Living Life

Saturday night. I’m at home. The electricity has been out most the day and it is coming and going right now. Another chill night alone in the Stiver residence. I got a case of peanut butter chest thanks to my dinner. Just finished winning my 30th straight FreeCell game on my laptop. That’s right, Brandon Stiver, missionary and FreeCell extraordinare. I tried to take a picture but taking a picture of small print on a laptop screen doesn’t quite work. Sitting in my favorite chair, listening to Matthew Mayfield, enjoying his raspy voice and trying to not let it lull me into a nighttime depression.

This is my life. Its nothing glamorous. Not particularly romantic. At times its beautiful and at times I sit in my living room eating oatmeal in my underwear.

I wish that I could tell you how I “feel.” The truth is I’ve been on a bit of an emotional hiatus since December 8th. Completely unintentional and entirely frustrating. I haven’t been crying like I regularly do, my mind has got four thousand and eighty six things on it and my words can’t articulate the surface of my emotional ambiguity from moment to moment. I’ll try simple words for now. Right now, I’m at peace. Not sad, not lonely, not exuberant, I just am.

This has been a week. If I had written a blog on any other day other than Saturday night, it would have come out quite different. Just so you know, I put a lot of thought into what I write, probably more than I should. I want what I write to sound good and inspiring and beautiful and I want to sound like I’ve got it all figured out and what I write is going to change your life and yada yada yada. That’s hogwash (word choice?). Last week I wrote on Sunday afternoon after getting back from my first church service with Awadhi, how do you think I felt? I felt amazing! Therefore, I wrote that afternoon and everything sounded great. Yesterday, I felt like I’d spent half the day slamming my head into a wall. Nope, not gonna write.

This is my life. Cue the Switchfoot song.

I love Tanzania. Far more than that, I love the children, far more than that I love the Treasures. They are the reason I’m here. The Lord sent me here to be a father to them, to be their educator, to be their friend, to pray for them, to worship with them, to tickle them, to kiss them, to dance with them, to talk with them, to give them my entire life to the point of earthly death. That’s why I’m here. That’s the beautiful part. Praise the Lord.

There are things that I don’t love here, that are nonetheless a part of my life. Jesus, grant me patience and understanding. I don’t like having to worry about paying a bribe to get my mail, I don’t like that addresses essentially don’t exist, that the power goes out for no good reason and without warning, I hate hate hate mosquitoes, I don’t like it when people look at me and think “mzungu = money,” I don’t like feeling incompetent and having inadequate Swahili. These things were almost charming when I was here on short term trips. Not any more. All these things add up and can be very frustrating. And yet they don’t remotely compare to the injustice, poverty, wickedness and death that I see on a normal basis.

Praise God the love He’s given me for these kids far outweighs the fact that life is hard and so much here is worse in the natural. That’s where I will hang my hat. I love these kids. That’s why I’m here. That’s worth giving my life away.

I got lost yesterday and wasted gas and time trying to find Awadhi’s school to pick him up for the weekend. Instead of being embarrassed that my primary school kids saw baba get lost, I’ll just be happy that they were along for the ride and Awadhi ran right past his teacher and into my arms when he saw me. Instead of getting frustrated that the power’s out and the gas pumps are off and I’m 30 minutes late to pick up the high schoolers, I’ll just be happy that I found them walking home and they ran up to me smiling and made it home in time for dinner. Instead of being sad that I’m here single and come home to an empty house, I’ll be glad that Awadhi is home 2 ½ a days a week, I work with the most wonderful children in the world and that in the meantime, ninaweza kusubiri kwa mke wangu.

Just let love reign. Just turn your eyes upon Jesus and the things of the world will grow strangely dim in His light. Just focus on the unfathomable God, your Shepherd. May my life be as such.

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The Rundown: As far as work detail goes, I’ve spent the last week focusing on the preschool. We’ve changed it up quite a bit, but I think it will cater to the younger kids a lot more and we will supplement other things for our oldest Lucy, who is very bright. This next week, I’ll be starting some of the ESL stuff for the older kids and trying to figure that out. Pray! I started my discipleship with Ryan on Tuesday which I am very excited about. I’ve never been officially, intentionally discipled before and I look forward to gleaning from big brother’s experience. Wednesday night, I joined a small group. So crazy to think about my Costa Mesa LG and LB Modern Lovers and now I’m in a group here. The conversation was good and I like the people in it. Funny that in both of my beloved life groups back in SoCal, no one was married and most were single and yet here everyone in the group is married. I essentially joined a couples group for people age 28-35 and I’m a 23 year old single man. Hamna shida. It was really fun and I look forward to continue going. Today was a lot of fun as I essentially played, worshiped and laughed with the kids all day. It really was great. Overall, life is life. Blessed. Its flying by and I’m holding on by God’s grace.

…oh, and happy Valentine’s Day.