Close, but No Banana

Well, I survived our first evangelistic series here. I am not quite sure I like the way that sounds, as if it was a really awful experience, but I definately feel like it was another one of those character building accomplishments…

Over the past two long weeks we have been holding a real deal evangelistic series. This would not have been too much work if it had been in place of our regular work load, but it actually was in addition to our daily work. After visiting people all day long, talking about health, giving out meds and glasses, and trying to complete evalutions, every evening us girl nurses were in charge of leading out a kids program for at least 40 kids. With all of us working together, at first the task was not too tiring, but as the evenings went on, the kids bécame more comfortable around us and a bit harder to manage. On top of that, I was, on a regular basis, being asked to lead out in the songs and talking at the beginning of the meetings as well. The program would start at seven every night, which really meant closer to eight, and then would go on til nine. Afterwards, goodbyes and taking kids home would easily drag into 10 or 11. If you would have talked with me before coming down here, I would have said that is actually getting to bed at a pretty decent time, but since being here I have become accostumed to crashing no later than nine.

So keeping this all in mind, this past Friday night once again found me pretty tired and fighting a cold. Three of the five girl nurses down here were not here for various health reasons so as I returned from my day of visiting, I knew my day had really just begun. As I tried to sort out last minute food shopping before Sabbath, dinner, kids program prep, picking up kids, etc. I honestly felt slightly overwhelmed. I recruited two other people to help out with the kids program, but by the end I really felt like in general it had been a one person effort. It was at this point in time that I ran into my all time favorite local, Caleb. Let me tell you a little about Caleb…Caleb is a guy that is about 20 years old that constantely is outside our fence peaking in through the cracks trying to talk to any white girl that will respond to him. At first, we tried to be nice to him because he is a little mentally slow, but now try to ignore him altogether. Well, after finishing the kids program Friday night, I was corned by Caleb and forced to be friendly even though he was the last person I wanted to talk to right then. Luckily, if that would be a good way of putting it, I was summonded by a girl because she said her friend was very sick. I went the girl and found that she was having an extreme anxiety attack. The next hour was full of trying to calm her down, talking to the doctor, and explaining things to the parents. Also, had to put up with a random evangelic pastor who snuck into our room and started yelling in prayer for her (a wonderful tactic for calming her down of course).

I woke up Sabbath morning, not feeling overly refreshed with my five hours of sleep and wishing for some extreme alone time. After preparing a quick breakfast for everyone though, I ran to check on the girl, then came back to prep for the kids Sabbath school. Sabbath school went okay, and getting the kids up front to sing for the adults went pretty smoothly. During church though, pure caos seemed to hit. Our little church was packed, probably with over 200 locals. With little direction, the other SMs and myself ran around frantically getting baptismal areas ready, doing crowd control, running the sound system (even though we had no clue how), and leading songs up front. At twelve the baptisms finally began in our little borrowed swimming pool. I was excited to see so many people lined up for the baptism, but was too busy to dwell on the fact for too long.

Finally, after everything was over and in general taken care of, I sat back during lunch and reviewed the days activities. At first, all I could think of was how unorganized and unefficient the whole thing had been, my initial reaction was pure frustration. It was about this time though, that one of the Bible workers informed me that 32 people had been baptized and that 20 more wanted to be baptized the following weekend. I could not believe it, what an huge amount of people had decided to make a decisión to be baptized just because of the work that we had been doing here! It was at that point in time that I realized how selfish I had been about the weekends events. Here I had been so focused on myself, that I totally overlooked the amazing work that God was doing with the people here. All along since being here, I had been praying that we would make a difference here, and had recently been discouraged with our progress. Here God was giving me actual concrete affirmation, and I had almost missed its significance.

It is amazing what God can do with those who are nothing, but offer themselves for His service..... But it is even more amazing what God can do when those people truly focus on their work and not themselves. I praise God that so many people chose to follow Him this weekend and appreciate His reassurance of the importance of our work here. But most of all, I appreciate God reminding me that it is not all about me. Life is always going to have its ups and downs, I just need to learn to constantely look a the big picture and remember what my actual purpose is, not only while I am here, but when I return to my normal life as well.