The Expectation of Smooth Sailing

This is our driver John. We love John. John drives the Coaster and keeps us safe.
Did I mention we love John???? 

Morning devotions on our first day of service in Rwanda were shared by Laura Seifert from Yes Ministries and I didn't realize until Wednesday how significant the message was to me. She talked about when the disciples said "yes" to Jesus' invitation to go over to the other side and how they got in the boat with the expectation of smooth sailing. Of course, when the storm raged, they accused Jesus of not caring if they perished and after He calmed the seas He uttered that famous question, "Why are you still fearful, O you of little faith?" The point I jotted down in my journal was that when we say yes and get in the boat, there is an experiential lesson to be learned there with Jesus and it often takes a storm to get us to see it. I knew that to be true. I think I was just looking back at the truth of those words instead of forward.

This is us looking happy in the Coaster, driving on some of the few paved roads.

It was a surreal, jet lagged, need more coffee, shell-shocked-from-the-genocide-memorial kind of morning and as we got into the "coaster" aka "boat," I'm sure I also had the same expectation as the disciples, even though I knew our time on the "other side" would be challenging. Obviously there were some unresolved fear issues lurking, just waiting for an opportunity to steal my joy. Fears that had no problem following me halfway around the world. It was a shorter trip for them, since they were hitchhiking in stealth mode.
Sunday's trip in the bus was all on paved roads around the city, Monday was another story. After we toured the campus of Africa New Life, we headed out to our first home visits, off the paved roads and deep into the remote villages of Kigali. Lets just say their infrastructure is in process in Rwanda and once you leave the few paved roads of the city, anything goes. The rainy seasons carve deep, irregular ruts in the red dirt that are baked into hard clay by the sun the rest of the year. At first all the bouncing around was fun but when the roads got steep with sheer drop offs on the side and no sight of a place to turn around and the brush scraped the side of the bus, pushing through the windows and breaking off around us, my mood started to change. I wrote in my journal that night that I 'almost' had an anxiety attack as we drove through the hills but after the first home visit, I didn't care anymore. And on Monday, that was probably true. But by Wednesday...there was water in the boat.

Playing with the kids in the village, we were blowing bubbles and they kept saying "Nanjye!" which means, "me too!"

In many ways, this trip paralleled the roads we traveled. We started off on Sunday with a smooth ride and an inspiring church service and a wonderful lunch at the Marriott. On the next stop, we felt the ruts and got slapped in the face with stinging weeds at the genocide memorial. Monday we visited the tailoring center and picked out fabric and patterns and got measured for a dress to be custom made by the graduates of the program. All smiles from that experience, we listened to Solange share her testimony about being a prostitute and felt the road give way a little bit. But then, we visited the College of Theology and the glistening halls of the hospital and felt hope rising for the future of Rwanda. That afternoon held the actual bumpy roads, the thrill and stark reality of the home visits and the playtime in the village with the kids. Tuesday we stayed on the highway and went to Azizi life and laughed and peeled potatoes and ate avocado and then listened to stories of loss and shame and abuse. By Wednesday, it was a pattern, morning with the cutest little kids at the day care, the beauty school and sewing school and a triumphant story of God's provision for the programs. Yay. Then sitting next to sponsored children in mud huts with no light, no water, with crude wooden benches for furniture, trying to write down every precious word and prayer spoken. Back in the "boat" to visit the homes of the women in the sewing program and bring their food packs, over the roads they walk each day for hours. The roads just got progressively worse and I seemed to be the only one bothered by it. I made a note that the roads made the crazy drive I had in Madeira a few years ago feel like the autobahn in comparison. I was close to an actual panic attack this time and I am not an anxious person by nature. As it escalated, I thought of every awful possibility, picturing us tumbling down one of the thousand hills, over banana trees and shanties. You get the idea. Somewhere in there Natalie asked me to share my testimony on Friday and Varentine dropped off her food pack and jumped back in the bus to get to her baby that was staying with a friend since she had no food. What's a 2 hour walk each way at dusk when you get to have your baby back home with food to offer her?
Journaled thoughts:
This experience takes culture shock to the next level for me, I have never seen, smelled, heard, or felt the things I have here. My heart, my mind, are wide open and bursting. It's challenged me on so many levels, my comfort, my preconceptions, prejudices, and idols, the things I trust in and cling to that aren't God, the detachment, distraction, and desire for more meaningless "stuff." Am I still just an observer? I find myself more comfortable in the experiences that are detached, but in the inescapable eyes of Rwandans, face to face, all of my inadequacies rise up, every insecurity and question I have about myself is banging on my heart. Have I not come to a higher place than this? But all these questions are in themselves more stagnating, navel-gazing, narcissism and the answer is that it's NOT ABOUT ME. It's about HIM and HIS heart and it always should be just that. I need to get THERE, stay there and abide right there.

