Sweet Preparation.

        I have had my hair braided in Madagascar three times.  The first time was by one of the girls at the church who did a beautiful job.  She just did it quickly the night that we went with the youth group to see the fireworks for Madagascar’s Independence Day last summer.  The second time was in a village while I was surrounded by women and girls and children, all trying to help while laughing about the fact that the white girl was getting her hair braided.  

        And then there was tonight.  On tuesday my sister, my two housemates, and I are going to spend a week out in a village.  In preparation we got our hair braided, since that would be the easiest way to keep our hair out of the way and semi-clean for the week.  Hannah had three of her friends from church come over and braid our hair and have dinner with us.  What sweet, beautiful ladies! Their skill and speed were amazing, but what really got me was their joy.  We sat there listening to our sisters in Christ singing praise songs to Jesosy and watching the gap between our worlds disappear.  It was such a beautiful sweet time sitting there and then sharing a meal with them, and it was a very yummy meal as well.  

        At one point Naina, one of the ladies, said that when she was younger she had prayed that God would let her meet people from around the world and as she had come to know Christ she realized that we were all the same as Children of God, and tonight, sitting with all of us, she could see that that was true.  

        It was a wonderful preparation of my heart for this trip.  In my mental preparation for sleeping in a tent, not showering, and having battles to the death with nasty bugs I hadn’t given much thought to the glory of what I was getting to go do.  Naina’s statement pushed my thoughts to something greater than my discomfort, pushed them up to the fact that I am going to fellowship with faithful believers as Tessa shares stories with them and they help her tell the stories in their dialect so that the stories of the Bible can be shared with more and more people.  I am getting to help out in a school for the village kids.  I am getting to taste, in a very very very small way the beauty and glory of the promise found in Revelation 7:9, that one day “a great multitude...from all tribes and people’s and languages” will worship together before the throne! 

        So keep us in your prayers as we travel up with a pastor friend of ours, as we are there, that God would be mightily glorified in our time there, and as we head home for my and Hannah’s last few days in Tulear.

Week One.

         Well, let’s see, it’s been about a week, there were some nifty dinners and game nights with the team, an overload of adorable kiddos, a trip to the beach, a pirate birthday party, the arrival of a friend from Tana to stay for a few weeks, a Scot’s short visit to see Hannah, some blessed time with the youth group at the Independence Day fireworks that involved some language barrier breaking communication, and a Malagasy concert featuring Madagascar’s top Christian artist.  A wee bit busy to say the least!

         Now blog, I have to admit to you that we simply aren’t close enough for me to want to share with you the most inner workings of my mind, and I don’t think we ever will be, unless I find a way to share them in some cryptic, poetic form.  This is a complication because that is where most of my thoughts and adjustments have been over this last week.  The culture shock of being in Madagascar and living a different sort of life that I went through last summer only slightly reared up its nasty head, taking the form of blisters on my toes.  My shock this year was more from all the people who now make up the Toliara missionary team.  Last year it was just me and Tessa, now: me, Tessa, her roommate, two families, and two journey guys.  And in the next few weeks several more folks will be arriving.  It has been great to get the chance to live in community with all of these folks!  But it was a bit of an adjustment at first to be so busy spending time with everyone.          

         Thus, all the adjustment has hung out inside my head, and I will willingly admit that it has been slightly more involved than I have let on here.  The result has been conviction about the way that I have my hands wrapped so tightly around my life.  Who am I to hold onto what I had already claimed to have surrendered to my Savior? To lean over His shoulder while He writes the script and keep suggesting lines and entrances and full scenes, getting all in a huff when it doesn’t go my way on opening night.  I am so busy trying to be the director that I neglect playing my part as the Ransomed One, the Child of God.  How foolish I am when I give up that blessed role to fill one for which I am not suited.  

So there you have it blog: a week of Independence Day fireworks, group dinners, jetlag, guests, a birthday party, and a trip to the beach have begun to teach me to live with open hands and a heart of surrender.

Oh and there are a plethora of dandy photos on Facebook for your viewing pleasure. 

92 hrs.

-the full account

From brotherly love to real love in 7 hours flat.  That there about sums up the first bit.  This trip started out with a 7 hour flight from Philadelphia (the city of Brotherly Love) to Paris (the city of Love).  That flight was lovely and I landed in Paris in the morning.  I made sure all was in order for my flight the next day, bought food and then went and waited for the shuttle to the hotel. There are my knees and feet waiting....a thrilling piece of photography I know.  

