Fears

Whew - what a whirlwind these last few days have been. I always feel a little out of sorts when I'm out of the office for very long. It seems like there is a mountain of e-mails to get through and then that stack of homework I need to get too as well. Hopped on a plane last Friday afternoon to head down to Florida for a weekend of training at Rafiki's Home Offices. What a great weekend. I loved hearing about Rosemary Jensen's, the founder, vision for children and Africa. I loved learning about how God moved in her life in order to help bring about Rafiki. And I loved learning about how I get to be a part of it.

I might have mentioned this before, but so often when I think of Africa, two fears come to mind and they have nothing to do with getting eaten by lions or dying from malaria. It has to do with possibilities and potential. I'm afraid to go to Africa and have it change my life. And I'm afraid all at the same that it won't. There's always lingering thoughts in the back of mind, thoughts of knowing that when God places a calling on your life, you go. I don't know that my life's work will be in Africa, but it could be. And that can be scary. Scary to consider the thought of leaving everything you know, everything that is safe and comfortable. But you know that you also will be miserable if you don't. Rosemary said it one point that while she was afraid of stepping out in faith to pursue what God had given her, she also knew there was no way she could say no to it.

But I also think, too, that sometimes we can go to places like Africa or sometimes our own backyard and when we are confronted with the atrocities of life, we just want to shut down. We want to ignore the depravity of the world we live in because if we do that, then we don't have to be responsible or take action. I just got done reading a book called "How De Body," which is about the civil war in Sierra Leone. Excellent book. A quote stuck with me though from that book when the author said, "What the mind doesn't know, the heart doesn't have to grieve." When we live in our safe little bubbles and don't get out there and experience the world, we keep ourselves ignorant, somehow thinking if I don't see it or witness it, then I don't have to deal with it. I don't want to be like that. I mean, yeah, it's scary to go out on a limb, to put yourself out there and commit your life to something that is bigger than you. But I also know that I can't stand on the sidelines of life either. So what if Africa turns my world upside down. And it may very well not, but if my experience there should, then that's okay. I'll be right where I need to be.


Front gate to the Home Offices


One of the photographs they had hanging in the training center