People Over Productivity

Tonight, I fly home for Christmas. I will celebrate my college graduation (roll tide) in a place very special to me then fly to Birmingham to spend a short three weeks with as many people as I can before returning to Africa. The last four months being here has taught me more than I can even process at the moment. This semester, I have had the wonderful opportunity to "intern" at a children's home and ended up doing way more than being at The Oasis. I taught kindergarten and will continue that until May. I built lots of relationships within the missionary community. I was able to purchase a car, (PTL) and fumbled my way through town and markets and police checkpoints, and that was an experience in and of itself. 

 
Words fail me when I try to describe what I have experienced in the last four months. Except one phrase: people over productivity. As a college intern, I came here with a checklist. I literally had a learning contract that listed goals under nine different competencies that I was supposed to master. Through weekly supervision, my field liaison and I discussed these goals and on paper I met most of them. I passed the semester and I get to graduate (something I have wanted to say for nine loooong years)! But, just passing wasn't the accomplishment. My heart has changed so much. My eyes have been open, and I know this is only the beginning. This semester opened my eyes to the Word through community Bible study, to seeing people for who they are and not what they have, to a past that taught me to be a consumer and how that affected my relationships, and to the importance of being present - with people and with the Word.
 
People matter so much to the Lord. I matter so much. You matter so much. Our hearts and our entire being matter to the Lord. He literally died because we matter so much. When I got here, I had my learning contract with assessments and meetings and all of these ideas/goals that I needed to accomplish, but I could barely even speak the language of the girls I was serving. So I was stopped dead in my need-to-accomplish-this-checklist tracks. I was forced to sit, just sit, and observe life here. I couldn't charm my way into a conversation with meaningless words and head nods. I couldn't win people over with my quick wit. I felt lost. I couldn't check off my learning competencies in good faith because I couldn't even speak the language. This was a challenge that taught me the importance of people over productivity. It mattered that I was present on the porch for church on Sunday mornings. It mattered that I was available to give hugs when kids were sad, even when I couldn't understand why. It mattered that I was able to take kids for a ride in my car, even if it was just to the corner store for a Fanta and a pack of gum. And eventually, the girls started to open up to me. Eventually, I felt like I was able to connect with them on a level that fulfilled my internship duties, but at that point what did my checklist matter? I was able to see these children and others around me for who they were. Life here is so much slower, I was able to literally just sit for hours and laugh at my attempts of speaking their language. I think that means more to me than these precious children will ever know. 
 
Something else that I struggled with, partly due to the language barrier but equally due to my own selfish desires, was the thought of being effective. I came here with this mindset of changing so many lives and was abruptly halted in my tracks because God really just needed to change my life first. One morning, I was walking with a teammate and through tears I rambled to her, "I just feel like I'm not being effective. Like why did I even move my entire life here if I can't even have a conversation without struggling?! How am I supposed to change lives if I can't even communicate past a 1^st grade level, if even that eloquently? There are others that are way more equipped for this ministry than I." Then with love, she looked at me and said something along the lines of, "If you're not letting God affect your heart, then you will never be effective." That is the conversation that changed me. In that moment, I wanted to fight back and say "Well obviously, God moved me here, so he has affected me. He is the one that gave me a love for these children and this place in the first place!" But I knew it was all deeper than that. I had to be a person of peace for these kids. I had to model the discipleship that I was teaching. I had to seek God as my comforter, and not people. A lesson that I am still learning the hard way.
 
If you personally know me, you know that I love my people, hard. I am friendly to most. I feel pretty confident that the majority would say I have good people skills. I am skilled in reading people, quickly finding out what they like and playing on that to develop a friendship, if I desire one. This talent has gotten me far in life but when I moved to Africa, not deeply knowing a ton of people here, I was frozen. I knew I had a decision to make - I could keep things surface level or I could be present and try my best to know people without using a lot of words. I also had to dig deeper in knowing God. This is something that I am so thankful I have the privilege of, but also struggle with. Living 27 years in America has trained me on how to be a consumer of things that I choose. I have realized how selfish I can be and how much of the Bible I have cherry-picked to fit my life in the moment. I think a lot about Simon Peter and the other disciples. They knew so little about Jesus except that they knew deep in their hearts that he was the Messiah and still they devoted their whole lives to Him. Meanwhile, I have a whole book about Jesus, and I have barely scratched the surface. So, it has been my prayer (and I am far from good at it yet) that I won't be distracted by the world, but that I would live in step with God and what he is doing in the people here. It's a life of surrender versus productivity and one that I have only scratched the surface of. 
 
If you've been around this blog for long, you recognize it is not so much for updates now but more of a place for me to spill my guts and look back to. Because I suck at journaling. I hope in six months and two years and fifteen years, if the internet still exists, that I can look back at this post and will be so much better at just being present with people and with God, and that "checklist" or "consumer" won't even be words in my daily vocabulary or thought life.
 
I would appreciate your prayers that I will be disciplined and not distracted as I go to the States and can invest in the lives of others and soak up what the Holy Spirit has for me through others too. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!