Unpacking in Every Way

There are still boxes to unpack.  (Will it ever end?)

Among the long-forgotten contents uncovered this week, I found a five page letter written to the Lord in 2013.  We were preparing for Africa at the time, but without a departure date set.  The letter is pretty much questioning the Lord, for it made no sense to move our family to Africa.  Moving overseas went against the vision I had for my family, a vision the Lord Himself gave me back in college.  The first three pages of the letter are filled with painful scribblings like, "Why would you be asking me to give up this beautiful, godly vision?...I have this huge tension between what God has called me to and what God has called me to."  Three pages of confusion and questions.

photo from 2013, roughly the time of the letter

Then there is a pause, at least an overnight pause, where the Lord met me in Scripture and I came back to write about Luke 5: The Calling of the First Disciples.  After a rough night fishing, Simon and his buddies were giving up until Jesus came along.  It made no sense, but Peter let down the nets again because Jesus said so. As a result, he had so many fish the boat was going to sink.  We all know the tag line, Jesus made them fishers of men instead, so they left everything and followed him.  It's that one little sentence where they left everything that stood out to me.  When they left everything, they were walking away from a miraculous and blessed batch of newly caught fish.  This catch was a gift from the Lord.  It was a reward for obeying when it didn't make sense and now someone else would be cashing in on it when they walked away.  Jesus knew all of this. It is almost like he set them up.   The catch of fish was real and so was walking away from it.  The realization that God calls us away from His own gifts - even amazing, miraculous ones - is the point of the last two pages of the letter.  The conclusion is this: there is only one reason to walk away from the bountiful gifts of the Lord.  It is the same reason that compelled Peter to leave his catch- to follow the person of Christ.

I wonder if years later Peter ever thought back on all the miracles and travels he experienced by the side of Jesus and laughed about the insignificant pile of fish he had left behind.  I like to do that, think about the last five years as a slideshow in my mind.  Had we stayed put in 2013, we could have lived out our original dream, but oh what we would have missed by the side of Jesus.  Right now, while we are figuring out our way again, it reminds me not to settle my eyes on the gifts of the Lord, but to run after the person of Christ.

Just as applicable now as it was then, in Luke 5 "He showed me that He is pleased not with the adoption or the orphan work but with my heart that's saying, "God, this makes no sense.  I can't understand it.  It's hurting and confusing me, but I'll do it because you say so."

What do you hope to not forget?

Another common question is, "What do you hope to not forget about living in West Africa?"

Without hesitancy, the answer is generosity. 

At least, that's what we would call it.  To the West Africans, it's nothing, it's life, it's normal.  They don't even know they do it.  But coming from an individualistic American mindset, their generosity is inspiring.  The motto I give them is, "If you have it, it is for sharing."  

We saw it on a daily basis.  When we had a picnic on the side of the road, we'd share our food with those who passed by.  The children wouldn't gobble it up before someone saw what they had, like American children might.  Instead, they would save it until they could share it.  It was jaw-dropping to me, but it was without a thought by them.  They didn't even want to eat a treat until they could share it.  We have to work hard to teach our kids a fraction of that kind of generosity in a me-saturated culture.  But theirs is a community based culture, which means even when no one is else is looking and without a second thought.

Another time we gave our friend Souley a package of Craisins from America for his family.  The next thing I knew, he had all the neighborhood kids lined up to wash their hands and get a handful of the treat.  Everything in me wanted to say, "No, that was for YOU."

In time, though, we learned to open our hands and whatever was in them.  If you have it, it's for sharing.  The spirit of our home changed as I learned not to ration my care package goodies, but to share them instead.  It doesn't feel "responsible" to live like this, so it's something I had to learn. I had the very best teachers.  Isn't it great when your teacher doesn't even know they are teaching you?  That's how the our friends taught me extreme generosity.  Just by being themselves.

What do you miss?

When kind people ask what we miss in West Africa, I rarely know what to say.  It's complicated.  If you heard me complain the first two years, you're not going to believe my answer.

What I miss most is: being wrong all the time. 

At first this was anything but fun.  It started with little external things like what's important in dress (it's not comfort) or what is edible (ever eaten sauteed worms?) or how to spend a day (where time is not considered a limited resource).  Then we learned these external differences between us and our  neighbors are rooted in a different way of thinking about what is right, what is wrong, what is healthy, what is beautiful, what honors God, what is the purpose of a home, who is modest and prayerful, how to show respect, how to show friendship, and why there is poverty and terrorism in the first place.

It turned out while our default answers to those questions work well in the world we came from, in our adopted home we were wrong every single time.  At first this got old because we were pretty sure we were right.....until we started to see the world through new eyes.  Our culture and their culture are two totally different systems and to look at one through the eyes of the other is always going to be inaccurate.

Thankfully, Missions Training International taught us,

"Different is not wrong.  

Different is different.  

Wrong is wrong." 

Turns out many of those ideas that felt wrong when we first arrived were just different and we grew to see the validity in points of view outside our own.

At one point I arrived at really scary place where I realized, "THEY are right!"  They read the same Bible but highlight different verses than me, they have the same 24 hours but use it so differently....and I am the one that doesn't make sense.  I started doubting everything, including the faith that brought me to West Africa since it was born out of a Western worldview that seemed wrong.

In time, I came to see my experiences and lessons from the Father in the Western world as books filling up bookshelves lining a room in my spirit.  Coming to West Africa opened up a new room for me in this imaginary library of my soul.....a room lined with empty bookshelves waiting to be filled with experiences with God in a non-Western context.  This new empty room didn't make the previous room invalid.  It simply expanded the library of my spirit beyond what I'd thought it could hold.

The thing is, I was only gone long enough to learn this other room exists.  The bookshelves are empty in that room of my spirit.  Returning to a place where I am part of the dominant culture feels like an loss of the opportunity to experience God in this other way, to learn from our non-Western brothers and sisters who have so much of the Father to show us, and to be immersed in a world that challenges me about what is right, what is beautiful, and what honors God.  It feels like those "bookshelves" will stay empty.  Such a loss.

And that is why I miss being wrong all the time.