This Generation

First of all, allow me to say that "I'm home!" I think you probably already knew that, but perhaps you didn't. Either way, feel free to call me or email me so we can chat face-to-face. That's what the church is all about! This morning I was reading either Luke 11 or Matthew 12 (I don't remember which), where Jesus says that "the men of Ninevah will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here." (NIV) I then went out on a run. As I ran I started thinking about a cartoon that I found on Facebook. It shows a Sunday School teacher at the whiteboard. On the board is what looks like a long family tree. At the far end, one of the dozens of lines is circled. The teacher says, "This is where we came along and finally got it right." One of the students says, "Isn't Jesus lucky!?" As I ran, this idea of denominational division began to clash in my mind with Jesus' rebuke to "this generation." When He said that, he was speaking to a mixed crowd. Some were Sadducees, convinced that they were obeying God's law. Others were Pharisees, who looked down on the Sadducees because of their incomplete interpretation of the law. Surely they, the Pharisees, would stand proudly at the judgment day as God rebuked the Saducees for their lack of faith. Then there were the zealots who believed that God wanted to use them to free His holy people from the sinful Romans. In addition, there was every brand of average Joe who was trying hard to please God as he saw fit. Little did they know that, on that day, they were to witness a preview of the Day of Judgment. Jesus didn't waste time with their quarrels and disputes and heated debates about the finer points of Jewish theology. Instead He said, probably with anguish in His voice, "You are all so busy with your religion that you are missing God!" God doesn't want us to prove that we are right so that He can stand us up at the judgment day and say, "Look at my faithful servants who figured out My Words." No! He holds us responsible for our generation. We ARE the church. All of us. Together. With all of our differences of interpretation and practice.* To each of us and all of us He has given the exact same challenge. He expects us to follow it as individuals and He expects us to encourage, support, and exhort one another to embrace that challenge, including those in other denominations. True religion is very simple. Love God with everything you are and everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself. Those two things will keep us busy enough for our entire life. May we, as the entire body of Christ, repent and pursue God before we miss Him entirely! *obviously I'm not including Jehovah's Witnesses or other groups who deny the deity of Jesus or other basic elements of the Christian creed.

Faith and Hope

Recently I have been reading through a men's devotional book. This morning was about how struggles and hard times can shake our faith in God, but if we continue to seek Him and to reflect on His past faithfulness they can be an opportunity for our faith to grow deeper and stronger. It caused me to spend some time writing in my gratitude journal, something I've neglected to do for far too long. My hope is that my records of God's faithfulness will help me to stand strong when I find it hard to trust Him. Then I got on with my day and, as too often happens, largely forgot about my morning reflections. As I was hanging out the laundry, however, my apartment mate gave me an illustration for my reflections. He said, "I just realized that our grape vine lives on faith. Look, it's already producing leaves and we haven't had any rain yet." It's true. We haven't had any rain in this country since October. All of the leaves from last rain season have long since shrivelled up, fallen off, and turned into dusty little bits swirling around in the hot breeze on our patio. Our poor grapevine hasn't seen a drop of rain in 8 months, and yet this week it is putting out big, green leaves. As I thought about it I realized that the mango trees have started producing loads of juicy mangoes as well, and they must be using up their last precious stores of water to do so. All of the plants in this country have started to bloom and blossom and produce fruit- and all of them are doing so because they "trust" that God will send rain soon. It is programmed into their DNA to prepare for the rain before it actually falls. God hasn't programmed us to trust Him; it requires a daily decision of faith. Sometimes that choice is hard, but if we want to grow and flourish we would be wise to look to the trees which have been doing so for hundreds of years by living in faith.

whack-a-mole

I got two moles whacked off today, but I'm the one with the spinning head! The dermatologist didn't give me quite enough anesthetic for the first one so he really loaded me up before he removed the second one. I told him that I didn't mind a little bit of pain but I guess I must have been flinching and making him nervous or something. Anyway, I had a good bit of numbness by the time he was done, and now I'm still feeling a bit dizzy an hour and a half later. This must be what it's like to be drunk. Way over-rated, in my opinion! I'm not so much looking forward to the stuff wearing off, though. I didn't write down which pain killer he recommended and now I've forgotten it, so I'm planning to do without. It's weird, I had two moles removed a couple years ago and I remember it being a total non-event. I don't think it even hurt, at least not more than a scraped elbow. This time he must have gone a lot deeper because he said he put sutures in and I need to go back in 11 days so he can remove them. This was like a proper surgery! And he used a laser, which makes it cool. At any rate, I thank God for a good dermatologist here who could take care of these things.

Do not be dismayed.

When God called Jeremiah He said to him: "Speak to [the rulers of Judah] all which I command you. Do not be dismayed before them, or I will be dismay you before them." So often we think that others terrify us, that situations terrify us, that we can't possibly cope with the pressure, and we cry out to God for help. His reply is, "I have already overcome the world. Quit allowing yourself to fear." Fear is not thrust upon us; we choose it for ourself. We need to diligently trust God and allow His love to push us past our fears.

Vacay

Last weekend my fiancée and I got away for three days with some friends. It was a wonderful chance to relax and recoup before the busyness of this past week (which will continue next week!). Here are some pictures of the weekend. Our friends found an entire villa that they could rent out as a family, and they invited us to join them there. I told my fiancée that the place felt like Rivendell- a place where we could rest between adventures. In some aspects it looked like it, as well.

It was near a lagoon so there were many birds flitting about.

There was also this rather bizarre insect/creature/thing. It was as large as the palm of my hand!

One of the great things about the place was the pool.

We ate well thanks to our friends, who are great cooks.

It was wonderful to be far from the city, amongst the birds and stars and fresh air. We even got up to watch the sunrise on Easter morning.

Beginnings

I seem to be celebrating many new beginnings right now. Many of my friends are having babies or getting engaged. Even my best friend has just gotten engaged, and she got engaged to me! I praise God for all of these new beginnings, all of these big reminders that He is a God who is always at work. He is always building, always creating, always growing something, sometimes more obviously than others.

In this post I would like to celebrate some smaller new beginnings. When my parents visited last fall they brought a whole bunch of seeds. I should have planted them right away but we have a small problem (and some of them aren't very small) on our porch- rats. They love digging up our flower pots looking for food. I knew that if I planted seed they would eat it before it ever had half a chance to grow. Then, a couple of weeks ago, my superhero roommate brought home some chicken wire. Last Wednesday night I decided that the fullness of time allotted for my gardening woes had been fulled.

Now, you may remember that I bought a garden-in-a-box last year. That little endeavor met with mixed success. The tomato plant didn't do well in the move and never produced a single tomato. The spring onion and chive looked identical to me, and since I couldn't tell which was which I never used them. The dill died a mysterious death. The basil plant, however, grew into a veritable bush. I have an entire ziploc bag of basil in my freezer, my uneducated attempt at freeze-drying (it's supposed to preserve more nutrients and flavor than regular drying). Then my bush died when I was out of the country visiting my girlfriend for a week and a half in the middle of hot season and nobody bothered to water it. Ah well, you win some and you loose some.

I later planted some ginger in the deserted planter box and to my utter astonishment it began to sprout.  Unfortunately the rats noticed it as well. Thus ended the ginger.

All of that to say, I had an empty planter box that needed filling, and once I got some chicken wire it was high time I filled it. I put in a row of lettuce and a row of beans. In just two days, the entire row of lettuce came up and one little lonely bean plant:

I was quite surprised at the sudden appearance of the lettuce plants. I watered the whole planter box and waited to see what would happen. By the following evening, almost the whole row of bean plants had poked out of the surface and were already four times the height of the lettuce plants! Tonight, just 5 nights after planting, the bean plants are going to town. They are now taller than my longest fingers by a good margin.

Meanwhile the lettuce doesn't seem to have grown hardly at all. Even though it came up more quickly than the row of beans, now it hardly seems to have grown at all by comparison. I think sometimes life is like that. We expect some things to come quickly but instead we end up waiting for them almost indefinitely, while other gifts spring up in our lives before we even realize how much we need them. In either situation, the key is to keep rejoicing in the sun!

