May 18, 2007
The Beauty of Simplicity:
It’s the Beauty of Simplicity that brings me down to my knees.
I’ll praise you for eternity and Lord I love you, because you first loved me.
It’s the Beauty of Simplicity that fills me with eternity.
I tasted your divinity and Lord I love you, because you first loved me.
And all Gods people say; We love you, we love you, we love you Lord, we Love you!
A couple of weeks ago, these words were merely lyrics of a song by the Christian band, Telecast.
But when I left my IPod behind, the lyrics became a story scattered throughout the pages of my journal.
James, Morgan, Emilie and myself were dropped off “out in the bush” (it was about a 3 hour walk into the small town). Our new home was a large, sandy lot with one tree, a table and the remains of the Abilo’s home after the cyclone.
Ten minutes later we had four tents set up and a shelter put up for shade.
Life in the bush is simple and quiet (not so common in the American culture). We would wake up with the sun, or before thanks to the rooster who took the liberty of being our battery free alarm clock.
The mornings would begin with tea or coffee and bread, accompanied by a scripture from the Bible.
After tea time Abilo felt it was important for us to rest before we left to pray.
Our afternoons were spent walking to neighboring homes and praying for the sick on the way to our ”
program”.
There was always an afternoon program where many eager souls would come to hear the Word preached.
The program would begin with 15 minutes, more or less, of singing, some prayer and a scripture preached by one of us.
The program was finished with prayer and singing that would proceed us all the way back to our camp.
The evenings were full of more free time until supper followed by a final program.
During this time, I was shown what true humility and servant hood look like.
Locals were consistently coming over to bring us fish, crab, chicken and more.
They always had a chair for us to sit in (even though everyone else was in the dirt), and they loved on us unconditionally.
On Sunday, our third and final day in the bush, everyone from the village came over to help us back and say goodbye.
Many people presented gifts such as peanuts, eggs, corn, oranges and peanut butter.
But that was not it.
The finale was a little old man dancing to the choir of voices and clapping as he presented us with a LIVE CHICKEN.
It was a sight to be seen but such an honor all at the same time.
There truly was such an unexplainable beauty in the simplicity of life that filedl my heart with eternity.
I praise God for all that he taught me in those short three days.
