[a classroom in one of the MCC supported schools in southern province, zambia]
a month ago we got on an airplane & left our whole
life. & here we are – at the roller-coaster-free-fall stage of our ‘zambia
years’.
& this time there have been
no gentle transitions – we ran smack into all the responsibility awaiting us
& smack into that familiar (yet easy to set aside when the reminders aren’t
quite so daily) stomach churning reality that we.have.so.much in a world full
of those who have far less. that we have
no idea how most people under the sun live.
where the cost of our children’s school uniforms is more
than the zambian monthly minimum wage. where
our lovely, spacious bungalow house & tropical yard feels like joke when we
walk the streets of “compounds” just blocks away. (“high density – low income neighborhoods”
our development literature calls them)
in our office a team member explains his work in a prison
& the horrific sexual violence & oppression & squalor. & i blink, sip my tea. we talk
budget & process & when he leaves i can’t stop thinking about all the
things he said that i wish were not true. about the darkness this work & this world holds.
& i am jonah.
i don’t want to go to ninevah. i dread the incompleteness of the story that will unfold there. there is partly the children’s book-worthy tale – with the adventure & mercy & forgiveness & the second chances for obedience. but there’s also the desert & the message that doesn’t have the anticipated response & the withering plant & the untidy, unresolved ending. this, i know, will also be the story of our days here.
i don’t want to go to ninevah. i dread the incompleteness of the story that will unfold there. there is partly the children’s book-worthy tale – with the adventure & mercy & forgiveness & the second chances for obedience. but there’s also the desert & the message that doesn’t have the anticipated response & the withering plant & the untidy, unresolved ending. this, i know, will also be the story of our days here.
(but i know, too, that this is the story of all of our days anywhere.)
so, in these early days, as the sun comes up & we start
again - we take deep breaths, commit to seizing joy (which we've been given in buckets, that my soul knows very well) where we find it, pray for hearts
brave enough to listen.
& we open our palms – to hold the stories & the
unfairness & the responsibilities of leading a team here, and also to offer
up ourselves,
just like jonah – who floundered & was swallowed by the
storm, only to find out that his story was just beginning.
[jacaranda tree - a shot of beauty on our daily trip to school]
