My team and I only have a few days left here in South Africa. So much has happened over these last few months and its entirely unrealistic for me to assume I can share it all with you. In praying over my time the last few days, the Lord has given me a word to help me transition back to my new normal in the states. This word is “steward.”
During our time with Impact, the guys on my team and the guy interns with Impact have been meeting once a week. In this time, we are able to just be men and encourage one another as we discuss/argue/vision what being a godly man means. We went through a book called “Maximized Manhood.” The book had a few good one-liners here and there, but you could reread most of the principles from this book in the hundreds of other books written about the same topic. However, one part in particular stood out to me. The author describes a problem with pride among many men and how easy it is for us to try and be as independent as possible. We see life as something we can own or possess and orient our life around conquering the people, places and things around us. Obviously that’s an incredibly selfish way to live but wait for the glass to shatter and you realize just how much of your daily routine is shaped with this mindset.
Having my full attention, like he’s reading from a script of my life, the author then flips that mindset on its head with the question, “what if you don’t really own any of it?” Then he begins to paint this picture of stewardship like I was learning this word for the first time. Now I knew immediately where he was going because of my religious background. Growing up in church, you hear all the time how every good thing comes from God or that he, being the author of life, orchestrates how all creation can work together. But I left that truth in my spiritual box filed under God’s character and went on with my life. I had failed to meditate on this truth and let it impact how I loved God and loved people.
Stewardship is such a humbling concept. Depending on where you were raised in the South, you have a basic-to-moderate understanding of manners and the hierarchy of respect. If you borrow something, you return it in better condition than when it was given to you. Or more simply put, leave it better than you found it. But when you own something, you use it until it serves its purpose and then you discard it and move on to something better. You can see how these two mindsets might clash when seeing the same idea/person/thing from either perspective. The example he used in the book, and one that is becoming incredibly applicable for me now, is the idea of a spouse’s love. If I trying to live with a mindset of ownership over my soon-to-be spouse (S/O to Emily), I will use her love to satisfy my desires and needs when it is convenient for me. But to see my spouse’s love as a gift from the Father and because she is ultimately his, I am only a steward of her love for a short time. And I am charged to steward that love well and return her to the Father better than I found her.
While all of that is super relevant for me right now, it also gave me a different understanding of my time here in Africa. I have a tendency to live season to season. Once the ending of a season approaches, I usually have worked/invested enough to coast pretty comfortably to the end. Thats where I stood in these last few weeks. I did the hard work of showing up and serving alongside this group of peers these last few months. I walked with them through the highs and lows and listened to them process this experience. I watched the Father help them heal from their past and bring them to a place of wholeness and peace that only he can do. But there is still one week. This week may be the last week but each day is a new day that the Father can use me to further his kingdom. All that I’m asked is to be willing to say yes today like I did the first day. I must live for the everyday-moments, not the seasons. I must steward my team’s time well and leave them in a few days better than I found them in January.
I know a question I could ask would be why I’m learning this mindset right now when I only have a few days left. But the Father knows the timing better than I because I can only look back. Whatever I learned from this experience (and same for my team) was not just meant for our time here in Africa. Stewardship is just one example of many that I have gained from this experience and its impact will be rippling. Truth is truth, no matter how or where you experienced it. I just hope I can be faithful with the truth that the Father has entrusted me with up until now so I can love Him and love people better everyday.
One quick light-hearted story before I end. Last week we were walking in squatter camps to build relationships with the people who lived there. We came across a lady who sells chicken feet, liver, gizzards, and intestines in her front yard to make some money for her family (like I mentioned before, millions have come to Joburg looking for jobs and have found none so this woman is stewarding her time well with the resources and space she’s been given). Now these parts of the chicken are not the first choice to eat but she takes the time to clean them each morning before she sells in the afternoon. Knowing I couldn’t leave Africa without experiencing once what this lady does every single day, my group is quickly welcomed into her home to help learn how to clean the chicken. (Squeezing the literal poop out of the intestines was not, in fact, my favorite part of our time with her). We ended up becoming quick friends and shared many laughs over that afternoon. But before we had left, she tricked…or I should say invited us to come back the next day so we could eat these chicken parts. With it being culturally rude to decline an invitation to a meal and the fact that we were more looking forward to sharing a few more laughs with them, we accepted her invitation and made sure we could be there the next day. I will post a few pictures because they will say more than I could write but the meal was nothing short of an experience. I can say the liver tasted the best followed by the gizzards then feet. However, I could not get passed the smell from cleaning the intestines the day before and so I had to give my friend the polite smile and thumbs up while I tried to hide the gagging as I ate the freshly cleaned/cooked intestines. There haven’t been many families that we were able to visit more than once, let alone invited back, so this day was pretty special to me and my group. It was so life-giving to love on her and her family and was such a fun way to close our time in the squatter camps. A good story is worth doing almost anything.
Top Left: Intestines. Top Right: Feet and Gizzards. Bottom: Liver
I guess thats what I get for being tall…
My friend MP cleaning those intestines.
And then me cleaning them too, trying to prove myself as a man.
