My team is entering our third week in Africa and, unfortunately, nearing the end of our time here in Zambia. As I began to process our time here and the many memories we will be walking away with, one theme stood out: Be present in the moment. Not so surprisingly (as the Lord often works in this way to affirm truths), a few other teammates recognized a similar trend and chose to write about it as well so if you haven’t checked out their blogs, I really encourage you to do so.
For me, being present in the moment has mostly been the result of my limited ability to stay connected back home. I’ve left the country a few times now, and my ability to stay connected has been entirely dependent on how accessible WiFi is wherever I am. Unlike the states, it’s not in every home and is only available in most public restaurants or cafes. At that point, your access then depends on how far away you are from those places. For my team and I, town is about an hour’s walk away or you can pay about $2-$4 for about a 5 min taxi ride. So needless to say, my access has been pretty limited and I’ve come to find that’s not such a bad thing.
I definitely take for granted staying connected back in the states. The age of being constantly connected is such a normal part of our lives and it becomes incredibly noticeable when you don’t have the access you’re used to. This month, I have been able to reconnect with home,at best, about twice a week. That’s a huge difference. To use a different picture to describe my point, the new Screen Time feature that released in the fall has been really telling of the difference in my phone usage. I was in town a lot last week and so on Sunday, my report read that my usage was up 108% from the previous week, which came out to be an average of about 2 hrs a day. I wish I could find a report that shows the average time when WiFi was accessible because that average would be far less. But for comparison purposes, I hover around 3-4 hrs per day back in the states.
What have I been able to do with those extra “few” hours a day? Plenty of things actually. The day to day life here in Zambia has been a mixture of volunteering at a local school in the mornings, followed by door-door evangelism or soccer ministry in the afternoons. The rest of the time is spent either building relationships with my team or resting (which also takes many forms). I’ve been able to use the time that used to be mindlessly scrolling through my phone by now being present with my team or the other people that frequent our hostel throughout the days and weeks.
This particular idea hit me on Sunday when I was at a cafe after church with a few others on my team. I sat there after we were eating lunch and was receiving texts or notifications from the past few days. I found myself wanting to use the few hours we had there, not to catch up with events and people back home, but to stay present in the shop and get to know my teammates a little better. The result: a really good conversation about family; seeing the family as vehicle for the kingdom, bringing purpose to each member and not just a passive support system from which to leave at some point.
Now what’s my point here? It’s honestly not some self righteous demand that you should use your phones less. There‘s definitely a responsibility and a necessity for me to fondness time to stay connected back home. What I’m sharing with you has just been a personal conviction over the last week or so that’s caused me to not let my time here be wasted. If I’m on my phone, I need to use it well, otherwise it’s affecting my time here with my team and the people here in Africa. What He brings to my attention may not be the same thing he brings to yours, just like how my team has seen being present differently. The Father has been teaching my team this week to be present and because he is good and so gracious, he’s meeting us where we are at individually and bringing that conviction through different ways. Mine just happens to be how I use my phone while I’m here. The access or even how I use the time on my phone may change in the next few months and definitely will change when I get back to the states but for right now, I’d hate to miss out on what the Father has for me in this time because I chose to ignore such a clear conviction. That’s all I wanted to share with you.
To give a better picture of my heart behind this update, I want to leave you with a quote I heard not too long ago. Jeff Bethke, author of Jesus>Religion, put it this way, “if we don’t shape spaces intentionally, and our relationship with technology intentionally, then technology and screens will shape us unintentionally, but not for the better.” I’ve been sitting with the Lord over the last few days and seeing where in my life I have failed to shape spaces intentionally. So for those of you back home reading this, all I can say is be present with the people around you. Be willing to put everything on the table and be willing to make changes where it’s necessary. Paul shares with the church in Corinth that though everything is permissible (not everything is necessary bad), but not everything is beneficial (so how we choose to use those things can be for the good of others or not). I’m not saying to introduce more rules for rules sake, but my heart is to encourage you to evaluate your life so you can intentionally create spaces that will let you truly thrive as you are meant to, better yet, as the Father wants for you.
Please continue praying for my team as we close our time here in Zambia. Don’t forget to check out my team’s blogs (located on the left side of my page) for more updates on what God is doing here in Africa.
