Full joy and contentment I hop on my motorbike heading for
the ABC school. The shadow of my motorbike now disappears before me as I watch
the sun drop below the horizon line in my rear-view mirror. As I bob up and
down on the dirt road I recognize that the coolness of the evening begins to
win the battle of temperature as the sun scurries off to warm some other
distant land. Absorbed in the beauty
that lay before me, along with the concentration and focus of dodging various
holes, rocks, and baby goats I fail to recognize the herd of cows moseying
along in the middle of my path up ahead; not to mention the fact that they are
all black cows that seem to blend in perfectly to the impending night sky. With
the approaching wall of cow meat and horns, and with my motorbike still puttering
along at the same speed I think to myself, “That’s a lot of meat! Also, out of
all the ways that I would want to die, I think that being skewered in the face
by a bullhorn would be pretty low on the list.” At this point trying to stop
would be to no avail, “I must think of another way. When life gives us lemons,
we gotta try not to be impaled.” So I
look at the consequences of going left… hole, probably leading to death. Right…
“Ooo, I might be able to fit through on the right.” I contracted my right elbow
and extended my left thus causing a quick jolt to my right. However, this entire
thought process about the death hole on the left, and the lemons must have been
going on the cow’s mind as well because as I lunged for the space to the right,
so did the bull. I look the bull in the eyes and say, “I’ve run outta options.”
Standing at the cliff eternity I prepare myself to take the step when suddenly
a thought comes into my head! “I have watched enough action movies, all I need
to do is lay the bike down, slide underneath the cow, and continue on the other
side. It is a flawless plan! “But I have to act fast!” I say to myself, with
the cow now only 3 feet in front of me. I clench my right fist with the speed
and power of a cheetah implementing a full front wheel break thus causing my
tail end to whip around. Everything is going perfectly, now what is next… think
back to the movies. Now that I think about it, I realize that I can’t think of
one time where someone does the awesome motorbike slide on gravel… or under
something smaller than a semi truck. Fear begins to take me, but I have no time
for fear. Not now. Not now that I am so close. I can almost touch the cow’s
utters. I close my eyes and hope for the best.
“Am I on
the otherside? Did I make it? Why does my leg hurt?” My eyes open to reveal a
disappointing reality. Though I did successfully lay the bike down, I neither
went under the cow, nor even came close. Because of my inexperience I guess I
forgot that I needed to move my leg of of the way when I laid the bike down.
The bike did not skid on the gravel, rather on my leg. There is only one thing
to do now as the African children who were previously yelling “the white dude,
the white dude!” are now laughing. My pride is shot, my leg has been ravaged, and
you should feel sorry for me.
Is that story true? Why did you tell us that?
I want you to know that 97% of the story is true, and to be
honest I have no real reason for telling that story besides the fact that it
got your attention didn’t it?
Well here we are June 7th with less than four
weeks left in Bobo. My last blog post I talked about where I was at and asked
for prayer against the “just survive” mentality. Well I am so excited to report
that things the past couple weeks have been great (attitude wise), and more
importantly the future is going to be even better (God willing). I am really
excited about the future and finishing strong here. If there has ever been a
time that Zack and I would have the most opportunities to be of influence, it
would be in the last couple weeks. We have built the relationships, we’ve lived
as a Burkinabe, and we’ve prayed for opportunities and how to finish strong.
It’s all ready to go, and I’ve never been more excited! Both fed up with our complacency
and sin Zack and I are having a spiritual “check-up” daily with one another. Daily
striving to surrender everything we have/are to be used by God according to His
plan. Pray for us in this area. And for me particularly I am really working on
my prayer life, seeking to: 1) Not be so selfish, 2) Have “prayer burdens” for
others, and 3) learn to pray continuously.
The last thing I would like to ask you to pray for is
finance stuff. Ever since I began doing
anything missions related I have hated dealing with finance stuff. The other
day I was listening to Paul Washer and he was talking about his missions
organization who was $350,000 in debt because they had just started a new
project and was trusting that God would provide the money. Well, the day came
when their fundraising (and when I say fundraising I mean praying and fasting)
was almost over and they were still something like $250,000 in the hole. If they didn’t have the money by the end of
that day they were going to have to stop all projects that they had going over
seas. Without telling a sole, and solely by prayer they had over $300,000 by
various donors that day. I struggle with
asking for money because I have seen and heard stories of miraculous things
that God has done. That was my mentality for a while, “I’m not going to share
my needs anymore, God is bigger than anything I can say, He alone moves hearts
to give.” However, I realize something now, God does do miracles, God does test
and build our faith, but He rarely does it in the same way every time. Sometimes (and I would say more often then
not) God uses the man who expresses his need to move hearts to give. And it does not make one giving towards a
specific cause any less miraculous. The early church was commended for it’s
ability to share everything they had. That means that 1) everyone was willing
to give anything they had to a brother in need, abut also (and probably the
more difficult of the two) is admitting that there is a need and bringing it to
light.
In Africa there are a lot of people who express their needs
openly and even to the point where Zack and I really struggle with how to
respond. But then there are also the people (even within the church) who are
really struggling, to the point where you can just see it in their eyes. And
you just long for them to tell you what the problem is so that you can be part
of the solution.
I bring all this up because I do have a financial need.
Originally I felt really bad about saying anything, but after a conversation
with my dad I realized that I was more testing God and putting Him in a bubble
rather than letting Him work through others. It is already a miracle that I
have raised the $11,000 that I have for the past 9 months. Thank you to all who
have given and prayed faithfully. I have a video that shows all the ministries
that I have been involved with coming in the next week! I hope you know how
amazing this year has been for me in my life, and I think I can say the same
for Zack and the people we have witnessed to here.
It’s not over! Pray that we finish strong. We are tired, and
looking forward to the future, but have never been more aware of His presence
and reign in our lives. Love God, Love People. Amen.