Almost Engaged

Two weeks ago my girlfriend and I got engaged. We told our parents, then our siblings, then our coworkers, and then our partners back home. I also called the pastor to find out how to announce our decision to our church here. He responded by inviting my fiancée and I to a meeting of the elders of the church.

I hadn't quite expected that.

She and I went to the church last Friday for our meeting. We had no clue whether a special meeting had been called for us or whether we had been invited to a marriage prep course with some other couples, or if we were simply being slotted into a weekly elders meeting. We also had no idea what would happen at the meeting. Were they going to bless us? Was this just a formality? Or where we in trouble? Maybe they expected us to have asked their permission before getting engaged. Maybe they were going to scrutinise our theology and "candidacy" for marriage. Or maybe they just enjoy getting to know the future couples in their church.

We spent a good 20 minutes in the secretary's office, waiting for all of the elders to arrive so the meeting could start. When at last they were all present, we went up and took our places at the table with the pastor and three elders. Then the pastor turned to me and said, "Thank you for coming, the floor is yours."

Haha! I can only laugh looking back on it. I had absolutely no idea what to say because I had no idea why we were there. Was this a "getting to know you" session or an inquisition? I had to guess quickly, and I had to do it in French. I started by introducing us, thanked the church for supporting me for the past year and a half that I have attended, and then took the rather bold step of saying that we had already decided to get married and had told our families and coworkers, and now we wished to share the news with the church as well... but since I was a westerner I wasn't really sure how to do that in an African church.

The pastor asked us the date. We said that we didn't know exactly yet. We had already contacted my fiancées home church, where we were planning to get married some time this fall, but the exact date had not yet been fixed. The pastor then very graciously explained that wedding engagements are never made until the date has been decided and both sets of parents have consented to the marriage, in writing, to the church. Otherwise any two young people could announce in front of the church that they are going to get married and then create a scandal when the parents find out about it second-hand, or don't even find out until after the marriage. In the African context it is unthinkable to marry without the consent (and deep involvement) of the parents, so it is understandable that the church doesn't want to get caught in the crossfire.  

I apologised for the confusion and said that we would let them know when we had a date. We also offered to ask our parents to write to the church. After thinking about it for a second or two, the pastor said that since neither of us were African and we were planning to get married back home, it probably wasn't necessary for our parents to write. As soon as we had a date fixed, we could make the formal announcement in front of the church. "That should really encourage the young people, to see two people committed to marriage," he said. And once we did that, we would be officially engaged. We thanked them again, they prayed for us, and we left the meeting.

So, apparently in the local culture we aren't engaged yet. We aren't exactly sure what was accomplished in the meeting, but it certainly was an adventure!

Commerce on the Go

Recently I witnessed a very unique sales technique- hitching a ride.  I was riding home in a transportation van in the evening. I was sitting next to the door and a man was sitting across from me who did not have the exact change for his fare. He asked for change, so at the next stop the fare collector guy ran off to get some. He was gone for quite a while, and I noticed that there was a man selling bread alongside the road. He was almost close enough to the side of the van that I could pass him money through the window. I thought about doing this, but didn't have the exact change and figured the man wouldn't have time to dig around for change before the fare collector came back and we left. As I was thinking this, the man sitting across from me signalled to the seller next to the bread man, who had eggs for sale. As the egg man came walking over the van, our fare collector reappeared. The egg man reached the van just before him and thrust the two eggs towards my co-traveler. But the price of eggs is only slightly more than the price of the van ride, and the man still didn't have any change. He tried to motion to the egg man that he wasn't interested after all, that he would get the eggs another time. The egg man either didn't understand or felt like being stubborn, so he kept thrusting the eggs through the door. Meanwhile our fare man had jumped on, and even before his feet were in the doorway the van had begun to roll forward. Soon the egg man was running along behind the van as fast as he could go, still holding out the eggs. The man across from me saw that he was going to be buying the eggs whether he wanted to or not, so he tried as quickly as he could to get change from the fare man so he could pay the egg man. This exchange took too long, however. The egg man couldn't keep up the pace and was forced to hop onto the bumper and ride along on the back of the van. When at last the fare man had given change to the passenger so the passenger could pay the egg man, we were a good block away from the egg stand and moving at a good clip. The egg man ended up riding several blocks before we stopped and he could jump off. All of that for about fifty cents! Talk about dedication to your job.

