Simply rooted

Today I took my final, handed in the last project and really took a breath for the first time since I've gotten here. In one week we are leaving for Bougani, a smaller more rural town North of Bamako. We'll be there for two months before we make our way back to Bamako for the remainder of our stay.

A couple of days ago, our class took a field trip to a few small villages a couple of hours away. While there we got to eat some interesting food, meet some precious people, and experience the simplicity that accompanies a life lived with nothing but bare essentials. For the first time I really felt like I was in Africa. Like I had finally woken up and taken off the rose colored glasses and really stepped off of the sidewalk of life and dived right into the middle of it.

People are so amazing, so resilient, so beautiful. I can't imagine living the type of life that includes nothing but a hut, a few chickens, and maybe a donkey. But these people do, and they do it well. Their faith challenges mine, their love for people surpasses mine, and their understanding of life blows me. I love what God can do when he chooses to move in unsuspecting ways. The irony that a small, seemingly primative village is able to grasp the vital importance of His presence more so than many churches in America really demonstrates the up-side down, turned around ways of our God. His wisdom is foolishness and His ways our not my own. That is what captivates me, that's what stretches me and breaks me and grows me.

I wrote this quote in my journal before I left and I came across it yesterday:

"If I am to be like Him, then God in His grace must do it, and the sooner I come to recognize it the sooner I will be delivered from another form of bondage. Throw down every endeavor and say, 'I cannot do it' and the more I try, the farther I get from His likeness. What shall I do? 'Ah' the Holy Spirit says, 'You cannot do it; just withdraw; come out of it.' You have been in the arena, you have been endeavoring, you are a failure, come out and sit down and as you sit there behold Him, look at Him. Don't try to be like Him. Forget about trying to be like Him. Just be occupied with Him. Instead of trying and letting that fill your mind and heart, let Him fill it. Just behold Him, look upon Him through the Word. Come to the Word for one purpose and that is to meet the Lord. Not to get your mind crammed full of things about the Sacred Word, but come to it to meet the Lord. Behold the Lord!"
Norman Douty, "The Complete Green Letters"