Alright, the internet's been up and running for weeks now. I can even get it in my room, and I have an adapter stolen from the effervescent SA, who kindly ignores my kleptomania (or is morbidly frightened of the troll she currently shares a house with).
I accept full responsibility for my inability to share information with people who like to know I'm alive.
(And then I take the full burden of responsibility, set it on one of the many garbage-hauling donkeys in this fair city, and shoo it away by flapping my arms violently. Metaphorically speaking.)
I am horrific at keeping in touch. Most of you know this. Many of you have tried to kill me for it.
Some of you don't mind because you don't care to read how hot I am (due to the weather, as you're well aware), or how much I hate lizards.
(I love you guys.)
Truthfully, I have been so busy getting sick, going to various practices/meetings/Bible studies, getting just the right the colors/styles of two African oufits that I could countenance wearing, writing 'Matzah Ball Soup for the Christian Soul,' trying to crawl out of bed and look human enough to begin to understand high school math, and keeping up with Advent readings that I just haven't had time to write about my utterly average days. Oh, and I also try to cook every so often (bonus points if I use fresh veggies like... cabbage is pretty much as far as I'm willing to go), and keep from going into a chocolate feeding frenzy.
Some snapshots of the past little while, and the next couple of days:
- Relationships are hard. I mean, really hard. I'll freely admit it: there are days when I have to really try to be sociable, you know? Days when I have to think, 'God, teach me to love,' when what I really want to say is, 'God, I need a big stick and some room to swing.' But this is the first time (since moving out from home) that I have truly dreaded interacting with a specific person. I have no idea when or where things started going horribly wrong, but they just went from bad to worse. We're still speaking now, but it's only because of God's grace. I'd never before realized how blessed I've been in terms of my relationships (especially short-term relationships, what with all the travelling I've been doing recently), but I know that I'll be relying a lot more on God to wash clean all of my words and actions so that I'm not misunderstood or proven guilty by the things I say or do. Another thing to pray against is bitterness for the small things, because they are steady and sure footholds for the devil. I'm not saying I've entirely forgotten the perceived wrongs done to me and started spewing rainbows and butterflies. However, I'm no longer nursing each comment in my heart and thinking, "It's okay. This is how it is. I'm leaving in a month. I can bear this much." It's not Christ-like to suffer those made in His image. And I do it too often. What really bothered me was that I wasn't liked. It was all about me, and my pride got in the way of seeking a true relationship. I was sure that people could be different and still co-exist. Not just co-exist, but also love. I'm not sure if it's because my glasses still have that rosy tint, but I still believe it. I just have to walk a little closer with Him and ask Him to teach me how He does it. The relationship is a little too broken to stand now, and I wish I'd handled things a little differently, but I just... have to thank God for the experience and grow.
- American Thanksgiving was great! Steve and Becky had a magnificent spread, I tried my first cheese ball (in West Africa, if you can imagine), made my first cheese ball for another Thanksgiving dinner, and enjoyed it with fellow 'romantic relationship-challenged' folk (I try my best to be PC). It was basically another opportunity to give thanks for each and every one of His good gifts, especially that I could have this experience on the mission field.
- I can't believe it's almost time for me to come home! I know I have a whole month left, but judging by the way the past three months have sped by, I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow, throw on some clothes, and head to the airport. It's a horrifying thought. All the more so because I'll be going from 30°C to -20°C, give or take a few degrees. I think my body will go into uncontrollable spasms about a week after I land in Canada, when my brain finally thinks, "Wait a cotton-picking-- WHERE IS THE SUN?!" At the other extreme you have one of Steve and Becky's boys, who wears jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a toque because it is one of Mali's coldest months. Meaning it drops to a frigid 20°C in the mornings. (I would like to take this opportunity to admit that it is very chilly in the mornings. I may die in February. You'll find me at a bus station, likely with embarrassing nose icicles. Please come to my funeral.)
- I know some of you wonderful people collect postcards. I have done my duty and sent them. They should be arriving right about now. If they do not, please take out the other postcards you've collected, stare at them in utter contentment for a while, have a brief moment of silence in mourning for the Malian One That Got Away, and then put them all away again. I'm sorry, but they were ridiculously expensive to send, and I just don't think I can condone sending a whole wave of new ones. I pray that you get yours, and apologize in advance in case you don't!
- I was expecting to have the Bible storybook fully done by the end of November... And then I found a stack of blank pages in the Old Testament, where I'd carefully left some work for later. Very kind of me, I thought. Just when you think I'm organised and responsible.
- Tomorrow, there is to be a sale wherein a Malian Santa walks around. I hear he's frightening beyond all reason. So excited - you have no idea.
- I'm actually getting a chance - a minuscule window of opportunity - to use my degree. It's fantastic. Of course, it's about three months too late, but it's nice to think that my education was good for something. (Of course, the excess of math classes I somehow ended up taking was clearly for a higher purpose. If You'd just explained at the time, God, I feel certain I would have felt happier about calculus with a crazy Chinese lady. Twice.) One of the other teachers at the school has, in the past, talked about the need for counselling in the mission field. It's all well and good to share His love with unreached people groups, but what happens when missionaries themselves begin to unravel at the seams? They need people to minister to them as well, whether that means behavioral therapy (for children, or depression, etc.), marriage counselling... It's sort of like Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: Missionary Edition, if that makes any sense at all. Not only do we need people going out to share the word, we also need to provide for these disciples. (It definitely says this somewhere in Acts and in 2 Corinthians. It would be helpful if I could remember verses instead of vague ideas. But I don't.)
- I'm going through a daily Advent devotional thing. It totally wasn't my idea. (When do I ever think, of my own free will, that I want to spend more time with God?!) But a few of the missionaries here were doing it, and when I heard it was like Lent (oh, how I love Lent - it makes Easter that much more glorious), I couldn't resist. I'm having a bit of a hard time this year because Christmas, to me, does not look like red dirt, sweat, and a haze of dust. I thought I'd distanced myself from the North American consumer-Christmas, but I never realized how much I relied on malls, snow, stores, snow, decor, snow, music, snow, and advertising to put me in the mood for Christmas. None of the involves Jesus. Why does that equal Christmas to me? It was a bit of an embarrassing discovery - like realizing you had a strand of spinach snugly wrapped around your front tooth while you grinned and chatted to your coworkers, who probably thought you looked like a toothless pirate. (This is in no way a personal experience.) What is one way to magnify Christmas in a land with no semblance of a White Christmas, No Christmas Tree, No Christmas Tree, and no hope of Let it Snow? Spend time with Jesus! And it's been a blessing.
- I will be part of a chorus singing Handel's Messiah. (I will be the one in the far left, lip synching like nobody's business.) Looking forward to the performance in a week's time!
- A bunch of us were supposed to go to Dogon Country sometime. And then three foreigners were kidnapped (one was shot then and there), and everyone was evacuated out of the north of Mali. So we decided against being kidnapped and possibly killed for Christmas. If you could all pray for the safety of the missionaries in West Africa at this time, that would be wonderful.
- There have been a few injuries and surgeries and all sorts of other things that involve missionaries returning to their homes in North America for some much-needed rest and recuperation, so we need prayers for comfort and healing, and also that God would raise up new missionaries, that they would hear Him calling, and come out here! I especially ask for prayers for a new administrator for the school I'm helping out at right now.
Thank you all for your concern and interest in what's going on over here, as well as your patience with me when I think that I'm far too busy to be doing silly things like making prayer requests.
God bless during this special season of Advent!
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