No Place Like Home

It is so strange how I navigate in a mental world that is quite different from the actual one. I re-read my last post and noticed several lines that demonstrate this:

"I will need to clear a little space for it on top of my bookshelf" - I don't currently possess a bookshelf. I have a two-level shelf with books on it, but I don't think it qualifies. It's too narrow and too low. It's more of a nightstand. If someone were to theoretically give me a snowglobe (and I'm pretty sure they don't even exist here), I would probably put it on my dresser instead. But in my theoretical world, I own an actual bookshelf onto which I could put my theoretical snowglobe.

"If somebody just dropped the box on my doorstep"... It would probably be picked up by one of my neighbors! I am living in an apartment building. Our "doorstep" belongs to everyone in the building.

" if the owner of a bicycle shop puts the bike on my porch..." My apartment building doesn't really have a porch. When I wrote this, as well as the line above, I was imagining the "typical" American house with a front porch. Not only do I not live in one now, I never have! Why do I write this way, then? To a certain degree I am just using figures of speech that are established in the (American) English language. To another extent I think I am instinctively trying to identify with "my" culture, without really knowing what "my" culture is. I have left it behind, in a certain sense, but yet I still carry it around with me and probably always will. So far, despite two years overseas, American life is still my idea of "typical." We'll see how long that lasts.

One thing I know, and I am increasingly grateful for it, is that God is constant. His nature is constant, His love is constant, His righteousness is constant, His justice is constant, and His kingdom values do not change. David did a lot of wandering, but I think he realized that when he was in God's presence he was always home. That is why He wrote "Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere." (Psalm 84:10)

Don't Squander Blessings

Isaiah 30:22,23 "You will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, 'Be gone!'  Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture." (NASB)

When they finally destroy their idols, God will send the rain that they need and all of the other blessings. If we trust an idol and all goes well, we give credit to the idol and our souls wander ever farther from the God who loves us and doesn’t want to see us ruined. Perhaps sometimes in His love for us He witholds blessings from us in order to keep that from happening. Maybe that is why God says to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and [then] all these things will be added to you.” (Matt 6:33)

There is a practical aspect to this as well. All gifts bring complications. Small gifts bring small complications. If I get a snow globe I will need to clear off a little space for it on top of my bookshelf. Bigger gifts bring bigger complications. What kind of complications might a new puppy bring into my life? It is immensely helpful to know the origin of a gift so that when these complications arise, you know where to go for help.

Let’s say somebody gave me a new bicycle. That’s fantastic! But it is still in the box, it needs to be assembled, and there is no instruction manual. I need to know where the bike came from, which manufacturer, so I can figure out how to put it together. Later I’ll want some extra parts, like a rack and mud flaps. As the bike wears out, eventually I’ll need replacement parts.

If somebody just dropped the box on my doorstep I would be quite at a loss about how to deal with these things. However, if the owner of a bicycle shop puts the bike on my porch and gives me his phone number, I can call him whenever I need help. He can supply me with parts, give me advice, help me to put it together, and fix it when it breaks.

This is how God is. He not only manufactures the bike, He wants to help us put it together and show us how to keep it in top condition. If we refuse to acknowledge that it is from Him and instead put it together our own way, ride it however we want, and repair it with whatever seems to work best to us, the bicycle will never be what it should have been. I think marriage is like that, as are many other of life's greatest gifts. The only way we can properly benefit from them are through an ongoing relationship with the Giver.

And I thought French numbers were confusing....

The local language has a base 5 number system. Sort of. The number 98 is written

"Juróom ñeent fukk ak juróom ñett"

Which litterally means "five four ten and five three." In other words,

10*(5+4) + 5 + 3

Money is even more fun. Rather than counting money in the actual currency of the country, they count it in coins. The smallest coin is worth 5. So something that costs 5000 in French or English costs 1000 in the local language. It is like saying that a shirt costs 500 nickles rather than saying that it costs 25 dollars.

So lets say you want to buy something using the local language. Not only do you have to make sense out of a vendor telling you "two hundred and five three ten," you then have to multiply that by five in your head to figure out that he wants 1400. And then, since the thing is probably worth half that much and he fully expects you to bargain it down to that price, you need to quickly divide 600 or 700 by 5 to give him your opening bid. That's too much work, so you go with 500. So you tell him, "hundred nickles." He acts shocked at your outrageous suggestion and says maybe he can give it to you for 260 nickles. Rather than trying to figure out in your head how much that actually as, you simply match his shocked expression and insist that no, 140 nickles would be a much more realistic price. He laughs, possibly because he is enjoying this but more likely because he thinks your accent is hilarious, and suggests 240. After another exchange or two like this you have him down to 220. At this point you have a choice. You can pay the 220 or you can hold out for a lower price. If you are patient enough, and it might eventually require walking half way out the door and then pausing there, he will offer it to you for under 200. Otherwise, if you wish to spend your evening doing some other activity, you need to quickly do the mental math to figure out how much money to hand over. 220x5= um... um... um... It's somewhere between 1000 and 2000. You hand over a 2000 note and then wait while he asks a couple of his buddies for change. You get 900 back, which you assume is correct, and happily head home. Once there you can go online, find the current exchange rate between the local currency and the dollar, and discover that you have just paid $2.51. 

