Of Rain, Rainbows, and Pilgrimage

Rain, Rain on my face
It hasn’t stopped raining for days.
My world is aflood,
Slowly I become one with the mud.
-Jars of Clay

This song has been playing on our ipod and in my mind over and over this month, as day after day the sun is obscurred by heavy clouds, the rain comes in drenching downpours or incessant drizzles, thunder rumbles through the night, puddles accumulate in the roads and paths. The greyness of the sky and the dampness of the earth leads to a heaviness of spirit. We have also been in a marathon summer of events, visitors, opening the new hospital, patient volume increasing, new grants approved, interns, discipleship, prayer, vision for new fields . . . In other words it has been a lot of work and our tiredness of heart matches the weather a bit. Though we’re thankful for amazing victories (like the water project opening, or the generous response to our nutrition infant diaconal fund need) we are slogging through the mud at this point.

So when the sun slipped under the clouds at dusk on Thursday as we made our pizza, and illuminated a rainbow over our house, we had a small taste of Noah’s feelings. There is a promise, there is hope. This rain won’t destroy us, these trials won’t overcome us. In the midst of cloud there is beauty and color.

We gathered yesterday to pray for Sudan as a new field, which I will be visiting next week with some of our team. My heart is drizzly with the anticipation of the different directions our team will head, as we launch some members towards new places while a core of us stay behind to press on here. That is our goal, that is our vision, but it still is painful. No one is leaving very soon (well, except Bethany!!), but we know it is coming. As we prayed though, the Spirit reminded me that pilgrimage is not wandering, pilgrimage has a destination. We are all heading towards the same place, even if one path goes through Sudan, and another through America, or Bundibugyo, or Congo, or Kampala . . . . We are not heading apart but ultimately back together, a converging point.

Somehow the rainbow symbolizes that too, perhaps those ethereal colors placed high enough in the sky for many to see, a common and glorious destination.