Three Things Thursday: Waiting
It’s been over one whole hot, sweaty, rainy, humid, laughter-filled, week in Zambia, and it feels as if so much and so little has happened all at once. As I’ve wondered how this can be – how the days can feel so long and short, empty and full all at the same time – I’ve come to only one conclusion: the waiting. Patience and flexibility are key, here from waiting for our driver who went to an old person’s home instead of the YWAM base to waiting for any smidgen of anything to load on wifi in order to plan small things like where the whole squad is going to stay in just two weeks or how all 41 of us are going to get to Botswana. Yay waiting.
- Waiting for the kiddos. This week Team Hallelujah is helping the YWAM staff and students run a vacation Bible school for some of the teens from a nearby orphanage. Scheduled to begin at 8:30AM Monday morning, my teammates and I sat, full of toast, porridge, and tea; ready to go just before half-past – unsure what to expect, but ready. Minute after minute ticked by as no one showed up. We filled the time with good conversation – stories from home, bits and pieces of our own testimonies, bad jokes, and the like. So thankful I was when an hour later, teenage voices began filling the corridor as bodies filed in. So thankful I have been each morning as the teens have come in, late each day, but faithfully. And when they arrive, they don’t experience what my US-trained mind expected of VBS. Eager and ready to make permanent what they hear with their pens and paper, these precious ones – whose histories are likely heavier than anything I know how to bear – receive teachings on dealing with trauma, what healthy relationships look like, and cultivating joy. I and my fellow World Racers spend part of the mornings teaching on things like gratitude, the incredible value of each of their lives, and the incredible truth of their worth. Each morning we wait. Each morning it’s worth it.
- Waiting for meals. At the YWAM base, Team Hallelujah is incredibly blessed to have meals prepared for us by Mama Jean, Mama Brenda, and others. While meal times are set, we have quickly become flexible, especially when it comes to dinner. We are entering the height of the rainy season so big storms and power outages are normal, often forcing our Mamas to move cooking outside to the fire pit. Last Saturday, dinner was delayed as the power had gone out and then was exceptionally delayed as we waited for a short-term team from South Africa to arrive. Dinner was ready, but no one could eat until our guests had first been served. Nearly two hours after our scheduled dinner hour, we ate. So humbled I was when I realized first, that every day and every meal, those living at the YWAM base have been waiting for us to be served. Humbled I was again upon realizing how quickly this has become home as we waited to welcome more friends into our space.
- Waiting on Christmas. Okay, first of all, Christmas in a hot, desert-y place is weird. Every tree is fake and the Christmas tunes played in the café, while wonderful, simply feel out of place as I sweat my face off. But what a beautiful reminder this has been of the first Christmas – how unlike the people’s expectations the coming of Christ was. As I am living outside of my narrow-minded vision of what Christmas should be, I am reminded of the ways that the Lord so beautifully and paradoxically burst through the peoples’ expectations for what the Messiah should be. Born to the “lowly,” in a place unfit for a king, all of the greatness of the Lord wrapped up in a tiny baby, raised to be a humble carpenter instead of mighty conqueror, the story of Christ is full of the unexpected. As we wait on Christmas, and as we wait on the Lord, let us remember to look for Christ in the unexpected.
Our precious, tiny Christmas tree that serves as one small and tangible reminder that it is indeed Christmas time.
