2 months...sorry!!

Again, I have no excuse for my lack of blogging. I recently took some time to reflect on some of the reasons why I have not blogged in so long and realized that it is because of the heat here. Because of the heat, I spend at least 20 minutes a day crying...this is about the same amount of time that it takes for me to blog...thus, crying my pain away trumps blogging. perhaps this is a slight exaggeration, but seriously now... I will bless the world with a window to my soul.

I have under 4 months left in Africa...and it feels like it might as well be tomorrow...the time is flying by, and I feel like I'm just barely getting to know my new home. I think a few more months here would be perfect...even though some people at home may not agree...

Ive recently gone through, and still kind of am going through, a very stretching time in my time here in Africa. Aside from the heat and the fact that I spend most of my time outside digging holes...I have had to come to the painful realization that what I "DO" is not really that big of a deal. This is not to say that what I do doesn't serve a purpose...but that what I DO is secondary to many other things that may become of this experience here in Africa.

Essentially, I believe this is what missions as a whole is all about. Its time to stop focusing strictly on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, evangelism, saving the lost...etc. All of these things are good, and serve a part in missions...but its time to look past these relatively short sighted goals. You can feed a child one day and call it missions, but the next day...he/she may be hungry again. You can convert someone to Christianity, but that doesn't mean anything unless you walk with him/her for a while. This mentality is not easily swallowed for many people. I have an extremely hard time seeing "what I do" as secondary to the bigger picture that God has planned, not just for me, but for the world. I want to believe that what I do matters, and I want to love what I do. So, it was tough for me to realize that as Christians desperate to serve God in any way that we can, its time to look past ourselves and look past short term effects of what we "DO" and realize that until we can love our neighbors and recognize the humanity in each other...there is no hope of true missions work taking place.

I feel like there should be more to say on this...but I think this is it for tonight. I'm tired...and very very hungry (this week I am fasting....i hate it). Its becoming a little cooler now!! The days of deadly heat have moved on...and I'm looking forward to my first winter in Africa!!

Kyle