Once at the hotel I slept. It was great. Of course this meant no sleep during the actual nighttime hours.  Not being able to sleep is a very unfamiliar concept for this kid, on the whole, I would say I’m not a fan of it.  Then there was breakfast.  I have a great fondness for french hotel breakfast, they have cheese and bread and ham and jelly and croissants and hot chocolate and yogurt and fruit and wonderfulness, all so grand.  This time I even found applesauce!! Then it was back to the airport for the flight to Madagascar.  

I think it would be very interesting to interview people about their interpersonal communication on flights.  Especially international ones.  You sit down next to someone knowing that this is the person you will be sitting with and who’s shoulder you may be sleeping on, for the next 9 hours.  In my case there was an added language barrier and a lengthy conversation with the middle aged french couple I was sharing a row with seemed unlikely.  I generally like to talk to the people on planes, but this time I settled for a few deeply meaningful smiles and nods and occupied myself with taking a slightly obsessive amount of could and sunset pictures.  

We landed in Madagascar's capitol around 10 pm and I was met by the hotel shuttle and went to the hotel for more sleeping.  My final flight was originally set for the next evening but it was delayed until the next day so I had some extra time to spend with the missionary families in the capitol city, a true delight.  Then a 3:45 am wake up call, a 4:30 am taxi, and a 6:20 am flight got me to Tessa.  I arrived with my body and my French and Malagasy vocabulary all completely exhausted.  But I did arrive in time to go to church!!   It was so great to see everyone who I had hung out with last year.  Then there a grand time of cooking for dinner with the the rest of the team and getting to know Tessa’s Australian roommate, Hannah.  So much goodness!!  

I truly saw the provision of the Lord over this trip.  Every flight had seats for me, even the one that was delayed resulted in blessed encouraging time with friends in the capitol.  Communication with mom and dad went smoothly.  My biggest fear, staying at the hotels alone, wasn’t even an issue at all, I felt safe at each of the hotels, everything went smoothly with my rooms, and there was always breakfast!  I praise Him for watching over me in this, for starting the trip off with such encouragement.  I can’t wait to see what the the next weeks will hold.  

Tomorrow's Tomorrow....again

346 days and 18 hours ago I posted a blog titled Tomorrow’s Tomorrow.  Here I am again posting just about the same blog.  I will hit the road on Wednesday and start the trek to Tessa’s house.  

.....And that’s about all I had to say with this one.  The Malagasy adventures are about to begin and this blog is about to get reacquainted with being interesting.  I will be doing the final packing tomorrow with Toto Rains Down in Africa and Shakira’s Waka Waka playing in the background.  I will be living in Tulear, Madagascar for about 6 weeks doing whatever is needed of me.  I am stoked to be going back and full of anticipation for the chance to see my sis again.  Please be praying for peace and safe travels and smooth connections.  But above all please be praying for a heart within that is surrendered to the work of the Gospel this summer!  

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  So death is at work in us, but life in you.” ~2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Going back?

Guess what! As of today, I am planning a return trip to the little island nation I love so much.  In fact, we bought a ticket for part of the trip today!! I am really excited for this, just dropping a line to say that, if all goes according to plan, there will be a few more updates on this here blog this summer :) Happy travels.

One Week.

Well, I’ve been home for one week today.  It feels like longer.  At the beginning of the trip I was obsessed with looking for what the grand life lesson that I was going to take away from this trip would be.  Tessa told me that sometimes you have to walk away before you know what you walked away with.  And you may have to go a little beyond just walking away.  I know I did learn a lot.  I learned about what a life of missions looks like.  It doesn’t look like what we all see on little one week mission trips, because it’s not a week, it’s a life.  I learned about the power of relationships, and the effort it takes to build them.  

I also learned what a powerful thing language is.  It is mighty to separate when there is a barrier, it is a mighty tool for the Kingdom when that barrier is crossed.  The only way someone will ever listen to you is if you put in the effort to speak their heart language.  I met people who spoke English as their 2nd or 3rd language.  It was enough for chatting about the weather or the activities of the day.  But I learned that if I was really going to touch their lives on a heart level, I would have to speak the language their heart spoke.  It would be like someone trying to really know my heart using Spanish, it’s not the language my heart speaks.  And I’m coming to realize that that isn’t just a lesson for people serving among members of a different people group.  It’s for us all, you have to care about what that other person cares about for them to care about what you have to say.  It takes the effort to learn the language.  

