Comfort

Comfort.  I like it.  Comfort makes life easy and predictable.  It fools me into thinking I am in control.  That I don't need anybody.

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."  

~C.S. Lewis

So, God, in His gracious parenting, pushes me out of my comfort zone.  

Earlier this week, we were waiting for the Kosco to return to Honiara with our three translators on board so the Lavukal team could do some work together.  We started calling one of our friends in the ship's office on Saturday to get updates.  The ship stayed put for several days, and we tried to update the translators who were waiting in Ezekiel's village.  But a call or text will only go through if the phone can actually connect to the phone signal that is being propagated from the other side of our language group.  And charging a phone can be expensive if the sun is hiding and you have to use a generator.  So our friends often turn their phones off.  When the ship finally started moving, we were ecstatic and anticipated their arrival sometime in the middle of the night on Tuesday or on Wednesday morning.  Tuesday, I bought a fish and lots of fresh produce to welcome our guys to Honiara.  However, as Aaron was walking down to the office on Wednesday morning, his phone rang.  The translators had missed the boat because it had come at 2 a.m. in the rain and they didn't hear it.

Aaron made a Plan B (or C or D at this point!).  He would go out with the recording team on the Nakita on Sunday, August 18, and then come back with the translation team on Monday.  Then today as we were sitting down to lunch, Aaron got a phone call from one of our translators saying, "I'm in Honiara, come pick me up!"  Dropkick right out of my comfort zone.  

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."  

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

So the plan is changing and flexing, and God knew that we could use a little extra local food, so I had already purchased a fundraising basket of cooked food from one of SITAG's employees.  We'll enjoy sharing with the translator tonight for supper.  And I'll keep on feeding the SITAG guard dog assigned to our family and digging in the SITAG garden and being faithful with the small, but not insignificant, things God has placed in my hands.  I will not quit, even when discouraged.  Not today.  I am not strong, but I will persevere.  God faithfully gives me the strength I need, exactly when I need it.  Even when He kicks me out of my comfort zone.

This is what the Lord says:  "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercise kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord.  

Jeremiah 9:23-24