Confessions of a 29-year-old

Keep in mind, I am an only child.

As a child, my birthdays were a big deal. I can remember lamenting the fact that birthdays only came once a year. It and Christmas were the two events that marked my year. My parents (being of the over-generous, prone to spoiling stock) had me thoroughly convinced I was, in fact, the center of the universe. Life revolved around me, and it was these two events that proved such.

Time flies...

October 16, 2009
The sun was setting as I looked out the window to my left. Far below me the terrain spread out in all directions. As we made our final descent, I stared out the window at my new home. The golden reflection of the water gave way to green rice fields. The horizon was guarded by ominous mountains that sprang up from the terrain. Sheer rock faces glared back at me in the sunlight, crowned with lush tropical forest on their tops. It was beautiful, but it was foreign.

The hot air hit me in the face as I rounded the corner for the door. My last breath of American air was crisp and cool, a Tennessee Autumn, but this air was heavy and filled my lungs. The darkness closed in around me as I stepped off the airplane.

Despite the large size of my plane, there were almost no passengers headed to my final destination, maybe 20 or 30 at most. The plane was empty. As we unloaded, the tiny crowd made its way across the tarmac and headed to the building they were calling an airport. I followed.

At first, I thought the airport was the only thing in the area, wondering if we were outside the city. As I left for the parking lot with my baggage, I realized we were in the very middle of the city. A capital city of three million people, and there were no lights anywhere. There was no electricity. It is a luxury that only comes to this city a few hours each day.

Overwhelmed, I found myself in a place too foreign for words.

October 16, 2010
The sunlight peeked through my curtains this morning and beckoned my eyes to open. I rolled out of bed knowing I had a long day in front of me. I started my morning off with a cup of coffee and headed to the Lᴐnni Banxi, or “house of knowledge.” That is the name of the little library our mission runs in my sleepy little town. I met with the young man who runs the library, and we talked shop.

School is back in session as of last week and we have many things we must get in order for the opening of the center. As we sat discussing our plans for the students and our center, the schedule began to fill up. Of course, we must have a grand opening for the new school year. Not to mention, we are making plans for two new English courses we will offer to the area students. Our Bible studies will be starting up soon and we have decided to add a monthly fellowship for any Christian students in the city. Finally, we decided a church fellowship centered around a movie, which will have to be shown with a generator and projector, would be a good event to close out the week.

Apart from the center, we made plans for our village evangelism efforts. We are focusing on three villages currently with plans to extend to more. Our local church members are leading discipleship studies in these places with the hopes of planting churches. People are interested, and exciting things are starting to happen.

I finished out this trip with a stop by the carpenter who has been working on some remodeling for our center and discussed some new plans with him.

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Confused and not completely sure why I had come, save the calling of God, I stepped off an airplane a year ago today. I had signed up to stay in the this strange place for two years. My mind was telling me it would be an eternity, and the surroundings began to confirm that fear.

But a lot can happen in a year.

Having my parents visit reminded me of my first weeks in country. My mother's looks of astonishment at the crowds and poverty, my dad's repulsion to the mountains of trash lining the sides of the streets waiting to be burned, these things reminded me of my own reaction of disbelief.

I am not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, foreign became familiar. The strange sights, smells, and sounds, no longer grabbed my attention. I stopped noticing all the potholes and started seeing the people.

This past year has been hard at times, but more than that, it has been a gift. God has given me friends I would have never known and lessons I would have never learned, had it not been for his guiding me to this little corner of the globe. I have seen the difference between a “want” and a “need.” I have discovered the value of independence and seen the result of its absence. I have praised God for blessings I previously overlooked, such as a Bible written in my language. And through it all, God has made one thing abundantly clear. No matter how different we are, it is Adam's blood that runs through our veins. Our differences can never outweigh our similarities. We all share a common beginning, and a common end. And we all need a savior.



They really are a beautiful people.

Worlds Collide

This past Sunday, I braved the capital city of my little country. Fighting my way through crowds of maniacal taxi drivers and scores of motorcycle riders that would make Evel Knievel blush, I made my way to the airport. My mission was to pick up passengers for a stay here; however, this particular set of travelers was not our typical volunteer team. They were my parents.

The last time we saw each other was through watery eyes at the Nashville airport, as I passed through security on my way to Africa. Almost a year later, to the day, I was standing in a little airport parking lot waiting on their plane. It was not hard to miss, it was the only plane. Few people ever come here.

The gigantic Airbus flew overhead and took its long drive down the runway. Within five minutes or so, it had taxied back to the only “terminal.” When the plane, pulled up to the gate, it was actually taller than the airport itself, its big tail fin looming over the main building. Some little man in a semi-official uniform rolled a little set of stairs up to the door of the plane and people began to spew out onto the tarmac.

It was almost an hour before my parents emerged from the airport, two of only a few white faces in a sea of Africans. Needless to say, they were not hard to find. Sweaty and obviously overwhelmed, they followed our airport contact across the parking lot. Dodging crowds of people awaiting family members and NGO workers picking up new recruits, my bewildered parents made eye contact with me.

So far, their trip has made for an interesting experiment. To say my parents have not travelled much is an understatement. We rarely took vacations and this was my mother's first time to step foot on a plane. Nevertheless, they are in Africa. While I write this, my mother is attempting a nap with a fan, both of us using the electricity from our generator while we have it. Lunch this afternoon will be rice with African leaf sauce, fish bones and all.

For my parents, the last five days have been full of new sights, sounds and smells. My parents have entered a world so foreign it cannot be explained in words. They have slept in a tiny African village in the middle of the jungle and watched rice harvested by hand. They have seen the free ranged livestock and the free ranged kids. For the first time in their life, they have tried to communicate in a world where absolutely no one speaks their language. Their stay is not over and I am curious to see how this whole experience influences them.

For me, this is an opportunity for my worlds to collide. Already, I struggle with the coming reality of explaining this life-changing experience to friends, family, or anyone who will listen back at home. Yet, there are simply no words. I will never be able to communicate my time in this little corner of the world and how it has affected me. My hope is, during their visit, however short it may be, my parents will grasp some aspect of what this place is like.

There is no way they will fully understand. Any real understanding does not come from simply seeing a place. To truly know, someone would have to live here. Someone would have to be immersed in a way that does not happen when merely passing through. However, they will see what pictures cannot show and perhaps it will help.

In the meantime, it is entertaining to watch their awkward responses to people's greetings in a foreign language. It has been a pleasure to see them butcher the language the way I did when I first got here. Deeper still, is the joy I have received from watching them meet eyes with the people who have captured my heart this last year. To see the elders in my little village sitting with my father, finally getting to meet this strange man from America with only one child, to see the smile on the little old lady's face as she holds my mother's hand, these are blessings I cannot convey.

Perhaps, when it is all said and done, I will have some stories to share, or at least some funny moments.