Something to Say

From time to time, I fancy myself as a writer. Call it pride if you will, but its probably mere delusion. Here’s another attempt at something meaningful…

When I was back in California, I taught kids at church. I was in a groove and whether it was Rock Harbor, Pacific Pointe or The Garden I could step in and teach the kids something about Jesus and their lives. It was fairly easy. I would have a curriculum and I would fill it out with my own ideas. Even if I was making my own curriculum like I did for the junior highers at PPC, it was more of a give and take discussion so the teaching just came naturally. I’m no longer a children’s pastor, junior high pastor or Sunday school teacher and trying to impart anything to anyone seems to have gotten harder.

Last Saturday, I preached at Pastor Unity’s Youth Conference. Sunday I preached at ICC. When did this start happening? In the states, I’m not a preacher. Culturally I realize that Tanzanian Christians want to honor Americans and feel like they could get something from us spiritually. That is true, but its far from automatic. An American is just as likely to get up there and blow a bunch of hot air as a Tanzanian, conversely a Tanzanian is just as likely to stand up and deliver a moving sermon. And yet I’m an American, although I’m young and don’t have seminary experience, I’m now a default preacher (and elder apparently).

Every Wednesday, I lead our morning devotionals at TOA. I think the Lord is stretching me in this area of teaching or getting me to be ready “in and out of season” as Ryan puts it. I prepare every Tuesday evening and write a page of notes including a Bible verse or two and give the short message the next morning. It stresses me out a little bit. I’d be lying if I said that I look forward to it every week. I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes, I feel like the only thing that anyone hears is if I tell some embarrassing story about how my house is always dirty and I only eat bananas at home (its not normal in Tanzania for a 24 year old man to be unwed). One time, I specifically remember starting out my devotional saying that I don’t know too much about what I’m about to share (it was regarding walking in constant signs and wonders) and then proceeded to give a very uninspiring message that lived up to my opening disclaimer. Who does that?

And then there’s this blog… Don’t be fooled by the eloquence (or more accurately the babbling), I’m not sure what I’m doing. I used to blog on LiveJournal when I was still living in Paso and when all my friends forsook it, I followed suit shortly after transferring to Vanguard. My public writing lay dormant for nearly four years, until I chronicled my two months interning with Global EFFECT last summer. That was pretty much only my events of the week. But something changed when I wrote “The Joys of Fundraising” sitting at Portfolio Coffee in Long Beach. I went on to write two or three blogs while still in LBC and the natural inclination of mine was to talk about what the Lord was doing in each of those blogs and my thoughts and emotions leading up to my life here in Tanzania. Then not knowing what my blogs would look like once I got down here, something tragic happened when I landed, our precious treasure Anjela passed on to Heaven. That set me up to only write things of significance and what I see the Lord doing. I have continued to try and hold that standard and yet I find myself at a loss for pastoral words at the moment.

This last week, I have had a couple other people say that they’ve been keeping up or at least checked out some of the posts and they are not people that I was expecting to have been doing so. I do know that I have some friends that are keeping up with each blog. The format has become quite predictable, right? I share an experience of the week, what it put on my mind, I liken it to an experience or two from my previous life back in California and land the whole blog on some nice take home message [insert snooze and/or gag here]. I must be running out of things to say or something. Maybe I just need to spend a blog talking about how I feel about my writing, so as to plead for your grace. The truth is I do so much value each person that takes a few minutes out of their week to read the blog and I would feel bad for you to end the blog and walk away with nothing. Am I allowed to just do a rundown for the week? I think that would be borrowing to read week in and week out. I’m afraid I’m going to break the cycle at least to some degree today and I won’t end with some reflective question for you to think about, if you actually do that normally.

What am I getting at? I don’t know!

The truth is that in anything that I do the Lord’s grace is sufficient. There have been a few times during the morning devotionals that I actually felt afterwards that I spoke on what I was supposed to. I was blessed to prophetically prepare for my two previous sermons. The Lord gave me the word “surrender” and then gave me the grace to find the right scripture and say at least some of the things that He would say. I’m even getting my Tanzanian lungs. My sermon on Sunday went for almost a hour and there was no translation. I hope that it has been the case, but with anything that I’ve been writing or preaching I’ve prayed “only Your words Lord.” I’m sure that I’ve messed up at some point and infused my skewed view on something, but I know His grace is sufficient for me. He is my saving grace. Even in a pointless blog like this, I know that He is with me and the Holy Spirit doesn’t come and go. He can give me something to say on His behalf at any moment and even if I get frustrated with myself, His grace remains. I think that if I could say one thing about my time here it would be that God is gracious. That is certainly clear in my mortal attempts at writing and preaching. That’s where I’ll hang my hat today and trust that His grace remains, for this I give praise.

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The Rundown: The week was good. Two more of VU’s interns got here for their two month stay. I already knew Nick and Taylor I had met before. Its been cool hanging out with them a few times over the last week. On Friday, Alice had to have a bunch of rocks (like four truck loads) moved from her old house to her current house and I took Innocent, Benny, Ema and Ray with me to help out and that was cool. After we finished, I had to hurry and clean up, because I was going camping soon thereafter. I went straight from Alice’s to my place to shower and the boys came with and they got to be the first treasures to see my house. The funny part was that my house is enough of a mess that these adolescent boys felt inclined to start cleaning of their own volition. I’m ashamed. After we got back to TOA, I took off with Lauren, Mary and a group of short term interns for Moipo. Lauren has a house out there that will be for the girls that the Lord will deliver out of the Kilimanjaro prostitution ring. It was my first time out there and actually my first time out of Moshi since language school ended back in January. It was great to hang out with people my age and get out in God’s beautiful creation. Moshi is a bit of an anomaly and getting out in the village feels more like Tanzania in a lot of ways. It was great, but I wasn’t exactly rested when I got back. The Lord sustains all the same. The next morning I preached and that went very well. Other than, all is normal. Thanks for your prayers. I bless you in the name of the Lord.