Since I wrote to you last, I have harvested maize by hand in the hot African sun. I have cleared half of a maize field. I have helped slash a field for plowing. I have ox plowed said field-and then let the boys take back over, since my rows weren't straight. I have also driven the oxen, that was a little easier. I love hard work, and I love working on a farm. Who knew I would love it so much? It is so good to work hard, but work hard in a way that is immediately visible and uncomplicated. A field needs clearing, so you clear it. The maize needs harvesting, so you harvest it. No politics involved, no complicated issues that make your head and heart hurt, trying to find the lesser of two evils. It is great. It accomplishes something important, people get to eat. Kids learn to work hard, and I learn about them. It's just good.
Wow, it has been an amazing month! God has done so much, and I don't even know how to tell you about all of it. Before I left, in a flurry of activity, I had become so busy with holidays, trip prep and all that I didn't spend much quality time with God. Then, when I got here, although I could see Him at work here, I wasn't able to sense Him. That's a problem. What am I doing here if I am not following Him? and how can you follow someone you've lost track of? How is He to be God in my life, if I am too busy with myself to really talk to Him? So I began praying that God would be my God. I asked Him to send into my life that would keep Him at the center. Here is how He is answering that prayer:
Our first couple of weeks, we were sharing our testimonies about how we came to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, things we had been through, good and bad. Then we began talking about worldview, African and Western. It was so interesting to see how each culture developed it's particular sets of thought and reasons why each set of people think, act, behave. I knew I had been shaped by my culture, but had no idea just how much, and how much permeates our churches. Who is shaping our worldview? Is it this world, or is it the person I like to call God? Unfortunately, it's not Him as much as I had hoped.
The next week or so we talked about fear, and how our experience, or someone else's, also shapes what we internalize about not only our culture, but just my daily life, and why I do what I do, what fears do I hold that drive me? We watched a good portion of "The Villiage", which if you have never seen, I highly recommend. It displayed fear and reality in ways I would have thought of. It was very challenging.
For the last week, we have been talking about God's kingdom and ours, God's righteousness and ours. This was very much about what motivates you to do what you do, and who you do it for. This is where it starts hitting me where I live. I had lost track of God in trying to prepare to serve Him. I was working on my kingdom, and with all of the "you are such a great person for doing this thing in Africa" stuff, it was easy to do. I was pretty full of my own good acts (righteousness) and my own activity (my own kingdom) and didn't really need God for people to think I was a good person and cool and impressive and all that stuff. The problem with that is, I'm not powerful enough to save myself, and I'm not powerful enough to live a life that is truly honoring to God, however it looks on the outside.
Also during this week we were confronted with Me-ism (putting myself at the center, looking at the world through my lens) and how we judge everyone else based on the standard of me, not of God, or any good thing, just me. I can't love when I'm busy judging and comparing.
Next we talked about racism and I had to confess that I have prejudice against African American men, based on some of my work experience, some of media experience, but whatever my "justification" is, its still sin. It is still me judging someone with out knowing them or loving the way I have been loved by Christ.
We talked about ethnocentrism, how we believe our culture, or our tribe, is the best one and everyone should think, look, act the way I do. Yikes. On this day, we got with someone of a race different than ours, and we prayed and confessed to one another our sins in the area of racism. I prayed with an Ugandan woman named Grace. We prayed, we confessed, and God moved her to sing, "Create in me a Clean Heart", which we sang together. It was such a beautiful moment, and we committed to be friends after that. It was a God breathed moment I wouldn't trade for anything.
wait, its not over yet...
Last, but not least, we talked about our idols. Idols are the things that I use to define my life, that take God's place, to make sure I am getting my needs met in my way, to make me comfortable. With idols, there is no room for God to be God. At the end of all of this, we spent time confessing to one another about hurts we have based on being judged for our culture, race, ethnicity. It was a very humbling time, and God moved in all of us to confess to one another how we had hurt each other, how we have judged each other, and then we asked for forgiveness. The Spirit of God was there, as we ended with confessing and forgiving. Keith (one of my teachers) ended with scripture talking about the oneness God desires for His church, how there is no difference, we are all part of one another, and one of the students pointed out that the last thing Jesus asked God for before He was crucified, was that we would all be one in Him. It was so beautiful, I wish you all could have been there.
God showed me personally about several of my idols, namely, trying to look like a good person who loves God while I do my own thing, spending money the way I want-simply because I can, living for comfort, swearing-as I like to do too often, and desiring a husband and family more than God-and for my own reasons, not for the kingdom, and not for them-to bless them.
All of this to say, God has been moving in my heart and mind and soul, and all of your prayers are carrying me though this time of examining my heart, and holding it up His light and love, and not being pleased by what I see. So, after all of this, God showed me a picture. I was seeing myself, kneeling before Him with all of these worthless things, telling Him about my sins. He showed me that instead, He was on the throne, I was on His lap with my head on His chest, telling Him my sins, and although He already knew, He was smiling as I was speaking, stroking my hair and giving me the grace I was so in need of. It is so good to be loved by the King, and the hard work is worth it.
