Learning (little by little)

Living here, I feel like I am learning how to live all over again. Simple things that I used to be completely capable of doing on my own are now challenges that I have to force myself to overcome. Learning how and where to buy food, as well as how to cook and eat it. How to have even basic conversations with people. Learning these roads. Learning what is acceptable and what is not. Dealing with friendly blank stares from others and also giving a bunch myself, followed by holding up my hands with an "I'm sorry!" expression. 

Where is this place? How do you say this? What is that? Can you repeat that again? Yes I know you just told me 4 times. Oh, I wasn’t supposed to do that? This word also means that? Oh. 

Not to mention the complications of trying to organize a nutrition program with language barriers and no one has any idea what is really going on. People have different ideas and expectations and plans easily get lost in translation. Some people, not knowing any better, think I have lots of answers and a good plan. That makes me laugh, as I don’t really have either. 

I’m learning how much I need God for every little thing. I need Him to show me the way.  I thought I knew that already, but there is something about having it as a reality that stuns me that I have thought I could do so many things on my own.

With every new day and opportunity, I have a choice to make. Even when I realize how much help I need, how lost I am without God’s Spirit to guide me, I can still choose to say no. I can stay where I am comfortable and don’t have to submit myself to awkward interactions and situations that I don’t know what I’m doing.  Sometimes I am tempted to stay in this safe place.

But I look at the life of Jesus and I see a different approach. In Him God came down to our level, our world. He sat with us in the dirt of our lives and sin and mistakes. He learned how to live with us. He made himself vulnerable, something that I often try so hard to fight against because who wants that, really? It’s so uncomfortable and awkward.

But what if that wasn’t the end. What if there was something else hidden in the vulnerability and messy situations? What if this helpless position of my heart is what God delights in, knowing that I am absolutely nothing and can do nothing without Him? What if there is actually joy in losing control over my life? 

Which brings me to the other choice I have every day. The one I pray God will give me the strength to say “yes” to again and again. The choice to step out of my comfort zone. To say “yes” in the face of fear and anxiety of the unknown, of mistakes, of being misunderstood.  To sit with people and learn from them and allow myself to feel their pain as if it were my own. To just love and not worry about the perfect little details about how everything will all happen and come together.  To say no to myself and yes to Jesus, because even though I’ve gotten it wrong so many times His grace is still enough.

 

They teach me French words by pointing at things around the little courtyard as we sit there eating peanuts. I love family visits like these. Communication looks like a few words and lots of hand motions, facial expressions, and laughing. I watch them pound boiled plaintains into dough, and when they let me try mashing too they get a big kick out of it. We talk with the family and see how they are doing. The little boy is HIV positive but thanks to the medicine he gets from the clinic he is otherwise healthy. I get to pray with them before we go and attempt praying in French for the first time. When I proudly finish stumbling through it, the small group breaks out into excited shouting and clapping and laughing. We say goodbye with the promise of coming back soon. I feel alive, and part of something so much bigger than myself. 

In the mess that I can be so hesitant to jump into, I am finding simple, beautiful joy. Learning and laughter and growth and new relationships and love, all which I could never have known by staying where I feel safe and comfortable.  Because from these places of being so in need of help, there is also the experience of feeling of being totally cared for and taken care of by a God who loves me and is more than capable.