Yesterday was one of those days on the Race when I felt like I was gonna punch a baby. For the record, I would never intentional punch a baby, but yesterday…oh man I was close.
The plan for the day was to find a bus for our whole squad and get a video for one of my squad mates before 4:30pm when I was scheduled to give a message to about 150 high school students. No big, right? Yeah I thought so too then I remembered this is Africa, where time doesn’t matter. Well we were supposed to leave the house around 10, but like usually we didn’t leave until about 11. We took a taxi to go find this video since it was the furthest place of the day. That took until about 12. After that, we walked back to Kenya. I’m joking, but seriously it took us forever to find/get to the place. When we get to the video place, the guy says they’re out of DVD’s. Uh…. Are you serious dude? The video should have been made like a million years ago! Grinds my gears..
At this point I was pretty peeved because I look at my watch and see it’s like 1 something. One of my biggest pet peeves is wasting time, especially when I have an important message to give in like 3 hours. (In African time, 3 hours is basically like 1 hour) This is when I get into Go Mode. It’s game time. No time to play around anymore. Oh yeah, my team leader Lilli was there too, so this is the point where I totally ignore her. Sorry Lils, still love you ha. We walk back from Kenya to Uganda. Kidding again, but seriously a ridiculously long trek, especially in my cheap ole flip flops. This is about the time when the rain starts. Just in time because I wasn’t mad enough yet. If you didn’t know, rain+dirt=mud. There’s dirt everywhere in Africa. This is the point where my feet are brown.
We continue to walk everywhere in Uganda in search of some bus stations. Current time was 2 something. We get directions, but it was a totally different bus station. Uh… Again, more time wasted. So we walk some more, get wet some more and get muddy some more. All the while, getting yelled at by taxi and boda boda drivers. “Mzungu! Where are you going?!” I’m like, “Chill out bruh! If I wanted a ride, I’d ask ya!” Grinds my gears… This is when I was close to punching a small infant. I didn’t though, Lilli wouldn’t let me.
Well, well, well we finally get to the bus station. After some negotiation, we buy the whole bus. Heck yea! I can cross that off my list. Current time was 3 something. This is when Ronny, our pastor’s son, says, “Ok back home to pick up the rest of the team to go to the school.” Saay What!? No, no, no. There’s no time for that. Put em on a taxi and they’ll meet us here since the school is only 10 minutes from where we were. He agreed and we decided to get a bite to eat. Of course I would be confused by the menu and order something I didn’t like and my soda was hot…
After snack, we start looking out for the rest of the team. 30 minutes pass and we start to worry. Current time was around 4, crunch time. We finally see them and head to the school. We literally get there at 4:30 and wander around until we find where to go. (Here’s the best part of the story.) Jacob, the guy in charge, briefs us about the fellowship time. He pulls me aside and tells me that I have…wait for it…8 minutes to speak. Hahaha. All I could do was laugh. I’ve been rushing all day, trying not to waste time, so I could get to the school because I had an hour long message prepared to give. Now I had 8 minutes, hahaha. You’re a funny one God.
The even funnier part of the day was that my message was on anger. I was prepared to go over Ephesians 4, especially verses 26 and 27. These verses focus on not holding in your anger because it gives the devil a foothold into your life. If left alone, anger will turn into hate which will turn into wrath. The correlation between my message and my day didn’t hit me until I was in the taxi heading to the school. I was angry at God all day for putting things in my path that were frustrating and a waste of time. Then it hit me, He was putting that stuff in my path because He wanted me to be able to relate to my message. He wanted me to speak with passion and intensity. I would have never given my message the way I did unless I had experienced a day like I did.
God is so intentional. Let’s have faith in His plan, instead of wasting time being angry.
