Saturday, August 31, 2013

On Idols



I listened to a sermon by Matt Chandler called “American Monkeys” talking about idols- he was pointing out aspects of life  that we as American Christians tend to idolize. He told a story about visiting a Monkey Temple in India, then continued to draw comparisons between those literal idols in India to the idols we have in our culture.  This is one of my favorite messages to listen to- I think I will need it especially around home assignment time. Here is a great excerpt:

“What I’ve found about missions trips is this: you tend to romanticize the culture you’re in and feel bad about  your home culture….but here’s the reality, in all cultures everywhere, there are good, beautiful, God-besotted, rhythmic, redeemed things, and there are rebellious wicked things that in the end, the scriptures command to be set straight.” 

It has been so easy to find sinful aspects of the culture here. I have not grown up with those practices being considered normal everyday life. But I have come to learn that there are aspects of my home culture that are just as obviously sinful to outsiders to which I have been blinded. 

 I think leaving my own culture has really helped me in seeing places in my life that where I am not living like Jesus calls Christians to live. Most of the areas I am finding are the more culturally accepted sins in American culture. It’s like that whole, ‘you boil a frog in the pot with a slow heat, that way he won’t jump out, but just gradually cook unawares’ thing. For me it has taken leaving the gradually heating waters of compromising movies and media, overeating and overspending to see that these are areas in my life that I had just melded to my environment instead of following the standards set in the Bible. 

Matt Chandler gives ten questions he got from Timothy Keller to help us identify idols in our lives. Chandler talked a lot about how American Christians tend to idolize relationships with children/family. This hit me hard- a lot of the answers to the below questions had to with my family. It is biblical and godly to love my family and want their best, as long as my relationship with Jesus is still the strongest and most important relationship in my life. 

What are you most afraid of?
What motivates the things that you do?
What is one thing that can change your mood in a second?
What consumes most of your thoughts and feelings?
What brings the highest amount of frustration and anger in your life?
What would your friends say is your favorite topic of conversation?
What do you yearn for?
What is one thing that you wish God would do for you?
What are some things that you feel you can’t live with?
 What brings you solace?
I hope this challenges you as it has me.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Ever since I was little I have loved "keeping in touch." After summer camp I pen-palled with friends 'til they dropped the ball. I had years of exchanging letters with several friends, through middle and part of high school. That is just part of who I am, I love staying in contact and feeling connected. As I have grown up, I have seen how this become harder and harder as life happens. And, apparently, boys don't share  this need to keep updated on their friends' lives. Weird.
    As a missionary living in Africa, you can see how this can be problematic. One of my concerns is coming home on home assignment and not really knowing how to make conversation with friends and family. I'll feel like a dork for not knowing any real details about their lives for the last year or two. "Oh, you moved for your job..what's your job again?" "Oh, you guys broke up? Ten months ago? Ohh.." These are the dialogues I would like to avoid. 
   So i have tried the whole "email me and let me know how you are doing" line in newsletters, and for the precious few who have responded, you really are precious! You have helped me feel connected even on days when I feel completely disconnected and far away. Also, hearing about your problems in America helps me remember that we will have problems wherever we go until we get to Heaven, so my African problems are no bigger than yours!
    This post wasn't meant as a guilt trip for those of you who have not emailed me...but if you are feeling guilty the best way to assuage said guilt is to drop me a line or two about life lately in your neck of the woods!

Sunday, August 18, 2013

On Driving

 “The road…it can beat you!” A visitor from Liberia made that statement after being on the roads here in our area. What a great way to put it.
I remember when I was trying to get a good picture of life here in West Africa while talking to Brittany in Texas, I asked her what some of the hardest parts of life here were. She listed traveling the roads in her top three. I so understand that now. This post is not designed as a woe-is-me rant about driving, rather a way you can see how to better pray for us when I say we need prayers while driving.
The roads are bad. This statement doesn’t seem to cover it really. We just finished our tree day trek to the capital, the last day we took a road that resembled a dry creek bed at parts. The thing for me that is so fatiguing about driving here is it is just a never-ending chain of decisions to be made: right, left or through the mud hole? Is four wheel drive through this part necessary? Should I brake for that chicken or depend on its supposed survival instinct to cause it to move? Which is preferable, those rocks or that mucky mud? What do I want to eat out of our travel-snack basket? Should I go into third even though I know I will slow down for a pothole five seconds later? Some questions can be easily answered through experience, regarding snacks for example, peanut butter jars should be opened only on paved roads.
The roads here are worked on, generally grated. The problem is every year at rainy season the semi-trucks carrying gas in wear out the road again. It is kind of just an accepted cycle as I understand it.  Being a passenger is hard in a different way: the driver has the steering wheel to hold onto- the passenger does have a couple of handles, but it is just a rough ride however braced you are.
Poor Betty (our truck), we have aged her sadly. We are trying to be responsible of course, nonetheless the jolts and bumps she goes through are making her look much older than her nine months of being driven.
Quick anecdote from this last trip: one of our African friends asked us if we could haul some tin to his house, and give his ride there too. The village is right on the way between the capital and our destination, so we said we would. We loaded our stuff first and had him tie down his tin how he thought best. It looked awkward, but we trusted his tying skills. About ten minutes after leaving the compound the morning of our departure, I am at an intersection when we hear and feel the metal leave our truck and fall to the street. The edges of the tin were just like a knife working those ropes and bungee cords. What followed with the police was a loud, gesturing, crowded, cultural argument of which I took no part in, staying in the truck while our friend who had loaded and owned the tin did the debating. This was probably the best thing we white people could have done in this situation, let our friend handle it for us. In the end, we didn’t end up paying any fines, the tin was tied better, and we were off, God is good.
I have never been an adrenaline junkie: not big on roller coasters or scary movies, if someone asked me if I wanted to go mudding or off-roading in the states I would not think twice before refusing. God is funny.  Our routine prayer before going through a stream or pool of water, or other rough patch is “ok God, here we are again, please get us through.”  And He always has, and even if He didn’t, I know He would work it out.