Tag Archives: missionary

Wholly Discontented

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I made an appointment to meet a pastor friend today to discuss my spiritual aches and pains in the wake of my mind-blowing, three-month mission trip to Africa. I shared with him how things seem different since my return, from relationships to corporate worship. There seems to be a gulf, or distance, between me and the people and things that were formerly so close to my heart.

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I shared with him how I think and pray constantly of my next trip abroad, to renew beautiful relationships with selfless servants in Uganda. I’ve kept up the email chatter back and forth across the continents and the ocean. They await me there. They ask me when I will return. Sounds good. Amazingly, there are even more opportunities for good video ministry work there. I recently met a friend of my mother’s at her church in Montclair, California. She helps support a mission in Uganda which battles poverty and the scourge of HIV/AIDS. There is mutual interest in how I can help her organization.

Once again, a video ministry opportunity opens up before me from my own sphere of influence.

Today I wanted to sort out with Pastor John the sense of conflict that it is inherent in my soul. Do I go, as I’m called to do, and as I want to do, to far off lands for mission and service? Or do I stay in my secure, ungated community, on the proverbial treadmill, living a life of quiet desperation? Obviously, there is no question for the answer is obvious.

Pastor John clapped his hands and praised the Lord for what he called my “holy discontent.”

We agreed that it marks a healthy process wherein my faith is tested and courage is summoned. It’s not unusual for us to be in conflict with the Lord. It’s in our DNA.

Week Three Begins

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It is about 2:20 p.m. on Tuesday. We’ve had a couple of heavy thunderstorms already today. I’ve finished lunch and I’m sitting on the balcony overlooking the out-patient clinic at the hospital here. A baby is crying. Is it hungry or in some other kind of distress? Every day the patients line up to be seen.

The Bwindi Community Hospital is very critical to the local and nearby communities. Residents come from miles around to get health care. I spend most my days here observing the activities and meeting people who will help me get the video work I need. Other days I spend about a mile from here where outreach activities to the Batwa Pygmies is conducted.

The needs are great, the staff is busy and attentive. It really is something to witness.

I’m settling in, with the guest house staff and routine, and my colleagues. Most of the time things go well. Other times I get distracted, lose my place and dwell on my loneliness. But that wave passes and all is well again.

The hospital chaplain asked me to lead morning devotions on Monday. A friend said he wanted me to preach at his church, but first he must ask the pastor. Can’t believe this is God’s plan for me.

Like everything in Africa, it is hard here. But it is also beautiful, difficult, wonderful and poor. Infrastructure is virtually non-existent. I have water, a flush toilet at my disposal. Most here don’t have anything close.

I’ve shot some good video so far and I’m just getting started. I will travel next week to see a Ugandan teacher I met last year in South Sudan. I will stay with him and his family for two nights and then return. After Easter I plan to go to Rwanda for a couple of nights to visit a former Carmel High and York School cycling star.

I’m healthy, eating everything in front of me, which is starches and plantains, mostly.