On Abiding

Our mindset is a complete surrendering to the wise, loving, powerful will and actions of God. We adore and worship Him in all things.  We have no reason to be anxious, because we know every event rests in His sovereign care. Therefore, we have cause to be filled with true gratitude and joy, knowing that it is all for our good and His glory and we can trust Him completely with the outcome.

Therefore, we walk forward toward our heavenly inheritance and continue to do the next thing that is set before us.  Be it small or great, we are not above small tasks, nor are fearful of great tasks, for we know that each ordained and sanctified and used mightily by our Savior for the achievement of the ultimate goal.  His sovereignty gives each small task eternal weight and value, and His power gives the strength, courage, and fortitude necessary for each heavy load.

As we pray continually, the Spirit reminds us of these truths and gives us the vision and call to carry on in gratitude and love with each passing moment.  Were we to cease from this attitude of prayer, the urgency and eternal implications of the moment do not wane, but instead our awareness of them wanes. This dull complacency, this earthly-mindedness, is truly evil, for once we have ceased to remember our goal, we offer fertile ground for the seeds of self-sufficiency, greed, and idolatry.  Instead of craving more of Christ and honor to His name, we crave honor for ourselves.  Instead of rejoicing in all things, we count most things, even blessings, as burden and inconvenience.  Instead of fervently loving others, we passionately and whole-heartedly love ourselves and desire our happiness and comfort above all else.  The needs of others, instead of being a cause for celebration at the opportunity to serve and help, become hindrances to our own comfort that are to be avoided at all costs. When we are forced to do them we carry deep resentment for lost time and energy.

How can one who is saved and called fall so far from grace?  By simply neglecting one thing: the call to abide in the vine through prayer, originating with the subtle creeping in of self-sufficiency, birthed by that great and terrible mother of all sins: pride.

May we ever be alert to the elusive deceit in our own hearts, and may we at all times fall desperately at the feet of the Savior to bind these sins that so easily entangle us, knowing that each moment is precious, and that our lives are no longer our own to waste, but have been redeemed to shine with the grace and forgiveness so freely bestowed that others might also believe and be saved.

A Day at the Island

Unloading

As sort of an end-of-the-year bash coupled with a science field trip, David Taylor and myself, the sixth grade homeroom teachers, accompanied the kids to Mbudga Island for a day away last Thursday.  It was super fun.

Quotables:

“Miss House, do I have a bump on my head?”  Um, yeah, you do. Where’d you get that?  “She threw a rock at me.” WHAT?!?  “Well, we were playing with sand and hers had a rock in it and it hit me, so I threw a rock back.”  <Insert lecture on rock-throwing here.>

The football gang.

“The sun ALWAYS rises in the west.”  Make sure you come and get me the next time that happens, because I certainly would like to see it.

Taking some notes.

“Miss House, do otters have gills?” No, why? “Because I swam down to the bottom of the ocean and I saw one sitting there.”

Dain points out some poisonous cacti.

“Miss House, can I give you my shoes?”  No, sweetie, I don’t want you to cut up your feet on these rocks.  “It’s okay, I’m from the village, my feet are tough!” *walks shoelessly away over spiky rocks without a flinch*

(While wading out to the boat in waist-deep water to return home.)  “Oh man, my stuff is going to get all wet.  Wait a minute! I’ve got just the thing!”

The African way.

“We go on a boat like this to get to my parents’ house. But on that river, there’s crocodiles.”

Joy, the brave missionary girl who travels with crocodiles.

“Miss House, there’s a special place deep in the forest that I like to go to sometimes. Can I go there?” Not by yourself.  (Found out later that the “special place” was an old swingset.)

Catching some waves on the boat.

“This is SO much better than going to school.”

The girls!

These children drive me absolutely crazy at times.  And I absolutely adore them.

Great memories.

A nice place to spend the day.

 

The boat guy.

An Unlikely Messenger

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write all year, but could never really figure out a happy conclusion, so I didn’t write it.  I mean, nobody wants to read a story without a happy ending, right? 

