Being Sick and Being Used

Hello friends! I just checked my email after a day or two of not having internet and found several messages from you all. It is such a blessing to hear from you, and to hear what the Lord is doing in your lives. I'm praising God for each of you :) The past three and a half days have been a little rough. I've been sick with some pretty nasty cold and flu like symptoms-though no fever, so I don't think it was malaria. I stopped working and pretty much sat around my house drinking military grade low osmolarity oral rehydration fluid and resting. Thankfully I seem to be slowly getting better, and hopefully I will be recovered before the weekend gets here.

      It has been very tough being sick. This is the first real week that Michael Chaney and I have been here together, and there a number of really exciting work projects that are getting jump-started. Michael and I are helping draw up a floor plan for a house that is getting renovated. We are painting a roof. We are going to be moving/redesigning and constructing a playground. We also might be painting a mural, building a chemical shed, ping-pong table, and number of other projects. It sounds exciting right?! Yet...I have been pretty much holed up in my apartment. I don't know about you, but I find it incredibly hard to do nothing, especially when I'm in a beautiful country and there's lots of exciting work to do and people to see. On top of that a lot of questions have been buzzing around my head, mostly in the form of: "God...why do I have to be sick? Can't You just heal me and let me go do something useful for Your Kingdom?" J God is using this time to really humble me, and remind me that I am here as His servant. Admittedly--it has been very hard, and I think at times I’m still battling with my will and agenda that want to get things done through my human effort. Please pray that God would continue to use this time to open my eyes, and that my heart would be receptive and my ears attentive to the Lord's voice.

       Although a large part of me really wants to get well, I have reached a peace about where I am at. God reminded me that it is not through my human effort or preparation that things “get done” for His kingdom. He reminded me of this through a pretty exciting event that occurred two days ago. There is a gardener who I will call O, who works on the Galmi compound. O waters the plants around my apartment, and every day between 10 and 10:30, he sits on my porch under the shade of my little overhanging corrugated zinc roof and takes his morning break. Because O speaks French, we have gotten to know each other over the past two weeks, and I typically sit with him during his break and we talk about Niger, its politics, the rain, crops, his family, etc. He is a really nice man, about the age of 50 with 6 children and has worked for the Galmi hospital for a long time. 

          Well, yesterday, I decided to try and sleep of some of my exhaustion, so I climbed in bed around 4 in the afternoon. However, I was having a really hard time getting to sleep. I got up and walked out on my porch to sit outside and enjoy the outdoors, and O happened to be hanging out on my porch. He and I started to talk and somehow our conversation got on the topic of churches. There are two churches in Galmi, one right next to the other that used to be the same denomination. Unfortunately, because of some sort of conflict in past years, they are now separate denominations throughout the country, and the missionaries at SIM evenly divide between the two denominations in an effort to be impartial. O noted the divide between the two churches, and I asked him what church he attended. He quickly replied that he didn't attend church and was a Muslim. We then began a very interesting and open discussion about Islam and Christianity. O proved to know much more about Christianity than I would have guessed and could even cite scripture that was relevant to our conversation. He had several astute observations—many of which I agreed with. He lamented people that said they were Christians and yet their actions did not indicate anything different than the rest of the world. He also took note of the fact that church as an institution seems to be fragmented and divided.

Eventually, I got the exciting opportunity to tell O my testimony. It felt so relevant to what we were talking about, because one of O’s biggest problems with God is that he thinks most people simply follow the religion they are born into. While I admitted that religious practice may be nothing more than an inherited set of traditions, I was able to share the truth that relationship with God completely transcends religion, and that God calls us to Himself from every corner of the globe and every scope of life. As one who was born into a Christian household, but who had to undergo a radical conversion at the age of thirteen to finally meet God, I was able to share how God is a relational God, and that He desires to fill us with His Spirit and give us His love, joy, and other fruit of the Spirit. I think the Lord was helping my French out J.

         I don’t know how much my story affected O, but shortly after I finished, he said he had to go and headed home. It’s amazing because if I had to measure the significance of the physical things I have done here at Galmi, that conversation might register as the most significant. Yet, I might never have had the chance to share the gospel with O if I hadn’t been sick. It was also amazing to see how one of the most (seemingly) significant events thus far at Galmi, did not come about because I was busy working, or because I did anything to make it happen. The conversation between O and I was a divinely planned encounter and had nothing to do with me. Awesome!

Please pray for O, that the Holy Spirit would work in his life, that the words I said might have some kind of impact, and that he would come to know Christ. Also pray that I would clearly demonstrate Christ’s love to the people around me, and that through that I would be a witness to what God has done in my life. Also pray that I would know how to continue speaking and loving O, and that the Spirit would lead in my future conversations with him. Finally, please pray for physical strength and healing. I am starting to feel better and that is a huge praise, but I still have a ways to go. Thank you for your prayers! You guys are in my thoughts and prayers as well.