Lacking Nothing

Janet and I are coming upon the end of our second year on mission in Africa.  We are well beyond the end of our third year away from the U.S. including time in language school in France.  We are still by almost any measure neophytes barely acculturated and still very much in the language learning mode. 

We have “regular” positions as support missionaries working for the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  For the remainder of our time we have a number of ministries ranging from feeding undernourished babies to hosting Sunday school in our home to planting trees to distributing Bibles and New Testaments to Africans who otherwise could not afford to buy them.  We manage to stay busy.

One of the more challenging needs is to learn how to live and work on support that would be occasionally lacking and often irregular.  Trying to maintain some semblance of a budget and withstanding unexpected expenses can take a lot of doing.  We often must rely on our dwindling savings to connect loose ends.  That’s not a complaint—we know that all of our support originates with gracious God who takes care of all our needs and comes from people who love us and enjoy participating in God’s work.

We just learned that our 14-year old truck now requires major surgery.  The speed bumps, rutted roads, and age have taken their toll.  In addition to the tie rods which have worn out, the relay bar--it connects the two front wheels so they steer the same--needs to be replaced.  Total materials cost is 569.984CFCA or about $1,100.00.  Labor will run another 25.000 or about $50.00 (labor is cheap here.).  That's almost a new refrigerator, which we also need.

I'm starting to see a very well-defined pattern here.  I'm thinking that we must be getting very close to doing what God wants us to do and may just accomplish something good for his Kingdom.  Maybe enough people are starting to experience God working through us.  It may be that the enemy now has us on his radar.  It could be because of the baby formula or the Bibles or even just Sunday school or our work at SIL, but it very much seems like the enemy is firing some of his artillery in our direction.

If we think about it, he has been attacking us through the most basic stuff needed just to live.  He's attacked our health in a big way with some pretty stunning tropical diseases and infections such as typhoid fever, dysentery, and various parasites in search of a home.  Our water supply has been attacked by making our water tank either overflow or flow backwards during water cuts so as to keep our neighbors provided with water. The enemy has stricken our electrical supply through frequent and extended power cuts that eventually burned out our first generator and that consume costly and occasionally unavailable diesel fuel. He has hit our food supply when our third-hand refrigerator lost part of a compressor valve and necessitated our disposing of much spoiled or suspect food, something more profoundly painful to do in a land where some people are glad to eat even once a day,  

The enemy may well have been the cause when our tin roof began leaking at the beginning of the recent wet season.  We needed to replace 400 rubber washers to the bolts that secure the roof and spend enjoyable hours in a cramped attic that could be used to bake cookies. I have had to repair so many plumbing problems—pipe leaks, broken toilets, dead faucets, and numerous inadequate previous repairs that I might be able to fall back on that skill for supplemental retirement income.  We have also enjoyed the comparatively slow or often nonexistent Internet service that is the norm here in Ouaga. Laptops have failed because of the copious dust and 100-degree-plus heat.  Almost everything that could break, melt, stall, leak, burn, or disappear has.

At times the enemy has brought his weapons to bear on our relationship making minor transgressions into major sins, a glance to be pregnant with covert meaning, and “that tone” to be the prelude to a squabble.

Old Nick has also been sowing the seeds of doubt regarding our regular and side jobs here in Ouaga  This is all in addition to the usual smoke he blows in our direction with normal life here with horrible smells, intolerable temperatures, noise, dust, French, and the fact that everything just takes so much more time, effort, and money.  We volunteered to care for a small dog that poops in the house and wets our bed.  Then there were interpersonal issues between coworkers that left me emotionally drained after carrying other people’s burdens.

Just writing the preceding paragraphs makes it much more obvious to me that compared to our life in the US, we are getting whooped big time.  The silver lining for me is that it has and continues to improve my personal prayer time and Bible reading.  I hope in some Job-like fashion for all his efforts the enemy only drives me further into the arms of Jesus Christ.  Satan’s attention reminds Janet and me that we need to be more disciplined in our prayers together and Bible reading or he will squeeze us much more.

Janet and I realize that if we're catching the enemy's attention, we must be doing something right.  We don’t have anything to worry about at all.  Trials will come and our faith will be tested, but God promises that we will not be made to carry any more that God’s grace will enable us to carry.

I'm listening to our African music that I often listened to during the times I ached to be on mission.  Each song takes me back to a time when I was working, studying, reading or praying and always hoping to one day submit to Jesus Christ’s Great Commission and to go to the land for which he gave me a great hunger even as a child and to be doing it with the woman I had been praying for even before we had ever met.

I am still so excited and happy to be here carrying water for Jesus.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  James 1: 2-4 (ESV)

Janet and I are truly lacking nothing.

Dieu est grand!  God is good!