The Truth is...

The truth is...

It is hard for me to hear God's voice here. 

The beauty of this country is drowned out by squeeling pigs on the back of bikes, crying babies sitting lonely outside the house, and the fact that death lurks around every corner.

I still do not fully understand my purpose in being here and that it itself makes it hard to be here.

Hannah and I have pillow talk almost every night, trying to process what we have experienced and every night I fall asleep feeling like I have 50 years of processing left to do.

Any answer I thought I had about this country was wrong. I am no expert and I don't know if I want to be because all of that knowledge is just too heavy, and too much to handle.

This last month has been long, hard, good, depressing, life-sucking, beautiful, horrifying, exciting, memorable, and exhausting. So if I ever tell you time in the Congo was just good, I'm lying.

The truth is...

My heart doesn't ache the way I thought it would.

It is not the poverty that is wreaking havoc in my heart, it is the church. It is the fact that the Bible isn't being taught well, and that out of 300 women not one had heard the story of Deborah. That a pastor admitted that it is easier if the people don't know the fullness of bible and that offering has been made into a competition in order to bring more money in. I can deal with the poverty and the reality of death on a daily basis but I cant process the churches issues. Not yet at least.

I am tired and want a mini vacation but we are in the jungle and there is no where to go. 

Countries sending money need Congo just as much as Congo THINKS they need that money.

One of my favorite moments in the last month has been holding a baby named priscillia and praying over her life as she smiled, laughed and slept in my arms. Maybe it was one of my favorite moments because language didn't matter for once, or because her little smile made all the other distressing things invading my mind disappear,  or maybe simply because I love holding babies. I guess it doesn't really matter the reason why, but for an afternoon I was happy to be sweaty with tired arms from holding this precious little life.

I don't want to sit through another three plus hour church service where I cant understand anything, I dont know the music and I don't like to dance. Not to mention having to sit in the front row or worse, behind the pulpit, and having to try to look engaged for the entire service. Did I mention half the congregation is napping during the sermon as well?

I have/find little joy in being here.

It is hard to just BE in the presence of God, even in a country where there is nothing else for me to do.

The devil has been knocking on the door since the day we stepped foot in Congo. And he is working hard to pry the door open. Some days if feels like he is climbing in the window and other days we feel like we have him on lockdown. But the truth is...we are tired. Tired of the constant battle of trying endlessly to hold all the doors and windows shut.

I'm excited for the day I can look back on these two months in Gemena and see what the purpose was and how it affected my life.

I know that my coming here was not a mistake and that is a truth I need to hold tightly to.

I'm sorry that this blog is not some light weight, happy go lucky, easy and encouraging read, but this is how I feel.  And people need to know that this last month has been hard and the next month probably will be too. I think everyone knew this trip would be challenging, but it has proved to be challenging for all different reasons than I anticipated.

I do not for one second regret coming here, you need to know that. This last month has taught me more than I could have ever imagined, the hard part is figuring out what to do with the knowledge I have been given. I feel as though I know more than I should and I'm drowning in the realities of the complicated mess Congo calls life.

There are good days and hard, long days and the above portion of this blog was written on a hard, long day when I was just not feeling it. And now as I sit here writing the rest of this blog my time here doesn't seem so bad. I don't want to discredit the bad days because those feelings were and are still real but I have wrestled with actually posting this blog because that is not how I feel today.

Today I feel like there is more hope. I have woken up the last two morning and decided to chose joy over counting down the days, and to chose joy throughout the long church services amongst other things. I have choosen joy, and will try to continue to choose joy throughout the next month. I'm not saying there wont be days that are hard but that all of the days don't have to be so much like the day I was having when I wrote the first half of this blog.

The truth is... there is joy in the Lord, and I want His joy more than any other superficial and temporary joy that the world has to offer me.