Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Looking towards the end.

"... I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." -Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

There are now three weeks remaining in my East African adventure. In one week most of my classmates will board an airplane bound for the States. Then for two weeks I will remain in Uganda, Eastern Uganda, on the slopes of Mt. Elgon. I will spend Christmas with my rural family in Kapchorwa, all 13+ of them. There is a part of me that is very jealous of my friends. But, then the beauty of the situation hits me with the realization of the amazingness that is spending Christmas in an entirely different culture. The adventurous majority of my soul is excited over this proposition.

The time is coming when I will be back home and the questions will fly. What did you learn? How did you see yourself grow? What are you going to do with your life? Did you figure out how to fix Africa?
Honestly, this scares me more than missing Christmas with my family does. I am scared by the reality of a different life than my life here in Uganda, a life in America, and the numerous questions that will come about.
I am scared because I have collected a bounty of questions myself.
What good has aid done? Do we try to play God rather than submitting to God?
Should we attempt to fix things that only seem broken from an outsiders perspective?
Why do we need missionaries in a country that has a higher percentage of Christians than America?
And of course, what do I do with me life now?
Obviously this is just a sampling of the questions running wild in my mind, it's a task daunting to attempt to wrangle them all up.

I am not sad. I am thankful that I have had such a fascinating experience. Questions are not bad, instead I have realized that not asking questions is potentially bad. What did I learn? I don't know.
How did I see myself change/grow? I don't know , but I did. What am I going to do with my life? I am going to be a disciple, beyond that I do not yet have the faintest idea. Did I figure out how to fix Africa? Nope, but I did realize that the whole world is broken, and that love is the only reality that can change anything.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." -Zora Neale Hurston

Anyways, I realize that this is disjointed and may not be sensible to someone on the outside of my life looking in. More than likely this will be the last time that I post before I come home. I love you all, and I cannot wait to see you.

Peace and Love, Brian

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