Not exactly a restful day . . .

But a good one. Our three new arrivals, the visiting Ryans and the
just-arrived Nathan, joined us for our Sunday morning feast. Over the
years our family has slipped into a sabbath rhythm that works for our
sanity and survival, at least it mostly works. We start with making
tortillas together on Saturday nights at sundown as we listen to Car
Talk on NPR by satellite radio . . . games or something fun, solid
sleep, no morning alarm clocks, a long breakfast with worship music
playing, church from 10:30 ish to 1:30 ish, reading or hanging out
together outside on the one day a week when we don't have onslaughts
of visitors in the yard, a family soccer game in the late afternoon,
a simple soup dinner that brings the day to a close as we get ready
for another week of life. Great. Today's rhythm began well enough
with the steaming coffee and cinnamon rolls, telling stories and
getting to know each other, and continued into lively and joyous
worship at church and the amazing experience of hearing powerful
preaching in our own mother-tongue right here in Bundimulinga as Skip
talked about the pursuing love of God in the story of the Lost Son
(Luke 15). People were very engaged with this story of the father who
humiliates himself to run to His son.

When you push, you get a reaction. After church things went downhill,
fast. Rest fled. The door to our house would not open. We've had a
recalcitrant bolt lock, but today we jiggled and coaxed and no deal.
The good news is that our house is NOT EASY to break into. The bad
news is that it took a generator, an angle grinder, cutting through
metal bars with showers of sparks to get a space a kid could be eased
through, to get us in after church. An hour of sweat and frustration
for Scott, and a mess. Now it was nearly 3, kids were hungry. Before
we could clean up the break-in mess, a family brought a deathly ill
newborn to the kitubbi. Sixteen-year-old mother whose prolonged labor
produced a gasping convulsing child, carelessly absent school-boy
father, concerned grandparents, prognosis almost certainly severe
brain damage if not death soon. A few minutes later two men from
another NGO pulled up in their spiffy vehicle to ask us for data on
one of the water lines (on a Sunday?). I was supposed to be making
bread for communion and soup for dinner for the team, clean up the
house for everyone to come to worship, practice about 16 songs for our
first Sunday evening without Michael's talents to lead us (no pressure
that our visiting pastor Skip wrote a BOOK on worship and is used to
the kind of amazing gifts one finds in a 6,000 member church), and
make my kids feel loved by keeping our commitment to our family soccer
game, all before 5:30 . . . Can I just say that my sense of humor was
not carrying me through with grace? That I was feeling the rest slip
right through my fingers as the old and new weeks melded without a seam?

By evening, though, the candles were lit and the songs began to
ascend, and, amazingly, the sermon that would normally be written for
the benefit of thousands was again offered to the dozen of us. Psalm
139, encouraging us to discern the way God is at work in our lives to
tell His story of redemption. Skip challenged us to look for the
truth about ourselves, to look for that truth in unexpected places, in
parts of our story we'd rather skip over, and offer those hard and sad
things to God for redemption. While we're with you for a month, he
said, try to take note of the times you feel stressed, angry, or
fearful . . . .

Well, how 'bout most of the afternoon?

Praying that we and our team listen to that voice of the Spirit
challenging us to offer that which is painful, praying we would not
run from the truth, but wait for redemption.