When I was a little girl, I used to have issues with bug bites.  There was a time period when my parents couldn’t figure out what was biting me so much at night.  Nobody else in the house had been bitten, but I had little red bug bites all over my body.  My mom used to say it was because I was so sweet, which I suppose was meant to make me feel better.  For a little while, it did, but it never really made the itchiness go away. 

If anything, this year has been the year of the mosquito for me.  I have screens on my windows, although they aren’t perfectly sealed.  I sleep with a mosquito net every single night.  I keep the door to my room closed at all times. And still, every other night on average, I wake up to itchy, fiery bites that are almost unbearable.  The overarching rule that I’ve observed is that if there is even one mosquito in a room, it will without question find me and bite me multiple times. The system at this point as become pretty routine to me: rouse myself out of my sleeping state, find the cortisone cream, flashlight, and glasses that I keep in the net for times like this, apply the cortisone cream to every bite (I’ve gone through about seven bottles of it so far), fire up the flashlight, put on my glasses, and go mosquito hunting.  During these times my prayers are also routine:  “Lord, why did you let that mosquito get inside the net tonight? You could’ve kept it out.”  “Help me to catch this mosquito soon so I can get back to sleep.”  Sometimes I catch the mosquito in lethargic state, drunk off my blood and unable to fly away fast enough.  Then I lie down and wait for the anti-itch medication to kick in so I can sleep.  Other times the mosquito is the usual flabbergastingly lightning-speed.  Tanzanian mosquitoes are at least three times as fast as any other mosquito I’ve ever had to deal with and incredibly difficult to catch. I usually have one good shot that it, and if I miss, it will take me another couple minutes to find it again, and then I have one more good shot.  If this goes on longer than ten minutes, I give up sleep completely and turn the room light on until I’ve found it.  By this time, my adrenaline is going and I’ll only be able to get back to a very surface level of sleep (if at all) until my alarm goes off and I need to go face my students for the day. I have no idea how many hours of sleep I’ve lost with this process, but if the adage about losing hours of sleep equals shortening the length of your life, over the course of this year I think it’s fair to say that I may have lost a few years.

Besides the night monsters, there are also the day variety that love to plague me at work.  These mosquitoes have a heyday going under the desk at work and gorging themselves on my legs and feet.  When the weather got a little bit cooler, I started wearing pants once in awhile in hopes that it would protect my legs, but found to my astonishment that the mosquitoes were able to bite me THROUGH THE FABRIC.

At the peak of rainy season, when mosquitoes are at their worst, I found 32 bites on my body at one time.  So you can imagine how I relate to Paul when he said, “I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” (2 Cor. 12:7)!

When I went to visit Aimee and Justin in Nairobi, we had quite a few good talks. I told Aimee about the mosquitoes, and how finding one inside my net at night could completely ruin my night’s sleep, and subsequently, ruin the following day on about twenty different levels.  About how frustrating it is to know that one mosquito can terrorize your entire night.  About how humiliating it is that your entire day could be dictated by a bug half the size of my thumb nail.  We talked about lessons and how God brings people to Africa during a myriad of different seasons and for many different reasons.  I told Aimee that I didn’t know what God had really meant for me by this year, and how maybe I failed just fully enough to miss the main lesson completely.

Aimee smiled, and said something like this:

 “Heather, He wanted you to know that all it takes is one mosquito.”

A Treasure Trove

Flagstaff in February

A little over two years ago, I went on weekend road trip to the Grand Canyon with some friends.  We decided to take the opportunity to visit Flagstaff and Sedona on our way back, and wanted to attend church on Sunday.  One of my friends called her fiancé and asked him to do a little research on good churches in Flagstaff.  He googled the question, and found a pastor who listed Spurgeon as one of his influences.  We decided that a friend Spurgeon’s is a friend of ours, so we went.  It was a complete shot in the dark, and my hopes were not high to hear anything of value that morning.  Little did I know that God had other plans.  The church building seemed normal enough, the smallish church body slightly more interesting, with people ranging from college students in Hollister t-shirts to older women with skirts to their ankles. After a set of upbeat, contemporary songs coupled with modern hymns, a man in his late fifties approached the pulpit.  He was very average looking, by anybody’s standards, and his stage presence was what you would expect from any ordinary long-time pastor.  Then, he started speaking.  It was his voice that piqued my interest at first.  It was low but steady, calm and reposed, and it sounded a lot like a dad. Little by little, as his words became sentences, I started to lean forward in my seat and take furious notes.  This was a man who knew the Word well, who obviously was well-read in the works of the ancient and modern saints, a man who assumed that his audience was intelligent and had a battle to go fight when they left the doors of the church. The sermon, or rather, the Word, pierced my soul on that day.

