I know that my blogging has gone downhill the last few months. It’s not that I am not learning anything. It’s not that nothing is happening. It’s that I am learning so much, and so much is happening that I can barely wrap my head around it.
Sometimes I just have to stop and remind myself that I am in Africa. I am in Rwanda, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, in fact. Month 10 is nearly over. It’s insane how fast this race has been, yet how slow it has been at times.
When your life changes drastically month to month, when you literally move location month to month and lose days and sometimes a full week with traveling, it hard to stay focused or to even realize what is happening. It’s easy to lose perspective, so sometimes Jesus has to smack you over the head with what surrounds you.
One day I was sitting on the porch here in Rwanda, enjoying my morning coffee (they have REAL coffee here….you have to make your cup using a strainer, but still….it’s not Nescafe, so I was really enjoying it) with a side of the Word and a my worship music. It was my quiet time. You learn to treasure your quiet time here, it’s rare, and often not very quiet. Anyway, as I am sitting there, two of the neighborhood children ran up, and started sitting in my lap, asking me questions.
I was annoyed. I won’t lie, my thoughts went something like this: Seriously? This is my freaking porch, and I just want to be alone and sit with Jesus and I can’t!
It was about then that I got a perspective shift. You know when Jesus hits your spirit and you go uhhhhhhh? Yeah, that.
I realized, I only have a month here. I am in Africa. I came here to love these kids. Jesus is here, in these kids. He is here, in these mountains. Yes, he is here in the Word and in my worship music, but quiet time looks like that in America too. In America there won’t be any little kids on my porch, and there won’t be cries of ‘mzungu’ every time I step outside, and there won’t be a million grubby hands grabbing mine, and it will be nice. For a while. And then I will miss those sweet voices and tiny hands, so cherish it.
Cherish this moment, Jesus was saying. See me? I am right here in this face, gazing up at you so adoringly. I want to know your name. I want to sit with you. Choose me in this moment. Choose me as I am, not what you think I look like.
So I took out my earphones, and held little girls in my lap and we took photos, and learned each others names, and sang songs.
Because this is my life right now.
And this is what time with Jesus looks like in this moment.
