Rocky Road

A nice, good long rain on Tuesday night made for a spectacular outing on Wednesday morning. 

Goal: find and invite orphans who have graduated from the infants in distress program to come for a big celebration party in a few days. 

Method: invitation only works by word of mouth and the handing out of a simple invitation with the time and date and a little black and white party clip art from good old Microsoft word.  

Plan: take the car, leave early in the morning, hit six different villages, touch as many kids as possible in those villages, and get back in time for kids' club at 1500. 

But things hardly go as planned. 

Evidence number one: it rained wonderfully and practically all night long on Tuesday, making a muddy mess Wednesday morning. It also meant the electricity was out all over town, so we had to wait for it to come back on before making photocopies of the invitation and then finally leaving around 10:00am. So much for an early start! 

With Rebeca in the front seat directing me, I always know we are in for an adventure. Everywhere she goes is on moto, so naturally she takes me on the best moto paths. This makes for tons of fun when you are driving a mass of a vehicle on slippery bike paths after an all-nighter rain. 

But no matter how muddy and damp the earth was, nothing could dampen our spirits! We talked the whole way out to the first village, which was about 45 minutes away. We talked about everything from stuff going on in our lives, modern social issues, faith, and inside jokes. It was the type of conversation I have been longing for since I started language school a year and a half ago. We joked and laughed and smiled and sang, stopping from time to time in a village to find a certain courtyard, sit down a while, visit with the family, eat a few local peanuts offered in hospitality, and then invite their child to the graduate party. 

I often see what the children look like when they come into the program - tiny, fragile, malnourished babies. What joy to see them two or three years after graduating! They are now  boys and girls who never would have lived had it not been for the love given to them through the infants in distress program. 

Our singing stopped momentarily when I came to a split in the road. On the left was a long stretch of rocky road, where people had intentionally piled up random rocks to make a crossing in the rainy season. But don't think of a nice cobblestone pathway, just imagine boulders tossed on top of each other in no particular form or fashion. Think about four wheel drive truck commercials where monster trucks are smashing over uneven mountainous terrain. This about your bladder bouncing and heads hitting the ceiling. 

To the right was the low road, but it seemed safe enough. It didn't look too muddy or slippery. In fact, it looked quite passable while the higher rocky road seemed too narrow in some places for my tires to even fit. 

I chose the road on the right, but I learned something: You should always choose the rocky road. It's there for a reason. 

I started to slip and slide and slow down, and I could see the long stretch of muddy road that still remained. I tried to accelerate, hoping I could plow through with enough speed, but all that did was put my car into a 180 degree spin to the left, which miraculously popped me right up on the rocky road facing the direction from which we had just come.

After a couple seconds of silence (in which I might have muttered, "Thank God"), Rebeca kindly asked, "Did you mean to do that?" 

I shook my head, "Nope, the car turned like that all on its own." 

Then we started spontaneously singing again, and I'm not sure who started it, but it couldn't have been more fitting. The song says, "We are on the rock, the rock at last." I think it's supposed to be talking about Jesus, but we added a whole new dimension of meaning, and it was perfect. 

That same rocky road ended up swallowing one of my tires, so we were stuck there for a good fifteen minutes while Rebeca and Juliette dug a rock out from under my front right tire and I kept trying multiple combinations of putting it in reverse, then in first gear, punching it fast, easing it slow, and just a whole lot of tires spinning in the rocks and mud. When we finally got going, we kept singing, "We are on the rock, the rock at last!" 

After touring the six villages, reaching eight graduates, and completely trashing my car, we arrived back to town at 1700, just in time to swing by kids' club and wave goodbye to all the kids as they were on their way home. To celebrate the end of a great adventure, we walked down the street a little way and sat on a bench next to a lady bent over her pot of boiling oil, cooking beignets. We must have eaten everything she had cooked, and then some. We popped the little fried bean flour cakes in our mouths and kept talking with our mouths full about the stories of the day. 

I record these details and smile as I write them because it was just a good day. We had a good rain. We rode with the windows down and didn't even sweat. I went to new villages and saw parts of Burkina that I had never seen before. We saw healthy toddlers impacted by the meager efforts of our program. We made people smile. We ate good peanuts and good beignets. We sang good songs and had good talks and good laughs. We made good memories.

But do you really want to know why it was a good day? I will tell you: it's because I lived life with Africans, participated in it with them, and loved every minute of it. 

I have to confess that it's not always that way. Sometimes I am frustrated by my lack of ability to communicate. Sometimes the heat and the mess and the mud bothers me. Sometimes I feel lonely and discouraged. But not today. Today I let the wind blow through my hair and the French words roll of my tongue. Today I let my tires get dirty and my hands get sticky. Today I let time not matter and relationships count as everything. 

People say that there are stages of cultural adjustment, and I believe it's true. There is the honeymoon phase where everything is new and wonderful. There is the shock phase when you realize you are there for good and wonder what you've gotten yourself into. Then there is a gradual time when you just feel stuck and wonder if things will ever feel normal or get better again. But then usually right after that comes the stage of resolution and acceptance when you can breathe easy and imagine yourself living comfortably in the culture. I think I'm somewhere in between stage three and four. I'm headed to resolution, but I'm just not quite there. I can smell it, like hot cookies coming out of the oven, but I just can't taste it yet. It's like I am watching myself step closer and closer to the open doorway, and I'm sticking one toe out into the light. I haven't yet arrived, but I'm oh so close and I feel it coming and it gives me hope. 

Sometimes I want to go to sleep and then wake up and just suddenly be there, but that's not how it works. Not for me at least. The arrival for me has not been sudden, but rather very slow and gradual. Yet the journey has been worth it. 

With every emotion and thought, whether fleeting or dwelling, I have learned something about God or myself or this world we live in or the gospel we live for. With every single tiny step of this cultural integration journey, I have taken one step closer to Jesus. And just for that, it's all worth it. Every tear, every night that I couldn't fall asleep, every morning of waking up exhausted, every frustration and discouragement, every unmet expectation, every sweet moment spent in God's Word - it's all been worth it. He is worth it. 

For a cornerstone is being layed. A foundation is being built. And though I, or we, may not see exactly where it is going or for what purpose it is being raised, God does. He is doing a good work in us, like a potter with his lump of clay, and he is using our current circumstances to accomplish it. Choose the rocky road, my friends. Although it is full of holes and looks too narrow to cross, it is these very rocks - these sufferings and trials - on which our foundations are layed. It is these very holes that toss and turn us and throw us into the arms of Jesus.  It is these stony paths that strengthen our core muscles of faith and help us learn to pray and trust. One day soon, we will turn back and see that the rocky road was what led us to green pastures. 

It is worth it. He is worth it.