It is curious to me that God did not intend for the influence of this church or this man’s ministry to end then. Instead, a week or two later as I laid on our couch sick as a dog, I held in my hands a postcard written in the old-fashioned, unsteady hand of an elderly lady.  Her words were short but gracious. She thanked me for coming and told me that she and others in the church were praying for me.  I barely remembered that I had filled out the guest card on the back of the chair in front of me, so the carefully hand-written note held great impact. I had visited many churches over the course of my life and never in my recollection had I received a hand-written note, let alone a promise that I had been prayed for. As I contemplated what the Lord was teaching me from the sermon I had heard in this church in Arizona and the obvious faithfulness of its members evidenced by the card in my hand, I decided to see if I could listen to some more of Pastor Steve’s sermons online. In two clicks I had found the website. It was not much to speak of in terms of style, but I found all that I was looking for and more: years’ worth of sermons in both audio and textual format, a categorical list of pastor-recommended books to develop a wholistic Christian worldview, and various articles on a variety of aspects of the Christian walk written by Pastor Steve and many others. I quickly realized that I had stumbled upon a treasure trove.

Even today, I still listen to many of Pastor Steve’s sermons and count them among some of my greatest helps in ministering in Tanzania:http://www.fcfonline.org/search.asp?keyword=sermons

When I was in the states, I read through many of the books on his list of recommended reads:http://www.fcfonline.org/default.asp?keyword=BooksforGrowingChristians

Another resource I found of great value was a list of recommended prayer items (based on Bible verses) for spiritual growth:  http://www.fcfonline.org/default.asp?keyword=WhatShouldIPray.

I’m so thankful that I live in a time period where I have access to resources like these even halfway around the world, and I’m thankful for those faithful people who make these resources available to people like me.

Winds of Change

Couldn't resist sharing one of my favorites: Kili shows its majestic peaks, illuminated by the setting sun.

Well, I haven’t had any profundity coming my way lately, mostly because my mental processes these days consist of flowers, fonts, photography, jewelry, and about a million other logistical shenanigans. 

For those interested, my upcoming world tour looks like this:

June 19th – Fly from Dar to London, spend about 24 hours in London

June 20th – Fly from London to Seattle, then Seattle to LA

June 20-July 11th – (in no particular order) – recover from jet lag, get over the shock that I’m not living in a third world country anymore, spend time with my fiance, marriage counseling, spend time with church family and friends, set up our apartment, continue wedding preparations

July 11th – fly from LA to Oregon; July 11-28 – spend time with family and friends, massive wedding preparations

July 29th – Get Married!

If your thought is that this seems a bit overwhelming, you and I think alike.  However, this timeline is the result of MUCH discussion and prayer, and I’m confident that it is wise, even if it is crazy.

There won’t be much time to breathe in the next few months, let alone process this year. I plan to continue blogging when I return to the States as time allows, because I think the Lord will use this year as a change agent in many of my ways of thinking, but this is a work that is still in progress and I won’t fully know what to think or say about many things until I’ve had a great deal of time to pray and reflect on all of it. There is still so much that I don’t understand and areas where I don’t know what the right response is.

You Know You’re in Africa When (Vol. II)

 

You’ll see these hills, built by termites, all over the country when you’re traveling.

When the rains come and all the termites begin hatching and flying around you’re excited, because, hey, free dinner! (I jest. Tanzanians do eat these as snacks. I, however, do not.)

My favorite possession.

You count your headlamp and battery-powered fan as your most prized possessions.

Masai - photo from www.rnw.nl

You breathe a sigh of relief when a man dressed in red and purple appears in the parking lot, knowing your car is safe with him.

