride. There are days that are completely mundane and I just hang around in sweatpants longer than socially appropriate for an adult my age, drink some coffee, and read a book; while there are other days when I can’t imagine my life being any more bizarre. All expectations are out the window, mainly because they are pointless, but secondly because they can ruin the joy of spontaneity. 

Food is for the Stomach…and the Heart

I have never been what some would consider a “foodie”. Foodies can tell the difference between fresh lemon juice and juice from a bottle and unfortunately that’s not my gifting. But, since living in this new country where the food can be so different and admittedly bland…I have had some desperate moments when I thought I would scalp someone for some Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Covered Almonds from Trader Joe’s. Nonetheless, I have learned that there are just some things that do a body good – emotionally speaking. When my parents came to visit in March I couldn’t have been happier to open their luggage and see the multiplicity of Kraft Mac-n-Cheese packed next to the Fun Size Milky Way. My heart was happy. 

Time is Really Just a Number

Punctuality has never been my strong suit. I am a recovering procrastinator with a take-it-easy personality. One things I have come to embrace and cherish about this culture is that time is just a suggestion. It’s ok to stop on the way and take care of the multiple things that might need to be taken care of, and the person waiting is ok to wait. They will find some way to fill their time. Patience is a virtue you know…what’s the point in getting all bent out of shape over something so menial? Maybe this concept is just nursing my shortcomings, but I truly believe time was not created to control our lives, it was created to be a more hands-off assistant. 

You Won’t Be In or Out

Being the new kid in town has its perks and its downsides. When you get to town everyone wants to welcome you and make you feel at home and comfortable, but there is something even more comfortable about being a local. It’s been almost a year since I relocated to Uganda and the way that I feel now as opposed to the moment I stepped off the plane is really incomparable. But, I am still the Mzungu walking around the village and trying to navigate her way around the city. I have roots here now. I have friends and I have my usual places that I go to hang out, but that doesn’t make me a Ugandan. And it’s ok. In the beginning I was really troubled by this and it hindered me from ever calling this place home, but now I have come to embrace it and enjoy the fact that I will always have the opportunity to experience something entirely new. 

You are Always Missing Something

Whatever your reasons for relocating to a new country, you can never truly leave your hometown behind. So much of who I am is wrapped up in my life back in America. I’m not ashamed of that. Many people that I have talked to out here want to put down their country of origin almost in a way to convince themselves that this new place is the better choice and they don’t miss their old life. While I love making new memories in Uganda, there are things about my “old life” that are missed. It was a wonderful life that deserves to be remembered. But, I know that things are always changing and we are always moving forward, so I am thankful that I have something that is worth missing and remembering; something that has made me who I am, and now I have something new that is continuing to make me who I will be. 

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Granny's Love-Filled Wanderlust

Sometimes I get on Pinterest and see those inspirational travel quotes. I think you know what I’m talking about. They have the cool typography, Instgram quality picture of a road with mountains or a well-weathered map, and belong to the Wanderlust board that we all have on our profile. Travel excites. The thought of seeing a different part of the world and experiencing something life changing moves people to leave what they know and endure certain discomforts or unknowns so that they might discover something extraordinary.

Three years ago my Granny was very sick and coming to the end of her marvelous life. All of my mom’s family returned to the homestead in Murray County, Georgia and spend a week together sharing time with each other and my Granny knowing that these were our last moments of our family as we had known it for so many decades. During this week my cousins and I spent some time going through some old pictures together. My grandparents have this huge trunk in their den that is overflowing with pictures from years and years of family memories. There are enough embarrassing images in that trunk to run off all the unwanted boyfriends that have tried to steal away my cousins and I. I already have photos set aside to show the first girl that my brother brings to Christmas; it’s only then that we will truly know if she loves him or not.

 

Ok, he might be too cute to keep the girls away...

While going through these gems three years ago I found a picture of my Granny when she was just a teenager standing in front of a bus headed to Miami. Once she arrived in Miami she paid $78 for an airline ticket to Cuba. I fell in love with that picture. I remember being a little girl and my Granny showing me the airline ticket and telling me about how grown up she felt going all the way to Cuba on her own and how other girls her age were too scared to do it, but not her. She wanted to see the world. It was then that I decided that my 5 foot, biscuit-making, pastor’s wife Granny was the ideal woman. She was a real pioneer; a revolutionary. I wanted to be this woman. It was that moment in her guest bedroom as a 7 or 8 year old girl that I decided I was going to travel and see the world and love it just like she did.

 

This new wanderlust was consuming my thoughts at all times. I would make lists of countries that I wanted to see, plan out how to see all 50 states before I was 35, save maps of places that I had never been before…I was a goner. But thankfully my Granny didn’t just inspire me to travel; she inspired me to love. Travel is a beautiful and wonderful thing. It can reveal a lot about yourself and I believe God did create this world to be admired and enjoyed. His presence is declared and revealed in creation. As I have lived here in Uganda I have seen so many beautiful things and discovered so much about myself in the process, but the real joys have come from the relationships that have been built and the people that I have come in contact with. Those are the most beautiful and complex of God’s creation. Travel the world, expand your horizons, go beyond what you know, and love people along the way. What a waste it would be to see the world and miss God’s most prized possession throughout the journey.

Gearing up for my trip to the Dominican Republic back in 2006....Granny was right there to see me off.

I sure do miss her, but I'm so thankful for everything she left behind.

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The Trouble With Love Is...