Bazaar

Two guys I know have been trying to sell off stuff before heading back to the US, where they live. Some of it they sold but a lot of it they didn't, so tonight they just gave us a whole load of stuff. I now have enough pens and notebooks to last the rest of the year, enough kleenex to last me a month or two, several new books to look through, and dozens of batteries and adapters and cords of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions. And that is just the normal stuff. We also have whole bags full of organic medicine and supplements and teas- stuff that I have never used and have no clue HOW to use. Maybe I'll magically become healthy and handsome and strong if I start using it. Only one way to find out!

Other items of note include a guitar microphone and a guitar humidifier. My friend who got rid of them didn't even know what they were- I had to tell him! There is a scary-looking but rather dull knife. I got one of those huge balance balls to do ab workouts. There is a pile of random clothing to dig through when I have the time. There is an eclectic mix of music, enough emergency supplies to outfit an ambulance, two camelbak water tanks but no backpack to hold them, and a whole bunch of well-used water bottles.

By far the most curious, however, is an unmarked handgun and 7 shells to go with it. The shells are game shells and though I haven't had a close look, I'm guessing they are 4-10 or something in the neighborhood. I mean really, who would want to put anything larger than a 4-10 cartridge in a handgun, especially one with no sights?

All told, I feel like somebody had a garage sale in my living room and left in the middle of it. It's kind of fun!

Yay for exercise!

If every day were like today, I'd be fit in no time! This morning I hauled a bag of equipment from one building to another in an old military sack. It was at least half my weight and I carried it more than 100 yards, including some stairs. Later in the day I found myself making the same trip with some wooden planks... and then doing half of it again with two big concrete pots.

After work my girlfriend and I walked/jogged a mile or two to a nearby school, where we played volleyball until dark.

Shortly after I got home two guys showed up who will be living with my roommate and I and I helped them drag all their life possessions up to our apartment on the second floor.

This is fantastic! I wish every day could be like today.

Games

 I have three games currently "in the works." One is a Capture the Flag- inspired board game. I first made it four or five years ago and have now brought it back to life with an extra twist. I played a team version of it (4 players) with some of my friends and it seemed to work pretty well. It also gave me some new ideas to make it better.

Another game is an entirely unique and original creation. I made a trial version a couple of years ago that didn't work too well but now I have some ideas that should make it both workable and fun.

And finally, I realised that my entire living room/dining room area, not to mention every other room in our apartment, is made up of small tiles. It's like the world's largest board game grid! This is naturally asking for any number of games to be played on it. The one I am currently working on is a battleship game. I've researched a couple dozen ships from the German, Japanese, American, French, and British navies during World War II. Now comes the part where I decide how much of that data is relevant and how much needs to be simplified so that the game doesn't take 5 years to play. It is quite fascinating though. I am tempted to include all of those nit-picky details because it would allow me to play out endless "what if" scenarios. What if the Arizona hadn't sunk at Pearl Harbor? What if the only German aircraft carrier of the war had actually seen action? What if the Yamato had been allowed to meet the American fleet rather than being sent to its grave by airplanes? What if the Graf Spee had not been scuttled because of false information? I don't know if I'll ever complete the game but I'm learning a lot of fascinating history as I work on it.

She's back!

My girlfriend got back to town last night. She'll be here for two precious weeks, so I am scheming how to make the most of it. Last night I made shepherd's pie for the first time in my life for her and her roommate. I also made an apple coffee cake that turned out really nice. And we goofed around with a straw that says "ho ho ho, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" when you blow water through it. It's the little things that count :-)

Decorations

Here are the decorations that Aranel and I put up in December. Soon I will be taking them down, now that Martino has returned to see them, but I thought it a shame to not get a panoramic picture first.

