These prosaic summaries are always one part reminiscing, one part therapy. I can't decide if it's more like looking at a photograph or an inkblot. Maybe it doesn't matter; the image in both is Africa.
If you know me at all it's no secret that I am a characteristically complex person. Nothing is simple. Once in a while out of the internal complexity pieces connect and something makes sense. Most of the time I feel like I'm blindly punching my way through the fog until I happen upon that rare spark of illumination. To me, life is like trying to find a thesis statement, a hinge pin that an argument can center around, the sentence that makes all the other sentences coherent. Time in Africa usually has the effect of making remarkably clear the road before me. It took some time this go round.
One of the things I struggle with most in life is finding a fit. It's a confusing place to live in ministry world when you are a young woman. Some people encourage you to take a leadership role, others say take a back seat, you're just here to support, or "get married already!" Honestly, I don't know what to do with that. I cannot be less of who I am, but I also can't be more.
My first couple weeks in Africa were especially frustrating on this front.
A. Every international mission trip I've been on before this one I went as a videographer with a specific task to accomplish. While I've been wanting to be out from behind the camera for a long time, I admit, it was a pretty good security blanket.
B. I am not an entertainer. I just don't have the personality to be a front woman, and since much of what we were doing required holding the attention of an audience of high schoolers, I felt totally ill equipped.
C. I'm a woman. Taking a leadership role in church ministry time in the African culture wasn't much of an option. And really, the couple times it was required of me I felt incredibly uncomfortable.
All of this added up to a lot of frustration early on. There's nothing quite as humbling as feeling like you have nothing to contribute to a task that weighs heavily on your heart. Meanwhile I stood by and watched Pedro admirably handle quite a workload of preparing lessons, messages and seminars, Andrew patiently wrangle a mass of children all day long and Hillary graciously maneuver through anything that was thrown her way.
It was in studying with Pedro in preparation for one of those lessons that I realized something about myself I had never seen before . . . I was inadvertently doing exactly the sort of thing I love the most. Time searching, time studying, pooling our collective resources and dialoguing, all for a common purpose, each of us finding a way to help the other better function within their gifting. One thing I have is the ability to collect, synthesize and share information on a relational level (I love you Jenny Spencer for helping me see this!) I realized that for me, having information or understanding or whatever is completely useless if it can't be shared. I was learning so much from the people I was working with and feeling like I couldn't contribute anything in return. But the truth is that there is more than one way to contribute. Sure, I can lead a devotional or coordinate a discipleship training. But I can also help guide people in the truths God has shown to me, help them communicate with each other and connect in areas of service. I can pray while you preach and ask questions so we can figure out answers.
There is no reason to complicate my life by trying to force it to be simple. Where and how I am needed will not always look the same. I will never be able to fit myself into a neatly identifiable box and that's a dang good thing. Better to be (and here's the dreaded word) flexible. Better to bring to the table whatever is needed and not need to insist on bringing what I'd prefer.
So there is photograph/inkblot/lightbulb from Africa number one.
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