I will also admit that I saw myself not making the most out of the trip.  Not really seeking God with all that I was so that I could see all that He wanted accomplished.  I saw my laziness.  I learned that in whatever God calls a person to, wherever He puts them, constant discipline and work is required to truly be all that He created us to be.  I guess I already knew that, I just saw it played out a bit this summer.  And it’s really easy for satan to come in and make this lesson look truly burdensome.  But it’s not, it’s the realization that God has something more for His children than drudgery and constant mess ups and “I don’t feel like it days.”  It is a life of learning to love God so fully that the work required to maintain our faith and our spirit of service to the Father is our highest joy.  God exposes where we still need work not so that we can hate ourselves and give up, but so that we can acknowledge our need for a Savior and rejoice in the fact that the Father is longing and able to do this good work in us.  “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil. 1:6.  So friends, be confident.  The Father is faithful.  Rejoice in His ability and willingness to grow us and mold us into the image of His Son, and seek each day for the evidence of this good work.  And revel in learning to love your Abba more and more.  God chose us who are not perfect, that His glory might be revealed in His ability to work in us and through us, how great is that!?

[As always, I’m a big fan of comments]

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles: the journey home.

And here we are, in the US, and here we have been for the past three days, but posts that are just a tad late add spice to life right?  We left Tana on Tuesday morning at 12 am on a huge, nice, empty plane that meant everyone got a row to themselves so we actually did sleep a bit.  Then there was Paris.  I paid for a bathroom for the first time and was quite surprised that such an expensive WC smelled like that...  Then there was the purchasing of train tickets for the next day and getting to the hotel via the metro, a grumpy taxi driver, some suitcase toting in the rain, and an almost wipeout in the middle of the metro station on my part.  Our hotel room looked out right on the back of the train station, the rows and rows of platforms made a really cool view.  The next morning we took a train from Paris to Frankfurt Germany.  Most of the seats on this train were in rows, facing one way, however there were the unlucky few of us who were in the sets of four that faced each other with a table in the middle.  Mom and dad had a row, I had a table.  No one came for the seat next to me so I was at my leisure to lean over and enjoy the great big window.  Across from me sat a pretty blond girl, probably in her early 20’s.  She seemed nice enough but I couldn’t ever determine if she was French or Germany or if she even spoke English, so there was no conversation to be had.  Then, just before departure the seat beside her was filled by a young, towering, handsome, blond haired, blue eyed, German fella.  I decided his name was Hans, and since none of us started a conversation with the other two for the whole 5 hr ride, I never had to be disillusioned by the fact that it was not.  It was at this point that I decided that the girl needed to be German and planned a brilliant love story for the two of them, I mean, meeting on an international train on the way home from some adventure, what more could you want.  They failed to cooperate.  They never talked to each other.  From what I could see they never even looked at each other.  When they both nodded off I thought, Great! Their heads will bump, they will wake up, start talking.... Never happened.  Thus love did not bloom on that train, what a shame.  

There were times along the ride that the scenery became monotonous when I tried and failed to study Biology or thought about writing out a blog to transcribe later only to decide that that would be too awkward facing to strangers.  Hans had a newspaper but asking to see it after he was done would have been futile, since it was in German.  

Getting off in Frankfurt City and finding and boarding the train to the airport may have been the hardest part of the trip.  Dropping three small-towners into a metro station in a different language with huge suitcases should be the next reality show.  But we made it.  At the airport we called to hotel we had a reservation for, since our flight to the US wasn’t until the next morning.  They sent their shuttle to get us and we had a lovely drive through a suburb of Frankfurt that looked like the set of the first Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a delicious dinner in the hotel restaurant - a restaurant that came complete with dark wood furniture, stain glass pictures of German beer, and a group of men in the corner having a pint - ‘twas as quintessentially wonderful as can be.  

The next day was the flight home.  It was so weird walking to get inline with a slew of other Americans after being around quiet Malagasy and reserved Europeans for so long.  We are quite a loud culture my countrymen.  When we landed and walked into the Charlotte Airport a wall of heat and humidity hit us, welcome home.  Then a long trip through international security and a short flight back to Jacksonville sitting next to a kindly old man who told me of his life of traveling and advised me about future travel. Home.  

[Over the next few days I will be getting all the pictures up on Facebook and maybe a post or two more summing up what I learned and such. Stay tuned and thanks for reading]