The below is something I wrote when I couldn't fall asleep a few nights ago while at our contact's house here in Rwanda. I began to just write about whatever was on my heart and mind to share with those at home. Enjoy reading and please excuse the run-on and non-grammatical sentences! This Friday, we will be taking the bus to our next ministry site near Kampala, Uganda.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, it’s 2:46am and I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d type a blog. Not really sure yet what this blog will be about, but I figure it’s worth a try.
Our team members have been having a lot of sleepless nights lately, I’m not sure why. For Hannah, she was sick when she first came to Rwanda, and since then she hasn’t been sleeping well, due to a number of factors such as sharing a room with four girls and sleeping in a strange bed. For me, at first it was the too-soft mattress, so I started sleeping on my sleeping pad on the floor, then it was the mosquito bites that seem to worsen in itchiness each day. Mostly it was the mosquito bites today; so I woke up and moved to the living room. While lying on the couch, all I could constantly hear were the buzzing of bugs in my ear (I don’t know why, since I can’t really see that many bugs with the lights on) so I decided to retrieve my Bible from my room and read it instead with the lights on. Blessedly, there was no one else in the living room (sometimes the pastor’s sons and nephews doze here) so I can keep the light on and move around to my heart’s content. There was even some food leftover from dinner that I could snack on through the night. I became tired of reading, so I got on the computer, played several rounds of solitaire, and decided to write a blog.
Since coming to Rwanda, it seems God has been teaching me new lessons of discipline. The most visibly tangible one is running in the mornings. Since Kenya, Ben, Hannah, Taryn and I have gotten into the habit of taking a 30 minute jog in the mornings. We took this habit to Rwanda (except for Taryn, since she says the daily hikes in the hills is enough exercise for her) and started running the bumpy red dirt trails through the lush green hills outside our contact’s house. Whenever we did this, I would get out of breath very quickly because of how lumpy and sloped the roads were. However, we persevered, and I really do enjoy running now (even though Hannah and I do sometimes team up and threaten Ben that we will not run because he is such a ‘slave-driver’…just kidding!) I have honestly never been so fit in my life.
Discipline has come in other areas of life too. For one, I set a goal to finish reading Genesis and Exodus by the end of our stay in Rwanda. So far it’s been about a week and a half and I’ve surprisingly already finished the 50 chapters of Genesis and am 14 chapters into Exodus. God has really changed my heart so that I love and desire to read the Bible. I remember at home, it used to be such a challenge to even get through one chapter a day. However, since coming on the Race, and witnessing how the Word of God really is the basis of everything we believe and reveals the will, mind, and heart of God for every area of life that we have, and should be the basis of everything that we speak to those who want to know God, I have desired so much more to read the Bible. I now realize that in order to combat Satan’s lies, which are all around us, we need to KNOW the Truth; to read it, meditate upon it, memorize it, ask for the Spirit’s help to understand and apply it, and to keep it in our hearts. For 17 years I have been a Christian, but it is not until recently that I realized this. I think it is because I am so blinded by my obsession to fit in with others; to regulate Bible reading to a mere 5-10 minutes per day, to give in to the lie that we need this and that, TV and entertainment, in order to fit into our culture. It’s just not cool to read the Bible that much. If you only quote the Bible all the time, you are a nerd, a prude, old-fashioned, out-of-date, and out-of-touch with the real world.
What I have realized is that if I only quote the Bible self-righteously, thinking I am above others because of my own “discipline” and hard work, then I have really lost touch with why I read the Bible at all. Instead, it is a guide to LIFE that gives us pleasure as we understand and apply it, and will bring pleasure to all people, because God created us to know Him and live the way He designed us. The Bible is not a book for bashing others’ behaviour or a strict code of rules that people dread to follow, but a guidebook of life with insights into the mysteries of life that bring us joy. The Bible is for all people, not just for scholars and “nerds”. We have two men on our team who LOVE to read the Bible like you wouldn’t believe; but both of them don’t really like to read in general or to read anything else. That is because they have found the treasure that is hidden in the power of the WORD. It does make sense that if normal words have power to heal or hurt, encourage or tear down, then the spiritual WORD from the Lord that is 100% perfect has the power of DEATH and LIFE! And if it’s that powerful, doesn’t it make sense to pursue the Lord with all your heart with reading it?
Back in Kenya, Hannah made a goal to memorize the book of Colossians. At first, I agreed to go along with it, just because I thought it would keep her accountable to have a partner in her goal. Ben decided to do it too. But after the first few days, I began to realize the benefits of memorizing Scripture in my life. Instead of understanding the concept of the passage and just forgetting about it like I usually do, we have the words drilled into our heads every day. Every day we get to meditate on the same truths. And Colossians was the perfect book to choose; it wasn’t very long, yet it contained all sorts of wisdom about the power of Christ and the change that should take place in a believer’s life after accepting salvation in Christ, who has triumphed over death for us. I don’t know why I didn’t believe in the power of memorizing Scripture; was it because I had memorized so many verses when I was young, and didn’t seem to see the fruits of it? No, memorizing by itself isn’t enough; but if you memorize with friends who don’t memorize simply for the exercise, but to truly know God through the words, who are willing to discuss and explain the passages to you, and who have a high view of the Bible and truly believe it is 100% perfect and every word has a meaning and was planned, inspired, and written by God to us, and if you pray to the Holy Spirit for understanding, then the fruit of memorizing will come.
At first I was writing about not being able to sleep; but I ended up writing about what has been on my heart recently. Maybe this is why God didn’t give me sleep tonight, because we prayed that He would give all of us sleep yet I was unable to do so. Yet He provided for me, a couch to sleep on, a light to write by, snacks to eat, and a computer that happened to be fully charged of batteries. I’m so thankful to Him for this time to be able to write about and share these precious lessons that I have learned with those I know and love at home.