Day on the town

 I was standing at the bus stop Saturday morning, waiting for a bus to take me to a dr. appointment, when my neighbors drove past. When they found out where I was going they offered to take me most of the way, so I hopped in. Once we arrived at their destination I walked on foot to the doctor's office. It took me a while to find the place because I had never been there and the directions I had been given included landmarks which had changed. I finally found the place and went in. I spent about five minutes with the doctor and that was that.

I called my friends to see where they were. They gave me a general idea and I started walking again. I ended up walking up and down four side streets before I found them. They were hanging out in a T-shirt shop whose owner is the world's biggest fan of John Denver. They had a girl with them whose father had once fixed John Denver's telephone line. The owner therefore thought her one of the most fascinating and important people he had ever met.

After that we visited a souvenir shop and two different "dollar store" shops. I had visited the souvenir shop before but the other two places were new to me (as was the T-shirt shop). Now I know where I can buy kitchen supplies for half of what I would pay at the regular places that expats shop. Of course the quality isn't the same, but for some things it doesn't matter.

 After that we visited a place where guys make sand paintings. I think that was the coolest part of the day. One of the guys showed us how they make the paintings and told us where each of the types of sand comes from. Some comes from this country and some from neighboring countries. As he listed off places I had visited I could visualize the red or white or dark brown sand at my feet. It had never occurred to me that such stuff could be turned into artwork. He said that even the glue comes from the sap of a local tree. I was highly impressed.

After that we visited two different grocery stores. One was an "American store" where I could have bought all kinds of American brand-name food for about twice what it would cost in the states. I refrained. The second was an Indian-run store that sells lots of British goods for cheaper prices than most of the French stores around. I loaded up there on all kinds of stuff. The price tag determines my diet, and if I am what I eat I will be British in no time!

All of this happened on a morning when I was expecting to do nothing but go to the doctor. In one morning I think I saw more new stores than I had seen in the past year. Not bad for an unplanned trip!

Something Missing

Sometimes I get this strange feeling that something inside me is not quite satisfied, that there is something specific that is missing. It makes me edgy, nervous, uneasy. I start listening to a song but switch to another one half way through because it isn't quite I'm looking for. I try to find a beautiful picture online that stirs me. I look for some idea or game or video that grabs my imagination. I usually end up wasting time doing something I never intended to do, like watching pointless videos on YouTube or reading a whole series of political rants that don't actually interest me that much.

I could point to all kinds of causes for this. My favorite theory is aesthetic starvation. I live and work in a place that I don't find attractive, which leaves me longing for somewhere-anywhere- that is lush and natural. I could blame it on overstimulation. I am so constantly surrounded by noise and chaos and confusion and smells and colors that I sometimes just want to hide under four layers of sound-proofing material.  I could blame it on loneliness. My roommate has been gone for a month and I haven't seen my girlfriend in more than a week. But I know that my biggest problem isn't really any of those things. Not just at a mental level- I can FEEL that it isn't any of those things.

You know what is really stupid? I know exactly where I am lacking. At least I assume I do. I went to Sunday School- I learned the answer. For some reason the actual day-to-day living out of that truth is a challenge. For some reason I often find myself trying to meet that need somehow else, as if I were trying to satisfy my hunger by showering more often or satisfy my need for love by eating more. Sometimes it is really a struggle to get anything out of what I am reading in the Bible- if I manage to get my Bible open long enough to even focus on what I am reading before my mind kicks into overdrive on various wild tangents.  When I'm not getting much out of scripture, it makes it hard for me to worship.  When I am not living a life of worship, it becomes very laborious and unnatural to pray.

Tonight I sat with my guitar for an hour and sang worship songs. That made a big difference. I wish I had done it six hours earlier in the day, but I guess late is better than never. 

The good news is, God's mercies are new every morning. May I become better at accepting them!