"Exhausted yet Pursuing"

(written 10/3/12)

With only 2 1/2 weeks left here in Mocuba, Mozambique, not much has changed. I wake up earlier now and am allowed to help in the garden, then we hoist water onto our heads from the local well and take it back to the house. I have had the opportunity to crush cassava and sift it for our breakfast the next morning, which reminds me yet again that I need to carve out some time for some push ups. I have swept with branches and washed my clothes in the stream on rocks and with water you cant see thru, but this is all we have and somehow all my clothes are clean. All of our work is done before 8 am when it gets too hot to be in the sun. We start around 5:15 and pack as much in as possible. If it doesn't happen that day, it waits until the following day or dark when the kids bathe and there is no more sun. The rest of my day is spent on a mat. Or at the theatre, which is really a small television and a DVD player in a grass hut with rocks arranged to sit on. I have seen more Indian films with Portuguese dubbed over it with English subtitles than I ever really wanted to in my life, but my family has gone out of their way to take me to do something rather than sitting on a mat. Our work is physically exhausting in the morning, but I think sitting on a mat all day has become more and more exhausting. It's mentally exhausting being the only white person within a few miles and being alone in this particular village and being stared at constantly and having questions fired at you with the inability to answer. Emotionally, when people laugh and talk about you constantly without knowing what they're laughing at or how to do the work they gave you correctly, the days can get extremely exhausting. But this week, in my time in the word on my mat, I stumbled on a verse in 1 Samuel, David and his mighty men are out fighting and as they continue their raids, and in the midst of the accounts, there is a 3 word phrase. "Exhausted, yet pursuing" Of all the words in the English dictionary, exhausted is probably the absolute best one to describe how I completely feel. But David and his men were fighting for the freedom of Israel and I'm sure the only word they could find to describe how they felt was exhausted. Yet they continued to pursue. Just like David and his men, God has called me to continue to pursue and trust in His plan as I move forward in His perfect timing. In 1 Peter 4:13 it says, "But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed." I am reminded once again that I am not here for my desires or my plans but for His glory to be revealed. So for the sake of His glory, even tho I am exhausted, I will pursue and do everything He has called us to and make the absolute most of my time left here.