Hands holding

Last year I wrote about an experience I had the first day we toured the project, when we visited the 1st grade classroom. We sat in the desks as their teacher and my teacher explained from the front about the class, the school, the education philosophy, what they are learning, how many were enrolled, etc, etc. I remembered nothing afterwards but the experience I had with one of the children – a blinking game with the wide-eyed girl in front of me who had turned around in her seat to see me. Yesterday I had the same surreal experience. Which I didn’t realize until today when Janine referred to the bakery site we had visited yesterday... The bakery that is being built near the preschool classrooms in Mafarania. ‘Oh, yeah, um I do remember you saying we were stopping to see it and then walking up by the classrooms…’ but by the time I reached center court I had a large entourage of children walking with me – each of them trying to hold a piece of my hand. I am certain we did make it to our designated tour spot and I am certain the bakery slab was there as my teacher had said, but I certainly do not remember anything but how big the smile on my face was as I looked down at my own personal mob of love. I am certain these are the ones Jesus had in mind when He said ‘Let the little children come to me’. What a beautiful thing that He shared them with me that day. I will never be the same. And the bakery will be there another day.

Being molded

From something that is, to something that is yet to be.

Something that I’ve realized is that I feel everything. Physical, emotional, I am in tune with where / how my body, my heart, my spirit is changing. Every movement of my becoming.

To picture it as me on the potter’s wheel is to feel it each day and each day to face a choice to stay on that wheel. To just remain here, in the moment, every day, whatever may come. To not anesthetize the discomfort of the gradual changing. It is not a harsh, sudden, painful process, but it is a process and I must choose to remain a part of it.

Honestly, I have been feeling this slight but constant discomfort every day since I arrived. Just today I recognized what that feeling is – it is the feeling I had when I returned last fall from my two-week trip here. I knew God was up to something, bringing changes in me and my life path. Honestly, it was agony – the waiting, the watching to see what this metamorphosis would produce. Yeah, this week feels a little like that.

A new beginning and a new becoming. It’s good, I'm sure.

How did I get here?

On one hand I have no idea. I have never aspired to being a missionary – the “m” word – mmm, no, thanks. A stereotype and lifestyle that I thought just didn’t fit. And I certainly didn’t grow up thinking about being a missionary in Africa. No, no, that was the thing I would loft up to the sky when making promises to God.. “yes, God, I’ll do anything for you… even go to Africa". Certainly not reality.

Or… maybe I do know how I got here… maybe it was prayers just like that. Maybe it is a God who takes these prayers as opportunities to produce in us deeper surrender, deeper dependence, deeper love…

Everything I know about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ begins and ends with surrender — with saying yes to God. That tiny, simple word initiates an exhilarating, life-altering adventure that will take you places you never thought you’d go — both literally and figuratively. [Kay Warren, Dangerous Surrender]

Maybe it was the lyrics Diane Theil wrote that I sang from my heart time after time…

If you say go, we will go
If you say wait, we will wait
If you say step out on the water
And they say it can’t be done
We’ll fix our eyes on You and we will come

Okay, yeah, maybe it was something Just. Like. That. God hears us, friends. And takes us at our word when we “say yes”. And I am here. This I know.