"Other plans"

 You have this standard Swahili line memorized for all impromptu marriage proposals, “I am very sorry, but my father has already made other plans.” (Thanks for the tip, Kate C!)

Makeshift clothesline

During rainy season, you get used to your clothes smelling slightly moldy  most of the time.

Some of my favorite things.

You shun most grocery store produce in favor of fresher, cheaper produce sold at roadside stands.

Hard Work

You’re reminded on a daily basis that most infrastructure is a direct result of someone’s sweat.

 Every decorative item you buy is inexpensive and hand-crafted.

Every day there’s a smile that just gets ya.

 

The people

When asked what the best thing about Africa is, you don’t even have to hesitate in answering: the people.

 

It always has been and always will be about the people, won’t it?

Cockroaches

I’m sick today and don’t have energy to write anything, least of all something positive, so I’m appointing Jen Moser, my roomate, friend, and HOPAC’s first grade teacher, as my guest poster.  I do have the video and I’ll attach it later when I have more energy.

Okay, okay, it wasn't this big...but it WAS big!

 ”Attack of the Killer Cockroach”

by Jen Moser

So on Tuesday night I believe I was minding my own business and went into the bathroom to wash my face.  Suddenly something startled me that fell down.  I looked up and I saw on the wall a GIANT cockroach.  About as long as my index finger!  I still at the point didn’t know what fell and thought maybe it had been another roach so I was looking around freaking out!  SO I ran and got my roommate Heather and we decided that the best way to try to kill it was to DOON it!  Now for those of you who do not know what it means to DOON something it is a very potent bug spray.  Since I can’t stand the thought of trying to squish that thing I thought spraying it would work nicely.  Now I knew that these things fly to my plan was to stand as close to the door as I could and spray for a distance and if it decided to fly I would slam the door shut with him inside and me outside.  Oh and Heather decided the film the process!  So I got up my nerve and started spraying with all my might!  After a few seconds of spraying things went downhill!  Suddenly the GIANT roach not only started to fly but decided to fly straight at me….I SCREAMED at the top of my lungs, ducked and slammed the door as fast as I could!  I WAS TOO LATE!  The thing flew out the door probably right over my head. I think if I hadn’t of ducked it would of hit me in the face!!! It was so traumatic.  And it still wasn’t dead.  Before we could find it it ran under the washing machine.  Drats….still alive!  Well we decided the next best thing would be to spray all around the machine and hope it kills it.  I am glad to say I have seen no sign of it since but I have been extra cautious every time I go near my bathroom now!  OH and one more thing, we did find out what fell.  Apparently it was a lizard!  GOODNESS GRACIOUS!

Rise

With the first drop of the rainy season the earth sizzled violently, like water dripping into an iron-hot skillet.  Then came the steam.  The whole world was enveloped in it. One great cloud of muggy humidity. But it didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered.  We had power for a whole week.

With the beginning of April the hot season has slowly started to fade and pass from memory, the way you forget how awful running those 26 miles were, or the way a mother only vaguely remembers the intense pain of childbirth.  What does it matter? It’s over, and that’s what counts now. The power is on most days.  Ironically, we don’t really need the power all that much. It’s not like those desperate days when you just want to stand in front of the air conditioning and do nothing else. At that point, the cruelest joke is played on you.  The power goes off. Not for an hour, or four, or six, but 8 or ten hours or more at a time. No AC, no fan, just stifling heat. And, just for fun, it goes off in the middle of the night, too, at random.  Not just any night, but the sticky, slimy, sauna nights when you feel like you really might suffocate if you don’t get some sort of air movement.  The nights where you give up sleeping immediately because you know it’s no good.  The nightmare nights. The labor doesn’t last for 36 hours.  It doesn’t last for a month, or two months, it lasts for about multiple months. You start out strong as resolute, as a champion going to war, hoping and praying for the best, a month in you’re less noble, you cling to little creature comforts here and there, something that makes the day pass quicker, past that you go to anger…at the weather, the world, the ineffectual Tanzanian government, at God.  Ultimately you give up all emotion and you just live.  Except you don’t really live…you’re sort of a shadow of who you once were…you survive.  To care is the enemy. By not thinking, not caring, you expending the least amount of energy possible.  You are reduced to your lowest common denominator. Mine was uglier than I thought.

