Entry Fifty Six: Summer over - A New Season.

Where do I begin. Where or how do I say what I want to say. This summer was perhaps the best summer I have ever had in my entire life, it was definitely the busiest. Now though it is over, and things are not what I quiet expected them to be. I sense a great disturbance in my spiritual life, or a chaotic echo of darkness which is slowly approaching. I can almost smell it, its a stench I remember from my past as a sinner. It is the stench of feeling worthless, like a failure. The stench is from the devils breath, made of lies, trying to take me away from God. However I think knowing this it will make me peruse God this semester fervently, more so then I have before. After having gifts rain down on me all summer with experience after experience, and then for all of that to stop with the coming of a new season is just distressful.

Where has it all gone I ask myself every night, and certain times during the day. Where has it all gone? Where has God gone? It looks like a shallow question, but I do not mean that I think God has literally left me. Nor do I believe or think he has left me because these experiences are over, as if the two are linked directly together with some kind of a "high". There is just this none describable place where he has taken a step away from me, not out of harm, but to simply observe, and it makes me very nervous. I cant really pin point what it is, or where it is, it feels so broad. Its like as if I was riding a bike with training wheels with Him closely behind, but now He has stopped following, and is simply watching from afar my little legs peddle off around the block. It is definitely a new season!

I am overwhelmingly thankful for what happened this summer. I am thankful for my choir tour, for my mission trip, for God providing the funds I needed for my mission trip, for the job God gave me before starving to death, and for the time I was able to spend with my family before starting school. I am unconditionally thankful for all the growth and life change these events created in my heart. They all have vanished though, the events have moved to the past tense. All along I was being prepared and blessed, remolded and anointed, all for this perhaps. Being strengthened to face betrayal, aggravation, a longing for emotional and physical intimacy, affirmation, and a general sense of being purely uncomfortable when starting a new season in life. For this is where I really am right now.

This new season is not a horrible place to be in though, its just nerve racking. School started today. I just had my first class about seven hours ago, it went better then I could have anticipated for a philosophy class. The professor seemed to be a little twiggy, but that might not be a bad thing in the long run. When I am tired and its the end of the semester not being challenged may be what I need. I also had my first day of chapel, and it feels good to be back in the natural rhythm of campus life. However, the bands are different, the sound is different in worship, so its just a little strange seeing things not exactly as I left them.

My room mates are awesome though, and I am so excited to have them living with me. We get along together really well so far. All of us communicate well, feel comfortable with each-other, and have quiet a lot in common. I believe we also all think the same way, which is a bonus and something I didn't have last semester! - scientific minded. Its werid being placed in the back of the village though, I sort of feel detached from the rest of campus. Where last year I was in the very front and basically on top of everyone who wandered out of the village for class or any other activity. There really isn't a lot of traffic back here, its nothing like last year, not anymore.

I don't know where God is going to bring me this semester. I sense he is on the move, with me, as darkness and other forces approach. Not depression per say, or anxiety, but a feeling of looseness. As my journey becomes more intense, with more temptations, and more questions - the truth is just harder to hold onto. I believe though that this may provide an excellent opportunity to refine my spiritual walk, and correct any faulty foot work I may normally have when running down a spiritual road. There are some big gaps that need to be filled, and there is still a lot of healing which needs to take place. I am very weary of making the same mistakes I made in the past - in the broad sense, little things, big things, things I just don't want to repeat.

However there is one thing which bothers me that I cant seem to help. I find myself wondering away from Church, actually, running. Before I guess I could say I was wondering, slowly, away. Though that has changed, its a purposeful jog now. I don't like the church, it may be because I don't feel the love, kindness, and most of all - respect I think as a human being I deserve. There seems to be more strife and hypocrisy then there is in my own life, so much its just driving me away. I was squashed my entire childhood, practically all the way until I turned 18, by every single human being inside my general environment. I always knelled, I always gave way, I always turned the other cheek or I ran. I suppose I just can't turn my cheeks any more, its not right or healthy to.

Now it seems I am running again. I don't want to run, I don't like having to run, I don't like being a coward or having to start all over, but what other options do I have? Where? I know that I am supposed to be respected, I know what it feels like and looks like to be respected as I have a few friends who do respect me still, and who are kind to me. I believe even my room mates respect me, as I respect them. Where does God want to take me in all this. These are all questions I believe darkness has cornered me into asking. Perhaps I have just made myself too vulnerable, perhaps I am being too sensitive. One way or another the Lord will guide me through all this, perhaps he will send help, or already has. He will prepare me, sustain me, as always be by my side when I walk into face the darkness and do battle.

Lord where do you want me.

Entry Fifty Five: Zimbabwe

Things have been going so well. My mission team left LAX on time and we enjoyed the flight to Dubai. We traveled on a tricked out Boeing 777-200. They had new screens behind each seat with 1200 channels and 120 movie selections along with games and trivia. There were also some pretty cool lighting effects built into the ceiling of the plane, which were turned on during the night when everyone fell asleep. I was really worried the plane ride would be full full of mindless boredom but I occupied the time with three great movies and some bible reading. I brought books along too but thankfully those weren't needed.

When we arrived in Dubai I was just amazed at how large the airport was. The airports baggage claim room was probably about the same size and height as New York Union Station. Everything was also air conditioned, because the outdoor temperature was 120F. When all of us walked outside the heat hit us like a brick wall. When we reached the exit we waited for a shuttle to take us to the hotel. Our hotel was fairly nice, I believe it was a 4 star. Me and Andrew shared and room, david and adam shared a room, the girls shared a room and Jeff slept by himself.  The hotel was clean, the food was good, and it was so nice being able to shower after such a long plane ride.

After leaving Dubai it was another 10 hour flight to Zimbabwe. We had a small stop about an hour out of Zimbabwe to re-fuel and pick up/drop off some passengers. I was really worried about masquitoes but when we arrived there was almost none. This is nothing like what I have seen on TV. For the most part everyone looks healthy, eats well, and dresses well. I mean for a third world country life looked pretty livable. Although I wasnt able to see much, because we arrived at night. The only thing that really really stood out on the drive to our living space was an odd smell in the air. It only existed near and inside the city. 

We had a great experience spending time with the children inside the village and school we visited and worked at. Home stays were a blast too! For the most part we were all met with happy smiles from everyone we happened to see. Spending time with the people was just such a joy. Seeing their lives be so peaceful, yet so harsh, and so unexplainable different then ours. Painting their class rooms gave them as much confidence, self respect, honor, and ambition as say buying someone here a BMW. I was quiet surprised to see the impact we made at the end of our trip. When we did our debrief a lot of positive feedback was given, even though it didn't feel like we were doing much.

Being home has been strange. Looking at my neihborhood, the perfectly green yards, the beautifully looking painted homes, the crisp black asfault that was just re-poured. The block looks so lovely, and its hard to love it. I learned to enjoy a new culture with people who don't live in the same picture perfect infrastructure. And now, sitting in my room seeing this wonderland looking neighborhood is painful. There is no adventure, the void inside my chest is just becoming larger and larger as the minutes pass. The chills of sleeping in a room with spiders and going into a town with malaria, the thrill of being next to animals which could kill you in seconds.... can not be compared with this place.

Yet, I can not see either world with partiality in mind. Both have their quirks and tales.