I was sitting on the ledge of the front
porch this past Saturday morning. I was
enjoying the fresh air and beautiful landscape all around me, while journaling
and listening to my iPod (which happened to be on “shuffle mode”,
playing random songs in random order).
The songs that were playing seemed to be the soundtrack to the life that
was going on around me. I watched a
mother walk down the dirt road with her child swaddled on her back, a man
carrying a shovel the opposite way, a woman hanging clothes up to dry, and even
a chicken frantically sprinting down the dirt road (which was pretty
hilarious!).
Then it was as if God decided to bring my
soundtrack to life and let me encounter it.
“Love Is Here” by Tenth Avenue
North came on my iPod. I was quickly
reminded of all that God has been teaching me about LOVE lately. Around the same time, a child stopped right
in front of the house and stared at me.
Not unusual in any way, of course.
We are quite the celebrities out here in the bush of Rwanda. We are used to the idea that anybody will
stop anywhere at anytime to watch us do even the most boring things
possible. My normal approach would be to
look at at child, smile, and go back to what I was doing, hoping that she would
continue on her way. I had a whole
journal entry about my Friday night preaching to finish (I will share my
preaching experiences in a future post, fyi). I had no time for her. But the words from the chorus by Tenth Avenue
North started singing in my ears, “LOVE IS HERE. LOVE IS NOW.”
I had no choice…
I decided to lock eye contact with this
young child around the age of 8 years old.
She noticed my eyes. Her smile
got bigger. We held each others gaze for
a few seconds and soon after, both of us burst into joyful laughter. She then quickly ran over and came up beside
me and gave me a gentle hug and just smiled at me. As the chorus sung out again, “LOVE IS
HERE. LOVE IS NOW.” two more
children ran up beside me and gave me hugs as well. We just smiled at each other and had a few
tickle fights and I even let them complete math problems in my journal (aka,
2+2=4, etc. Haha, no, it was their idea,
not mine!).
Over the next 10 or so minutes, at least
6 more children showed up. Again, at that
point I could have looked at all of them, smiled, and decide to peace out and
take my journal inside to be by myself.
It was my quiet time anyways. I was supposed to be alone with Jesus.
Then the lyrics of the chorus played
again in my head. “LOVE IS
HERE. LOVE IS NOW.”
THIS was Jesus.
God was romancing me with LOVE from the
best way to receive it right now…from little African children who wanted
nothing to do but love me and be loved by me and by their Father through me.
Well, so what does a 21 year old white
girl “stranded” in the middle of the African bush with the cutest
children staring up at her do? She
teaches them dances such as the macarena (which they absolutely loooved) &
the chicken dance & other random fun camp songs. :] They also taught me a dance and sang for me a
few African songs. So much laughter and
joy.
I was in love with loving.
LOVE IS HERE. LOVE IS NOW.
