August 17, 2013:
Today's workout: lifting a nearly-50lb action packer onto the scale repeatedly. I sure hope that baby isn't over limit when I get to the airport!
August 18, 2013:
Last full day at home.
August 19, 2013:
Well, it looks like I'm going to be just about maxed out on my luggage weight. *If* the scale is correct. Which I hope it is, because I definitely don't want to be pulling stuff out of suitcases at the check-in counter...
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The last minute packing stuff is going to be the death of me...
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Whew! I'm done packing (except for the very, VERY last minute stuff). I think. And I'm alive. Maybe not sane, but alive.
August 20, 2013:
No over-weight baggage! All but one were RIGHT at 50.0lb. On another note, we had a thunderstorm on the way to the airport. It might seem like a little thing, but we have them so rarely, and I really enjoy them. It was like a special God-gift.
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Getting ready to board for the last leg of the trip...
August 21, 2013:
Made it! Safe, sound, and exhausted. There were no major glitches along the way, so thanks for all the prayers! More later.
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My first night in Senegal. I plan to sleep well. <gets ready to dive under mosquito net>
August 22, 2013:
Praise the Lord for a good night's sleep! It appears that not sleeping on either of my flights (essentially two nights without any sleep) may have been a blessing in disguise. I think I may have escaped any serious jet lag...
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The sounds of the night have begun. One of them being a very, very loud frog. What is the purpose of this constant croaking? To find a mate, I assume. I want to holler out the window, "Who do you think you're impressing with that awful ruckus?!" Oh, right. I'm not a frog.
August 23, 2013:
Woke up early this morning to my first Dakar thunderstorm. Happy, happy, happy!
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One of the missionaries stopped by to ask me if I wanted to join her for lunch. I thought, "Sure, why not?" I walked in and there was a group of people circled around a big pan of rice with peanut sauce and veggies. So I slipped into the circle, waited for the prayer, and then glanced around to see what everyone was doing. Before I went for my first spoonful, I realized I was holding my spoon in my left hand (definite no-no). I quickly switched to my right and hoped no one had noticed...
August 24, 2013:
First open-air market experience this morning. Swarms of flies? Check. Very little personal space? Check. Unfamiliar produce (as well as stuff I recognized)? Check. Cultural blunder? Check.
August 25, 2013:
Today I went to my first African church service. I didn't understand much (at all!) but I'm still glad I went. It's a beautiful thing to see God's people worshipping Him, no matter what the context.
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I love to plan, as far as I can see and beyond. I want to know the results my choices will have. If a process has ten steps, I want to know all ten of them before I start on the first.
Life is like a play sometimes - the curtain closes before the next act unfolds. This used to scare me. The inability to see what would happen next felt paralyzing.
Lord, show me Your will for my life, I'd pray, meaning Show me what the next twenty or thirty years will look like. I want to know it all.
Mercifully, He does not show us the whole story at once.
Suppose there had been no curtain for young-missionary-freshly-arrived-in-Dakar me? Suppose I had seen ahead to another day, only five years into the future - and all that would happen in between?
August 18, 2018:
I'm in one of the classrooms at the Bible School, wearing jeans and my black Ethnos360 Bible Institute t-shirt. It's registration weekend and I'm welcoming the seventy-odd freshmen who've come, smiling and taking their phone numbers and telling them it's going to be a bit of a wait. Some of them are jittery with excitement. Some are nervous, unsure. Some seem outwardly composed, as if new situations never bother them. I've been all those things, too. I look at their faces and wonder about the story - or stories - that brought them here. Do those stories have the myriad of twists and turns that mine does? Were there tears? Have God's mysterious ways unsettled them?
How odd that I would be standing here, in this place, at this moment...
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If I had known where the path would have led, I would have chosen differently. Run away. Doubted God's plan.
And I would have missed out.
All the richness and memories and friendships Senegal brought to my life - I would have missed them. The struggles and the painful learning process would have seemed pointless, a poorly written act with no connection to the one that would follow.
I didn't know - but He did.
Oh, the mercy of the curtain that kept it from my view until just the right moment.
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