(What you can't quite see in the background is the road/river. The river has flooded onto the road and we're driving through a few inches of water here. Later it becomes closer to a few feet.)
Sunday is the Lord's day. It's a day of rest. I generally like to keep it Holy and not work. However there is a lot of work that needs to be done to prepare the computers for the workshop, and people begin arriving this afternoon. I could definitely use the extra hours that I would normally use to visit the local village church. In my head I was tempted to skip church for that reason alone. When you are in the village dates and time are almost irrelevant. You care more about sun for power, rain for water, so the time is 'light time' 'dark time' 'hot time' 'wet time' oh and 'mosquito time' (at least for me)
Yesterday afternoon the bruises on my backside became well pronounced. I obtained these from the 1.5 hour drive coming into the village. The bruises were such that I was unable to sit anywhere without a lot of pain. You can imagine working on computers, moving from chair to chair, this was annoying. It is also somewhat embarrassing to admit that my buns were not road-tested-hardened-buns-of-steel and normally I would not, except it contributes to the story.
So there I was on Sunday morning, realizing that visiting the local village church is usually a great way to meet people and get to know the area and see some of its culture. Yet the thought of sitting on bamboo pole benches, or any type of hard seating, made me wince in pain. Coupled with the need to get these computers working, I opted to skip church.
A few minutes ago, I was sitting at the computers unable to solve a problem that was stymieing me. I could not figure out the proper firewall pass through for this software to work.
After a frustrating hour, I realized, that I did not start my morning the same way I had started all the others. ( I hadn't read my Bible nor prayed because the internet was off and I went right to work fixing it so others would not have to wait for me.) So I stopped and prayed this prayer:
"God, I know today is your day, and I have not done anything to recognize that. I am sorry. God I know these computers, and this work in this village is your work, and I am honoured to be here to help with it. God, please forgive me for not putting you first today. God if you would, please help me out here, I'm stuck, and I can't figure out this problem. I'm going to click apply on this button in a second and I am asking you to make it work. I need your help, I need you. I forgot that for a moment, but I'm reminded all the time. Thank you for reminding me."
I clicked apply.
It worked.
I'm not advocating treating God like a genie in a lamp. That isn't what that prayer was about. As soon as it began working my eyes filled up and got a little watery.
Unless God wants our efforts to succeed in glorifying Him, they won't. Sunday is not God's only day, all of the days are His, all of our efforts are His. He is almighty, all powerful, loving and graceful.
I was moved that He imparted grace to me while I chose to bun shun the hard church benches.
Pray for us while out here, we will run into spiritual obstacles. This work, what is happening here is so exciting, people are legitimately following God, that the enemy doesn't like it and fights back.
Please pray for the next 6 weeks that when this happens we recognize it quickly.