And that, my friends, is why I still do all my bargaining in French. Hopefully one day I will be able to shop in the local language.

Predestination

Such was the announced topic of the sermon this morning. The pastor didn't do a particularly good job of sticking to the subject, though, which I appreciated. As my friend M said later, if I was particularly keen on learning the theology behind predestination it would have been a very disappointing sermon, but since he and I are both pretty well settled on it (and we even agree!) we both enjoyed it. At least the pastor includes a lot of scripture. I generally don't even bother turning to the passages he quotes because I can't flip that fast, despite my AWANA training. I just write down the passages and the basic ideas he highlighted in each of them and then go back through at my own speed later. That way I can think and pray about it.

One thing that has always amused me is the way that even self-proclaimed atheists seem to suddenly believe in predestination when they fall in love (and Christians do so even more). "It's meant to be. He/She is the one I have been waiting for..." I'm sorry, but if you don't believe in God then it can not be "meant" to be. Who could have meant it? And why should you believe that there is "one" to wait for? Pick any one you like, but don't resort to justifying it with theology you don't believe.

Or do we really believe it after all? When I was in Europe I was amazed at the popularity of horoscopes. The same people who mock Christians for their silly beliefs align their lives according to a generic platitude in the daily newspaper. I heard that France picked the players for their World Cup soccer team based partially on which month they were born (and look how well it worked!) Rather than believing in a well-defined but invisible God, they choose to believe in an intangible, unintelligible, and ill-defined collection of superstitions. Why? I think it is because God has placed in us a need to believe in order. We need to believe that there is Someone bigger than us controlling the world, because we see that we are doing a lousy job of it and probably always will. We have moments of optimism when we think that we have everything under control, but when we really need to be sure we instinctively start looking for super(above and beyond)-natural input.

So anyway, that's 2 cents out of my dollar on predestination. Oh, and I'm not a Calvinist-which makes the last 50 cents of that theology really fun!

Well, that did the trick...

Last night the party was going strong until 11:38 when God sent a timely power cut. Things wrapped up pretty quickly after that! Then the power came back on half an hour later so I got to sleep with the fan... God is definitely looking out for me.

Today I took a car rapide (public transportation) to visit two of my friends but I got off too early and ended up wandering around for an hour and a half looking for their house. Half of the streets here run at 90 degree angles and half run in random curves and I can never keep track which ones do which and where. Also, I forgot my all-important compass at home. I probably could have cut my wandering by a good 50 minutes if I had been carrying my compass. Though the sun was in full view (and blazing hot) my shadow didn't do me much good for finding my directions at 1:00 in the afternoon. By the time I had circled the same (wrong) neighborhood three times, I am pretty sure the vendors along the street were taking bets on how many more times I would go around before I hailed a taxi.

Thank you, R, for coming and finally rescuing me. I don't think I ever would have found the place otherwise. I did get pretty close, though! After that adventure I had a very enjoyable afternoon eating, playing games (did you know that there is a card game version of Monopoly?), and chatting in French with my friends and two other young ladies from their church. And then I came home, ate leftovers, played some guitar, and did more chatting in French with my apartment mate P. And now I had better high-tail it to bed so I can get up for church tomorrow.

There is a HAPPENIN' Party going on next door.

I guess one of the neighbor kids is having a birthday. They have been cranking out the dance tunes since about 7:00 and they are still going at it. I just hope they put the kiddies to bed and wind down before midnight!

A couple of months ago some of our African colleagues showed us how to do a proper Jola dance. The more energetic parts remind me a lot of exercises I used to do with track team at 5:30 in the morning, and they require at least as much coordination! So far that is the only time I have gotten to do any African dancing but I have gotten in on a couple of Scottish dances since I got here which are at least as much fun.

Video

I have now added a video to my dropbox as well:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31075295/Beersheba%20trip%20web.mov

Holidays

I'm still trying to get used to holidays here. We don't have a memorial day, or a 4th of July (the very idea mortifies my British colleagues!) or a Thanksgiving. Instead we have religious festivals that I never heard of before I got here. I sometimes haven't even taken them off from work, but I might start doing so to replace the holidays I'm missing.

But I have gotten in some fun times anyway! A week ago some guys and I took Friday off and we went camping again at Beersheba. This time we made it a bit more of a retreat. I took lots of wildlife photos, including a really strange bird- the Nightjar, which has a black feather attached to each of its wings with a cord kind of thing. It was a wonderful time! As before, I have posted the photos to dropbox.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/31075295/1/Beersheba%202?h=c91fa6

Here is a video of the trip:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31075295/Beersheba%20trip%20web.mov