Here is where we stopped to play with the kids...and then continued down this road. Yes, it is a road.

This is road where I began to lose it and thought about walking the rest of the way. 

This is the portion of road we came down, while I was losing it.

So after the visits and the ordeal with the drunken man and the singing of the National Anthems, we continued on those roads back to the guest house. After the first time the bus couldn't make it up a hill and we had to get out to lighten the load, I thought about walking the rest of the way home. It seemed like a viable option to me. The second time we exited the bus, I was hiding a real panic and desire for a xanax. We walked to the top of the hill and waited, listening to the spin of the wheels and the fading sound of the engine as John rolled back down the incline for another attempt. We cheered as he finally crested the hill and I reluctantly reboarded the 'boat.' OK, so I didn't ask Jesus if He cared that we perished, but I was jittery with fear nonetheless.
Are you getting the picture? Kind of like a roller coaster. Maybe that's why they call that bus a "coaster."
As we got on, the few women that stayed on the bus hooked up their phones to the speakers and were blasting worship music for the rest of the trip. So my battered little soul was bathed in truth...
"Who the Son sets free...is free indeed...I'm a child of God, yes I am"
"I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God...You split the sea so I could walk right through it, my fears are drowned in perfect love. You rescued me so I could stand and say, I am a child of God."

And then I knew it was God speaking to me, breaking the fear through worship. (Oh, and Pastor Charles' message on Sunday? Victory in warfare through worship and how we need to be prepared).
It was so humbling and awe inspiring, to be delivered from fear like that. We worshipped all the way back to the house and my heart was refreshed.
Oh me of little faith.
So I thought back to the morning devotional and when I got home to the states, I reread my notes from last April when I was struggling with fear and anxiety. When I was only 3 months removed from a fire that jolted us out of bed in the middle of the night and burned the house we were renting to the ground after we escaped out the second story window. A fire that became this life metaphor that is just starting to be decoded and left me with all sorts of blossoming residual trauma from my life of loss and tragedy. A fire that sent us right to the foot of the cross with every question and doubt and found us closer to our Savior that we had ever been and pressing in hard to see His goodness and not form any questions around that one unshakable thing. He Is Good.  A fire that burned away so many things in our lives that we thought were sure. A fire that couldn't touch the rebuilding and blessing and protection of God, that couldn't see the beauty that would rise from the ashes and the relationships God would forge with the ones that walked through that loss with us.
In light of all my journeys of grief, this one seems trivial. Yet God, in His tender, unfathomable and always redemptive purposes has used this trauma to open up parts of me that had been hidden for far too long and in doing so, began to heal them while I wrestled with fears unknown and uncertainty never before experienced. While I questioned the integrity of every structure, heating system, wiring schematic, and flicker, noise, and flame, God had a purpose: to set me free and teach me what surrender and trust look like in a broken and mended life.
That phrase, You of little faith? In the Greek it's oligopistos and it means someone who does not have complete confidence in God, or trust that He will help them. It is not unbelief, but rather undeveloped faith that needs to grow. Jesus uses this term 5 times in the New Testament, each time as a tender rebuke of those who should know better. He is like a father asking His children, "After all you've seen, don't you trust Me yet?" A tender rebuke. And He's been walking me through trusting Him in a deeper way ever since. That day on the bus reminded me of where I need to be when fear comes knocking on the door; in worship. Then deliverance comes.
That night we had dinner out in a lovely restaurant,  drank a delicious ginger lemonade slush, ate goat meat, and then came home to rest in fresh sheets. I called Jim to relay the events of the day and after I got some of the events out, I just broke down and sobbed into the phone. Halfway across the world, he held me and prayed over me and stood right next to me, just like he did the night of the fire.

Precious