Single-ness

If this hasn’t been a blog in the making, I don’t know what is.

I’ve decided to do a mid-week blog (no extra charge) on something that I know is applicable to many friends back in the states (as opposed to my last blog, seriously who cares about poetry?). And something that is really stinkin’ difficult.

I’m a rarity in this neck of the woods. Moshi is one of the unique cities in the much bigger picture of African missions. Moshi, or the Kilimanjaro region, for whatever reason, has a fairly large missionary populace. We aren’t running this place by any stretch of the imagination, but I know of friends that have been in areas of Africa and have been the only white person within miles and miles. That’s not the case here. Yet despite the larger missionary base, I’m the only missionary that I know or know of that is a single man and a young one at that. (I’m sure that someone from Moshi will comment saying that they know another, in which case my entire tirade will be null and void and I just wasted everyone‘s time… which I‘m probably doing anyways).

Maybe its because I run in the young Christian activism circles back in California, but sometimes I think that “Africa” is more popular there than it is here. And yet despite the hype, not too many young women are willing to just up and move here for a “long-term indefinite” period of time (although shout out and props to women like my friend Lauren who have done just that). I also can’t think of another missionary that is here that is 23, although just one month till my birthday! Even the young women here are older than me. And if you matchmakers are thinking “possibility?” I’m actually one of those guys that really like to be the older one in the relationship (go ahead and quote me here, I’m sure I just sealed my fate to be younger than my theoretical wife).

I sent out a status update while I was in Wisconsin, jokingly asking people to pray that I’d meet my wife at language school (first week of being here) and a bunch of the sistren commented saying they would. I laughed and said I was joking, but inside, I was certainly entertaining the idea. When you sign up to do God’s will, you sign up to do it on His terms. And if you don’t do it on His terms, I give you a 100% guarantee it won’t work. And as I say that, I think to myself “that implies what I’m doing is working.” Weird. Anyways, His terms are really hard and painful. I know all my friends that are married at any age say, “you know, Brandon, marriage is hard” and I’m like “Really? Let me try.” Then I find out they’re quite fond of their wives and won’t share. Okay, life is hard period. Marriage won’t solve everything, alright. And yet that head knowledge doesn’t make it any easier.

Ryan and I were talking during discipleship and this of course came up. Ryan got married at the age of 22 (I think) right after college to Stacy who is one of those rare women who actually was willing to move, along with their whole family, to a third world country and be missionaries. So needless to say, his story is a bit different from mine. Nonetheless, he was talking about when he left college and missing those friends combined with the freedom that came from being young. He took that freedom and married, then stayed in the states for however many years before being sent out a few years ago. I on the other hand took that freedom and moved here, where the realistic number of potential matches for me became much more slim.

If you know my story, you know my story. I’m going to be careful to not share information that is too personal for another person, but if you know my story, you know my story and if you don‘t the following is more than enough for this area. When I returned from my internship last summer and I had been offered my job at TOA, I had a decision to make. I had to decide if I wanted to stay in southern California and settle down continuing in ministry work with a very respectable and godly woman that I loved very much or to come here, single, and fulfill the story that the Lord had been writing over the previous two years. If I were a more dramatic writer I’d tell you I pined over the decision and it was excruciating, but to be honest, the decision was the easy part. My resolve to come here with or without a partner was set in stone before I got on a plane to come back to California. It wasn’t the decision that was hard, it was the weight of the consequences that was hard. It IS the weight of the consequences that is hard.

My friend Colleen once told me that I’m the kind of guy that makes girls confident that there are still good godly men out there. Isn’t that nice? Its too kind and very humbling. Yet as sweet as it was for her to say that, its entirely frustrating, because if that were true how come I AM SINGLE? Being single is hard. I don’t know what the Lord is up to and I feel like me and all my single friends are just waiting for one big event that will fix our lives. I know that’s not true, but that’s how it appears. I’m not the guy that says “I’m looking for the woman that will complete me.” Because that implies that I’m incomplete, when Christ is truly my everything. And yet all my single friends seem to be waiting, men and women that all have different stories, all clueless. Some of them have remained pure, some have had to have their purity restored, some of them are in college, some are in their mid twenties and all their friends from college are getting married, some are in their thirties and hoping they didn’t miss him/her, I have a friend who is sixty and she was talking about her husband-to-be. All of us are clueless, it seems. I don’t know what the Lord is up to. I know that I can wait, I am waiting and Africa teaches patience well. And yet, I feel like I have to take every opportunity to share about myself and see if there’s potential, because I don‘t want to miss her. Having said that…

Name: Brandon Michael Stiver

Height: 5’11” (although my license says 6’0”)

Weight: 165

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Grey

Favorite Color: Green

Interests: Jesus, children, children who love Jesus, I like walks on the beach or just walks in general, I play guitar, write poetry and listen to Norah Jones.

Looking For: A woman who loves Jesus, has an idea of settling down that includes living in Tanzania for the foreseeable future with future prospects of following the Holy Spirit anywhere else (India, Bolivia, wherever) and adopting children then moving an enormous Abraham/Sarah size family across continents at the Spirit‘s whim, she is artistic in some form and can live on peanut butter.

(Too much to ask?)

These have been my thoughts. They are only thoughts. They affect my prayer life and may affect my future life, but aren’t necessarily affecting my current life. A prayer that I pray often is “Lord, let my actions be righteous.” My thoughts can be to random and distracting, so I just pray that the thoughts that are within the will of God are the ones that I act on, because action is so much more important than mere thoughts. These are my thoughts on single-ness. Despite my thoughts on marriage, I am unmarried, I haven’t acted on any thought I’ve ever had about marriage, only the thoughts on pre-marriage. My prayers to stay in God’s will for who I am or am not with have largely been answered, because I am 100% certain that today I am supposed to be single. I don’t know what He has in store. I may never marry. I may meet my wife tomorrow. I have no idea. I’m clueless. But what I do know is that whether I’m married or single. My focus is the same. I am to focus on the Lord, seek my satisfaction in Him alone and what He has for me today. He is faithful and He’ll take care of me. He hears my every prayer and while I may be confused about His will or how the whole thing works is a non-issue, because He knows how it works and He loves me, thinks of me and will guide me better than I can myself. Praise the Lord.

-----------------------

The Rundown: Only a couple things since my last blog. For one, everyone’s sick. A few kids (plus Jodie) have malaria. Awadhi’s been home from school all week with a fever. I personally have a killer sore throat, but I think that’s all it is. Apparently Diamond thinks its funny to cough directly into my face and overall we just share colds here at the orphanage. I went into immigration and I apparently got approved. I go into today (Wednesday) to pick up the permit and get my passport stamped. I’m not sure if they gave me one or two years, but watch my Facebook for the status update. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.