Malian Tea Party

One of the things that most people know about me is my intense dislike for hot drinks. They don't make sense. Liquid is supposed to be refreshing. Add an unbearably hot climate to the mix and the thought of a burning drink is torture. We opened our tea house last week so for the past week and a half I've consumed cups and cups of steaming tea with spoonfuls of sugar in it. God is funny yeah?

The tea house has been a big hit. We are open for six hours a day. At first I wasn't sure what to expect. A tea house is a completely foreign concept in this country. The team had basically resigned itself to the fact that we would have only a few visitors a day. The first day I brought three books with me and some homework. Silly silly me. We had fifteen people show up- a good turn out. What made it overwhelming was the fact that they all came at 1 when we opened. And stayed till 7 when we closed. We had to shut the place down with them still inside. So the Tea house is an American concept, but since it's in the culture of Mali it looks completely different. People come to talk, to hang out, to visit. By the end of the day I've used up my words for the year and all I want to do is crash into a silent world. But it's been encouraging for my heart to meet people with the same faith as mine from all over Africa. Hearing their stories and seeing the role that Christ plays in their life here has blessed me. God is a big, diverse God. And He loves Africa. So much.

Our team is doing really well. We met a few weeks ago to discuss our spiritual gifts and how we can use them to minister to each other. Since then we've been meeting weekly and the time together has really built us up and unified us. When I first got to Mali, when I was pumped up about team and community and fellowship, I read the book of Acts over and over. I was so excited to experience what the early church experienced. That intimate connection and bond that we have in Him. That was during the honeymoon phase of team life. Then I started pulling away from the team. I tried to define myself outside of it, to live outside of it. That's the America in me coming out. Now I'm coming back to the place I'm supposed to be. I realize that when I live on my own, when I try to be self sufficient, I'm not only hurting myself, but the body. I'm underestimating the power of community, the worth of the Sacred Bride of Christ. Because I need that in my life- fellowship. I need to be encouraged by other people's faiths, I need to be challenged by their struggles, and I need to be helped and carried when I'm weak and tired. That's when God is glorified, that's what He finds pleasing. I was created to walk with Him in the garden, I was made for relationship. My spirit craves that. Sometimes I'm amazed by how good God is, by how He blesses me. My expectations are so low sometimes. And when He uses people to minister to me in my times of hurt or despair I'm way too surprised. I love a great God. Sometimes I just need someone to remind me of that. Of who He is. Of who I am in Him.

"Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer