This month I am fully aware at all times that I am on the World Race.
Maybe it’s that I killed a chicken with a dull kitchen knife and ate it two hours later. It could be the toilet in our bathroom, affectionately known as our perch – a giant block of cement with a hole in the back. Then again it could be Steve going six days without a bucket shower, making a fire from scratch every time we need to eat, falling asleep in a sleeping bag in a tent on a dirt floor in a cement room or never quite knowing if that smell is me, us, the Africans or all of us combined.
kylie cooking dinner on our dual-top stove and our bathroom for the month
Mozambique has pushed us in ways that the first six months didn’t. This is what I imagined the World Race would be, living entirely out of my comfort zone at every moment, fully aware just how far from home I am.
What’s interesting is that I haven’t minded our living situation or the lack of material comforts at all. Really, if you asked me right now, the hardest thing about the month has been the cultural difference in understanding time, something I dreaded after visiting Senegal in December; situations like our arrival to an 11:00am funeral precisely on the hour only to be greeted at 1:10 by everyone else have left me bewildered and with the highest registered blood pressure in the village. How they all know that 11:00 actually means 1:00 I will never comprehend in my North American brain, but I think I understand why some girls shave their heads in Africa on the World Race. At this point my hair’s coming out either way – if I don’t shave it, I’m going to pull it all out as I simultaneously implode from stress and develop an eye-twitch that might never go away.
Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. I decided really quickly to accept the reality of the commonly recited “T.I.A.” mantra – this is Africa. Only about half of what we hear can be taken seriously, and the other half still isn’t entirely reliable. But, everything has been and will continue to be all right.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
steve and joey participating in "mustache mozi" which the girls just love, and me blogging in our "kitchen" at home
Actually, ministry has been the most interesting. We were told to be ready each morning by 8:30, so when they’re finally ready around 10:00 we spend some time in prayer and worship with Chico and Tony, our contact and translator, before we leave. Then, barring any unforeseen events (which, so far, have included rain, failed transportation, the death of one of our pastor-friends’ sisters and no one showing up to take us anywhere), we visit a neighboring village and go door-to-door with local pastors, praying for people in the community and talking to them about God.
I didn’t love it at first. It makes me uncomfortable to walk onto people’s property and interrupt their days or routines, which they do immediately to get us chairs and treat us as esteemed guests because we’re white. They’ll often ask for prayer for certain things, a humbling humility that has made me rethink my resistance to asking for what I need. It’s become less uncomfortable as we’ve begun walking with pastors and visiting their church members, but one thing I’ve contemplated because of it is that my need to be comfortable could very possibly get in the way of God’s glory, and frankly, I just don’t want that. I desire that God be glorified more than I desire to be comfortable or be perceived a certain way; what could prayer hurt, anyway? In my attempt to be a singular, congruent person, though, I decided not to do anything here for any of the Africans we meet that I wouldn’t be willing to do at home in the same situation. So, I’m not going to cast any hypothetical demons out of a sick man here if I wouldn’t do that for someone in a hospital at home. It’s been an interesting dialogue with God, and I’m enjoying studying more about spiritual warfare – I’m just trying not to get emotionally swept away by things I don’t actually understand.
That being said, we’ve seen cool things. After praying for a man’s tooth he declared there was no more pain and gave us cookies from his small merchant stand, many people have asked to receive Jesus and several people have renewed their interest in visiting church again after periods of not attending. God is certainly working.
giving the message at the women's meeting with tony, our friend and translator
People in Africa have a genuine hunger for God borne out of their material poverty and belief in the supernatural; however, much of the fascination with the supernatural comes from a society replete with witchcraft. A missionary we met who’s been here five years told us today that 90% of Christians in Mozambique still regularly see witch doctors. Their belief system is entrenched in this idea that when good things happen, God (or god or the village witch or sorcerer) is pleased with them or has cast favorable spells; conversely, when bad things happen like death or illness or unemployment they’ve done something wrong before God, been placed under a curse or both. When we’ve visited homes to pray and share the gospel with people, we’re fairly sure they think we have special powers because we’re white, as though we offer some sort of magic that they can’t get anywhere else, which is usually where their enthusiasm comes from in asking us to pray for them.
The difference in worldview does present a challenge when you’re sharing with them; it makes you wonder how effective anything you do or say could really be when you logically consider how likely it is that you’re both on the same page. I guess more than anything it’s challenged my faith, to believe actively that God will be able to work through anything we’re doing, since none of it is really dependent on us at all. It’s funny how often I convince myself that ministry is my job or responsibility – ministry is God’s thing. He doesn’t need me, nor is the coming kingdom contingent upon my obedience, but he’s really happy to have me on board if I want to be and is happy to work through me by his grace. That’s pretty humbling itself.
Thus, this month is very different from anything I’ve done so far. It’s quite an unusual life here, bucket-showering and wearing the same shirt five days in a row and being watched like a celebrity doing laundry outside and eating three rolls of bread a day like that’s something normal people do.
celebrity laundry
Yet despite the abnormality of it all and the discomfort I sometimes feel, when I wake up in the morning and see our elderly next-door neighbor – still as mobile as she ever must have been – hunched over at the waist and sweeping her front-yard dirt in a rhythmic motion that’s provided better background music than an iPod, quietly greeting the new day with her broomstick fashioned from twigs that create the musical swoon that my prayers ride up to heaven, I usually find myself half-smiling in a sleepy stupor wondering amusedly at the God who has led me to this place – this Dondo, Mozambique, where I’m stinky and unshowered and deciding whether coffee is worth the effort of building a fire, but where my heart is filled with community and gratitude and more questions than I can ask (but am content to leave unanswered for now).
It’s those moments, the kind where she’s sweeping and lulling my prayers into a groggy lullaby, that I feel myself fully settled into World Race rhythm, marveling at the life I’m privileged to live, the weirdness and brilliance of it all indistinguishable, inseparable, and as the dirt takes its unique swirled appearance for the day ahead and my early-morning mind swirls and sways to the rhythm of my prayers, I discover myself growing increasingly thankful and even closer to the One behind it all.
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african sunrise
