overload

My fingers are just itching to write something, but my head is too full at the moment to sort out WHAT or WHAT NOT......but here i go anyhow......



We have been back in our village for nearly 3 months and have (sometimes literally) been bombarded by all kinds of cultural stuff - happenings in and around us. From funerals to feasts - not that one would be much better than the other - fasting, initiation, 40 days-after-the-death-meals, extremely sick people, drums at night - the works! The spiritual realm was probably in a traffic jam!!! All this to say that to work through all of this and observe, absorb and make sense of it all was (and is) quite exhausting! The fun of living in another culture.....


To find someone on the outside to understand and listen has proven quite impossible (at times)! I have found that if a person cannot hook it unto something familiar in his/her own environment, then he/she either discards it immediately or tries to downplay things. Some have even told me that it can't be all THAT difficult living here! Surely not, don't we have running water and who needs electricity anyway? Yes, well, if you are a career camper then you might be happy here all the time!! But then again, it is not about the physical stuff that one can see or wish you had - it is the things you are suppose to know or do, the things that everyone here understands - even the 2 year old - everyone, that is, except you!! It is the hard stuff that you need to work through, the suffering you see daily, your own feelings of inadequateness.....And so we plod on, hopeful that tomorrow might bring more enlightenment and encouragement - always the learner....


Sometimes the mischievous side of me really wants to take charge and write a newsletter full of this kind of stuff - just to see what kind of reaction i will get - but then again, i might get no reaction whatsoever!! THAT would be really bad! Talk about not being understood! :) (Iin a way i am doing it now, so don't be offended...just hear my heart??)


And anyway, it is not all bad, of course, it just gets a bit too much at times and it is then that i wish i could share AND be understood! I guess that, THAT is my lesson - i actually just read this morning:

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots (haha) and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord."

Woe to her!! And so i let go of all my expectations on friends, even the cyber space variety, and turn to the Lord - He is the One who created all peoples and He is ultimately the One who understands the surrounding culture .......and me too, of course!!

Dear Lord, where do i begin........