Not every day was like this for me, but many, many, many days were.  I am ashamed of myself. Ever since things started to get a tiny bit cooler here and the electricity started to work more and more consistently and I finally got back the use of my mind, I’ve been feeling guilty.  Wondering about how much and how often I failed to do what I should’ve done, when I did, said, or thought want I shouldn’t have, or fought the good fight like I was called to.  I’ve looked over my shoulder and thought I heard others whispering behind my back about the massive pile of failures I carried on it. It must be as obvious to everyone else as it is to me.  Let me be vague so it’s not as painful: I was brought to the test and I failed. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt guilt this palpable in my heart. It’s paralyzing.

Oddly enough, God has been speaking to my heart more clearly than he has since I first came here.  There was this little phrase that I had tucked somewhere in the back of my mind, from some bygone day when I needed it.  I couldn’t remember exactly what it meant, but I knew that I needed to.  It kept echoing over and over again, when I would feel the weight the guilt of my failures press into my back. The phrase was “gutsy guilt.” 

Then I remembered the story behind the phrase. The man’s name was Micah.  He was a man of God.  He spoke for God. He was a prophet.  He told everyone the bad news, so nobody liked him.  I guess he probably didn’t like that much.  I can’t hardly blame him.  But Israel was a mess.  Somebody had to tell them. They had done the exact opposite of their role.  Following the perverse idolatry of other nations instead of standing as the beacon of truth about the one true God.  Getting all mixed up about who their real leader was.  Trusting in the visible instead of the invisible. Maybe worst of all, being self-reliant. Ultimately, they were the antithesis of everything that they were supposed to be.

 I can relate.

But Micah’s words at the pinnacle of all these failures were these:

“Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall, I will rise again.”

The next lines are even more powerful than the first: “Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.” (Micah 7:8)

What a beautiful truth that a not only a nation, but a person can rise from a face plant not because of their own redeeming qualities, or even their own wherewithal, but because of that Beautiful Light which reaches down and lifts up. And the enemy camp which so gleefully watched the fall, falls silent.

My heartfelt prayer for the next two months is that I will finish strong. Yes, things are easier now.  Life is more comfortable and the end is in sight.  But I pray that the Lord will use my feeble, gutsy guilt. That these last two months would honor Him, not to make up for all my failures, but to reflect that Light that pulled me up. That always pulls me up. And to bring honor to His dear name.

“Oh, let us learn the secret of gutsy guilt from the steadfastness of sinful saints who were not paralyzed by their imperfections.  God has a great work for everyone to do.  Do it with all your might – yes, even with all your flaws and sins.” –John Piper

R and R in Nairobi, Kenya

Yeah!

Riding on a bus for about 14 hours. Aimee and I technically live “close,” but here you measure distance by time, not by actual distance. It wasn’t so bad with my book on tape.

Together again at last!

 

Aimee at her desk at Africa Inland Mission (AIM) headquarters. Fun to meet all her people.

 

Hanging out with Justin and Aimee.Another beautiful view of Kili...this time lit up with the glow of the setting sun.

 

Aimee's new teaching job next year: Rosslyn Academy

 

Traveling buddies at the Danish mission hostel in Moshi.

I got the chance to take the bus up to Nairobi, Kenya with three friends during our Spring Break. They continued on to Rift Valley Academy (RVA) to hike in the mountains. I got to hang out with Aimee and Justin. Aimee is like a sister to me and it was so nice to be able to spend some time relaxing and having good, encouraging talks with her and Justin.  I got a chance to spend the day at Africa Inland Mission headquarters, where she works, and do a bit of shopping and pampering routine.  It was perfect. I’m so blessed.

Some More S.E.W.

Getting ready for Human Clue campus-wide game.

 

Nelly and friend teaching leading some Kiswahili Bible songs.

Speaks for itself, I think.

Bus ride on unpaved roads!

Having a blast with the parachute.

Lidia, our MK from Spain, did a fantastic job during our Bible lessons.

Group shot at Davies Nursery.