 I have been thinking about love as an emotion a lot lately. How much this emotion can control you and how it can make you do things you would have never dreamed of doing before. There is the love you feel for another person, the love another person feels for you, the love that you see other people show to each other and even the love that you wish you were receiving from someone. I come in contact with so many people in a day and I show love to them, or fail to show love to them in many different ways. Some of those people are easy to love and I can’t get enough of them and other people take a little more effort to care for. 

 

But, regardless of how lovable the people in our lives are, we are expected, required even as believers, to love them. We are to love those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), love those who sin against us (Matthew 18:15), and love those who have nothing to offer (James 2:1-7). We are to be patient, kind, humble, thoughtful, sacrificial, joyful, and persevering in love.  

When you are reaching out to love others you are putting a lot on the line. You are allowing yourself to be exposed and put in a position allowing someone to possibly take advantage of you. Sometimes the return is wonderful and will lift your spirits and other times it feels like a slap in the face because you quickly realize that the other person does not have the same interest in loving you back.

Why does God want us to experience this? Why does he want his children to abandon all and reach out to others in such a vulnerable way? The answer is always Christ. Christ knowingly showed love to those who had no intent in loving him back. He loved those who might have been a bit needy (Luke 9:10-17), selfish (Luke 18:23), hypocritical (John 8:1-11), backstabbing (John 18:2-3), cowardly (John 20:19), and just simply hateful (Luke 22:63-65). Christ loved the unlovable. 

But he also loved those who would wash his feet with their perfume, hair, and tears (Luke 7:36-40), give as much as they have in offering to him (Mark 12:41-44), humbly prepare the way for his ministry (Matthew 3:1-12), listen to his words with complete abandon of all other things (Luke 10:38-42), defend him (Luke 22:50), give years of their lives to follow him (Luke 5:1-11), and even die for him (Acts 7:54-60).

Not to even mention the love he has for the rest of the world outside of those recorded in the Bible. When we sit down and seriously think about all the offenses that we have against Christ and how he still gave his life for us, how can we say that someone else is too difficult for us to love? I’m not saying that I am perfect in this regard or I don’t have times that I avoid walking past someone trying to keep from hearing their next request for help, or I don’t become frustrated with people who aren’t what I think they should be. I fail so many times in this area, but God is quick to convict my heart and he is teaching me to consider how hard I am to love before I pass judgment on someone else.

I praise God for his patience, kindness, generosity towards me. I am thankful that God’s love truly does bear all things, hopes all things, and believes all things. His love never fails even when mine often does.

Burning Down My Kingdom

Our second Pastor’s Conference of the year has just come to an end. It was a time of worship and growth for the pastors that were able to attend and also those of us from Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries. The Lord was faithful and gave us great opportunities to love and challenge the pastors to love their churches with the deep love of Christ. 

We were so blessed and thankful to have Dr. Mark Tatlock from Grace Community Church as our speaker for the week.

   

The President of the Baptist Union of Africa sharing with our pastors about how the Church is God's chosen family.

The focus of the conferences this year is on the Invaluable Church: Seeing the Church from God’s Perspective. A challenge here in Uganda, as well as many other parts of the world, is the issue of ministers being consumed with title and respect and not humbly serving their church without any recognition or benefits. This is not just a temptation for leaders in the church; it’s a temptation in the life of every Christian. So many times we are focusing on serving our own kingdom and not humbly and sacrificially serving the Kingdom of God. It was so encouraging and challenging to see the pastors respond to the teaching, and also have my heart and motivations for ministry challenged and strengthened.

It took some time to get this little guy to smile, but when he did it was totally worth it.

 Conferences are always fun because they give a chance to interact with people from different parts of the country and live a little differently for a week. I am pushed out of my comfort zone when I work conferences. I’m not used to bathing in a basin or using a pit latrine to go to the bathroom, eating rice, beans, and posho (almost like grits) for each meal. It’s always a little unnerving to share a room with a rat the size of your forearm, or have a cow walk in on you while you are trying to bathe, or to even find a green mamba to be resting outside the latrine when you finish going to the bathroom. But all of these things remind me that loving God and loving people can get you through many things and even bring joy into those little moments when you feel so far from what is familiar. 

Edgar, Christine, and Ojulu are just a few members of our fabulous SOS team that worked so hard at this conference.

Sometimes it’s hard to serve people when you are tired, smelly, and hot. I become quickly annoyed when I am uncomfortable and people are coming to me with needs and concerns. At the conferences, I am the one in charge of registration and medical, so when people have issues with small things like water, pens, books, questions, toilet paper, I am the one that they are sent to. And when the pastors who haven’t played soccer in 15+ years come from sports time and their bodies are aching, I am the one who is supposed to work a miracle to bring their youth back. Satan uses these times to tempt me to be unloving and quickly disturbed by their needs, but the Holy Spirit convicts my spirit and reminds me that I am to deny myself and my time and my comforts and serve others before I serve myself. It is an experience that always brings me back to the purpose of ministry and Christianity in general. Paul tells us in Romans 13 that all the commandments of the Law are summed up in this one saying: love your neighbor as yourself. This saying is bold and essential. How many times I fail and love myself and serve my kingdom more than the Kingdom of God.

Everyone plays football. No exceptions.

The love for the game never grows too old.

My prayer is that the pastors from the North East and Eastern regions can repent for loving themselves more than the people that God has entrusted to them and that we as believers can repent for not humbly serving others in order to advance the Kingdom of God. I love Africa, I love Uganda, and I love having the opportunity to serve these people however I can, even when that means that I am pushed far out of my comfort zone. It’s in those moments that I am forced to remember why I came here, what is truly important in life and ministry, and how much I need strength and satisfaction from God alone. 

The little guys always find ways to have fun at the conferences.

All you need is a big rock and a jerrycan and you have your entertainment for a few hours.