When I began the thoughts and writing for this post, there was one week remaining between me and Uganda. As I currently type, it’s down to six days… I’ve heard many people use the term “time is inching closer”, but right now it feels like very large leaps of time in terms of movement. I can barely keep up. The to-do lists are getting crossed off, which only leads to the formation of an entirely different list. Needless to say, I needed this evening/early morning to process, write, pray, and prepare.
This week, I was very blessed to hear words of thought and wisdom from Miroslav Volf, a Christian theologian and professor at Yale. I don’t see it as a coincidence that he spoke to us in ways that were very relative to my current journey. In Admissions, we’ve been working closely with those accepted into our Honors program, a program I was able to be a part of at MVNU. In my Freshman year, my worldview was challenged immensely as we discussed Islam and it’s relationship to Christianity. I went from a close-minded, conservative Christian with very little room for open-mindedness, to a place where I had no idea what I believed or why I believed it. To be honest, it was scary to think and probe at the idea that maybe I didn’t understand God after all, and I hadn’t expected to come to MVNU to be converted into a Muslim, which obviously wasn’t the case. At the end of that course, I concluded that while my knowledge of Muslims was still minimal, I truly believed that they had come to understand some elements of love and faith that we, as Christians, were yet to comprehend as a community of believers. It’s so easy to get distracted by the violence, politics, and even media presence of Islam and create a preconceived idea or interpretation of those unlike us in belief or even stature. The Lord worked on my personal discernment, and the journey of finding the Spirit began, and continues even today. Fast-forwarding to today, much of the Christian media is focused on Rob Bell’s release of his new book, “Love Wins”, in which many are calling Bell a universalist for his approach on how and who God loves. He raises a highly controversial topic that many Christian’s fear: heaven and hell. Who goes where, and why? The book seems to pose an interesting question: God is love, but it God’s love for everyone? I believe this can be tied right back into Dr. Volf’s conversation on Islam and Christianity as he asked “Do Muslims and Christians serve the same God? Both believe in one creator. But is the god the same?” Much like you may predict a theologian to respond, he continued that they were “partly the same and different”. I still find myself remorseful that I was unable to attend the luncheon and evening lecture with Dr. Volf.
As I watched a video on Rob Bell released by MSNBC, I found myself extremely aggravated by Martin Bashir as he scratched at Rob Bell’s patience, and even started the conversation with a desire of connectedness to the disaster in Japan. Although I am still growing into today’s professional media world, the entire conversation seemed to be a progressive trap. The entire converastion makes me wonder how we would think about God and love if we stopped trying to summarize, comprehend, and dissect it.
The theme for the last few weeks of my journey has continued to be love. As I prepare to love in Uganda, I have found myself already falling in love with the people. Those that I am yet to meet. I know no names, faces, or stories yet I love them. I have read countless stories of people who have experienced Uganda, which ignites the spark even more. Tonight I received a DM from a new Twitter follower, @fairtradecoffee who, when I asked for words of wisdom from someone who had been to Uganda, responded, “Pray for open eyes. It’s an amazing place, with amazing people. My heart lives in Uganda.”
My heart lives in Uganda.
These people physically live in St. Louis, Missouri, but their heart lives in Uganda, thousands of miles away. This weekend at the Extended Melody Project, one of the members of Come Wind talked with me after the show and mentioned that his girlfriend spent time in Africa and she often finds herself “homesick for Uganda”. Everything that she does now is reflective upon her experience. In my 23 years of life, I can not think of a place on this earth that I have been which I get homesick for, even after being there for a long period of time. Even the home I grew up in could be absent from my life for a few years without much more than the occasional desire for a home-cooked meal or a few familiar faces. I am preparing my heart for the attachment, desires, and Lord’s purpose that are to come. The most surreal moment I have had so far in preparation for Uganda came at EMP as I closed my eyes and imagined myself in Uganda. The event created the visual comprehension that I was indeed going to Uganda. I could sense Africa is every way, from the rhythm of the drums to the smells and movements in front of my closed eyes. I could hear children crying, but also laughing and running around. I felt an overwhelming anxiety and desire to change lives and renew hope within lives, yet felt so burdened by how much needed to be done and how little control I actually had. The imagery was incredible. Tears fell from my eyes and I was filled with His presence. All of this in a matter of a few moments at a concert…. I can only imagine the processing that will need to be done when I am in Africa.
