Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

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As an American, one of the things I have grown to deeply enjoy is a vintage Sunday routine. Usually, that’s comprised of a good morning at church followed by a good lunch and a relaxing afternoon in front of a football game. No live games were on this afternoon (still preseason) but they were airing the Panthers game from Thursday. A change out of the church clothes and going horizontal on the couch proved lethal for my consciousness. I napped well. Today was a vintage Sunday. Great to be Stateside.

Sitting here now watching a LIVE football game from the stinkin west coast. We’ve got it good.

I read Galatians 5 this morning. Once I got to the fruits of the Spirit, I walked slowly through them in an attempt to see what fruit I have in my life and where issues lie. As I got to patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, I began to see how much my sinfulness pops up even with the Holy Spirit in me. Ugh. The first example of it that came to mind is how I treat Asher. If he dumps his plate on the floor, I’m not patient with him. When I discipline or reprimand him while using a loud, condescending voice, I’m not being kind to him. When he tries to get my attention and I send him away because I’m watching a TV show, I’m not being good to him. When I let him go to bed without praying with him or reading God’s word to him, I’m not being a faithful father. And that’s just the start of it!
You can see the trend to the point I don’t even have to list the other fruits that don’t come forth in me. What is even more humbling is when I back up to earlier in the chapter where the works of the flesh are listed. I discover these are what I see in those example Asher moments: enmity, strife, fits of anger. Horrible I tell ya. May God and Asher forgive me and may God grant me grace and peace by enabling me to walk in the Spirit and produce His fruit in my life more and more. I can only do works of the flesh. Only the Spirit can produce good fruit in me. I pray God sanctifies me more every second and I praise Him for His infinite mercy in forgiving me through Jesus as I sin day in and day out, day in and day out, day in and day out……..

A wretched sinner in the grasp of a gracious God.

When I picked out the current them for my blog, I had East Africa in mind.  But, now that we’re returning to the other side of the continent, different terrain, do you think I should change the theme or not?

Although churches are numerous in Mbeya, Tanzania, the sizes of the congregations usually don’t surpass double digits in count… on Sunday morning. Tonight, we went to our first Sunday evening service since about 2006. The church tonight was Northside Baptist in Charlotte, the same place whom has so graciously put us up in their missions house for the duration of our furlough. Northside has a large sanctuary that can seat over 1000 people. Tonight, there were about 150 people. In that space, the crowd looked small and in that regard, I became slightly somber.

Then, I remembered the land, the culture from where I just came. A gathering of believers this size was an extremely infrequent thing. As a matter of fact, there was not a single time over the 2 year span we spent in Tanzania at which we sat among a group this size who all spoke English as their native language.

So, was this really a somber event in that there was a small group in church tonight? No. There was a big group there tonight… and it was really, really nice.

In Mbeya when we left, the sun was fully set by 7pm. I mean dark all the way. We landed in NC within a day or two of the longest of the year, not dark until well after 9pm. Couple that with the same sun effect in London (was still light when we reached our hotel at 10:30pm) and you’ve got whackey people!
Eyes say to body, “Why are you so tired?”

Today was our planned final safari which took place at Mikumi National Park. It’s not the richest in animal life but it literally sits on the highway between Mbeya and Dar es Salaam.
When we go on safaris, Asher gets to ride up front with us because of the safe pace and better view.

We have no idea what they were all staring at.

This buffalo had a bad day.

This was the only watering hole in which we found hippos. They would only pop up a few inches out of the water a couple of seconds at a time…

…until we got ready to leave. Then big daddy came up.

For the final shot, I post a challenge. This was the ‘road’ out to one of the watering holes, but can you tell which direction it is heading in this photo?

The answer is completely straight ahead!

Up early tomorrow to finish out journey to our departure city… Dar es Salaam.

We got loaded up well this morning and pulled out of Mbeya by 11am. There were no problems on the road until this:

An overturned fuel truck completely blocking the road.
There was a small crew of guys chopping down trees to make a large enough detour to go around it.

And while we were waiting for our turn to go around the truck, this odd combination drove by. Look closely.

It is a truck… carrying a truck… that’s carrying a car. That’s just really odd to me.
So other than that and a little bit of construction to drive through, our journey today was way uneventful. As a matter of fact, I expected 7 hours to get here and we made it in 6!
We’ll sleep in a little tomorrow, take a leisurely safari and come back to the hotel for a nice dinner. Lookin like a good trip so far.

I don’t know what this kind is technically called but my vote is Tanzanian Tiger Moth.

One of the flowers in our garden in Mbeya. The normal colors are a rich red and a stark white.