November 22, 2014
Manzini, Swaziland, end of week 3
For the first time in a long time I can’t fall asleep. Movies always get my mind jogging, and for some odd reason God has been speaking to me through them in this week of fasting. So, you know how I went on a week-long hiatus from discussing “the future” and spent the week in prayer… The movie we watched today actually spoke to me.
“Begin again” is the name of the movie. It started in a pub on East 7th street. That’s 2 blocks away from my old apartment in the East Village. My immediate thought was “I can’t watch this movie. I can’t. I’m supposed to be fasting from this stuff.”
I thought it would mix my emotions up, and get me questioning again the very subject I’ve been praying to have answered.
A lot has happened today, from navigating the harrowing cliffsides of Mantenga Falls in efforts to reach the waterfall swimming hole, to maneuvering the busy downtown streets with more than 4 Swazi bus drivers asking where I am going. I could talk about my off day for ages, but the interesting thing is what my mind is racing with. We’re talking future here.
So back to the movie and the east 7th street pub.
Screw this. I don’t want to explain the movie to myself. Right now, I’m good. I’m good wherever I’m put.
Weird.
“I’m put”
I haven’t thought about it in that sense before.
“I’m put.”
The idea of being “put” somewhere. That didn’t cross my mind until just now. Ok. Ok. This is good. My drive just shifted, subconsciously. From where do I want to be, to where will I be put. Where does God want me.
Where will he put me. I’ve been asking the wrong question all week. “Where are you going to put me?” Is what I should have been saying.
“Where do you want me” is even different from “where will you put me”. Obviously I understand the phrase “where do you want me” (living with 43 Christian missionaries… I’ve heard all the phrases) but I had an aversion to the phrase because I feel that it still implies I want to know where I am going before we get there. But even more than that, it implies that I have a choice, and I’d just like to invite God’s opinion in to my list of options.
Which is wrong.
“Where are you going to put me” gives God the reigns.
Well, here goes another week of fasting from conversation about MY future. Maybe I’ll even fast from conversation about others’ future.
One thing irritated me today. I realized I’ve totally left my eating plan in the dust. I took off my shirt to jump in the waterfall and I was embarrassed. It’s one thing to love your body no matter the size, it’s another thing to love grilled cheese.
Another random thing. I read through my new college essay this week, the one where I shared the vision God gave me on the road from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh and got super pumped all over again. I think I might post it as a blog.
Today I was happy with my photography. I’m normally really upset with it because things just don’t look the way I envision them and I get mad at myself. I actually owned a camera until the Race.
I see something I want to capture. Many times (as my old teammates tell me), I’m the ONLY one in that thought. Even people standing directly next to me see things differently. Sometimes drastically different. I’m drawn to faces. I love capturing God’s most incredible individual creation: emotion. It’s inescapable, it’s all around me. Emotion is in the trees; if you capture them the right way they can seem lively or distraught. Emotion is in the grass, whether it’s sunny or daunting.
But most of all, emotion is pure in a human face. The years of pain, laughter, joy, loss of loved ones, accidents, nights ending in stitches of laughter, avoidance of friends, embarrassments, dreams that have been crushed, dreams that have been realized… All those years add up to one face. Where the wrinkles intertwine with the dimples, and the lips do as they might.
There’s a picture I took in Nepal, of the 80-year-old woman with the gap in her teeth. Every time I see that picture, I want to understand her. Understanding a person, mind you, is entirely different from knowing them. I met this woman, she gave me unfiltered orange Tang and I drank it anyways. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to understand her.
I freaking love photography.
This is an excerpt from my journal that I wrote last week. I was hesitating posting this because I was not sure how “raw” to be with my thoughts and my posts, obviously I would have worded things a bit differently if I had known I would be posting this online. I got a Facebook message yesterday though from a friend indicating that it’s in these blog posts that she feels most connected and like a part of my race. So I’m choosing to leave this, embarrassing thoughts and all, so that you can better understand where I’m coming from when I write about ministry and the rest of the Race. As those of you who have read my blogs and know racers personally, THERE IS SO MUCH MORE THAT HAPPENS TO RACERS THAN “MINISTRY”. First of all, it’s all ministry. From having conversations with locals about Christ to helping someone at the office here in Manzini with how to print a Word document to extremely tough feedback on some nights. Many racers have actually found that the biggest way they are able to further Christ’s Kingdom is to invest in our squad (if you understand Race jargon, that’s Raised up Squad Leaders). While on the race, God challenges your spiritual beliefs, your morals, what you look for in friendships, your physical endurance, your past, and most dramatically your future. I’m going to start this series called “Copied From My Journal.” It’ll be used for certain topics that are pulling at my heart, whether western society would call it “ministry” or not. And I will attempt to especially consider posting the journal entries that I REALLY DON’T want to post, because it probably means it has a lot of heart issues in it.
-Will
P.S. I’m living in a tent this month. I don’t think I’ve even told my mom that so that she won’t worry. But um, mom, I’m living in a tent. It flooded yesterday… Love you!
P.S.S. I was given a Swazi nickname. You might as well start referring to me as “Jobulani” now. It means “Joyful.” A friend from church gave it to me. Be thankful it doesn’t have a click in it like Kevin’s…
