Perpetual Re-Choosing

"... the free choice to give up the self produces, as it were, the true self, the authentic person.  But it is a choice that must constantly be remade in every subsequent choice... this perpetual re-choosing of Christ is the great paradox and challenge of the Christian faith."

 -Robert Inchausti, Subversive Orthodoxy
   
I'm coming to terms with the idea/process that there are so many decisions and attitudes that we can make and have throughout the day that I have to continually re-choose Christ in each of them.  When a day goes by and I have not had to do that, its not because my day was easy, it was because I missed out on many opportunities to choose Christ over choosing self.  Sometimes I can even make a decision to honor Christ in one way or another, but it becomes a daily battle to remember that which I promised and why I promised it. 

Ignatius Indifference

Throughout the spiritual exercises that we've been going through, I discussed briefly the idea that we are not to prefer health to sickness, wealth to poverty, etc.  This idea has been coined Ignatius Indifference.  I had a hard time (and to an extent still do) seeing how we cannot have preferences in how our lives play out.  Here is a quote from Brian Rice that has really helped me:

"not that we don't care for the world or that we think only of the afterlife in heaven, but that the glory and grace of Christ are so supreme for us that all other things pale in their influence upon us.  The things that were once attractive, alluring, beckoning, and to which we devoted so much energy to possess, have waned in their power.  We have been weaned off their influence."

 

At the beach with Sandi

No I have no pride... did not miss out on my opportunity to photograph with the multiple Dove award winner and Grammy winner Sandi Patty. 

My two loves taking a little nap together!

Sandi Patty in Ronurie

Back to Ronurie we went with the team and family of Sandi Patty... (as well as the renown singer herself... duh!)

 This girl with a bun is her daughter, and the boy playing high 5's is her son.

Here Sandi is holding a very newly born baby in the village

A typical picture of the village when we first arrive.  Many come gather to see what the hustle and bustle is about and eventually the crowd dies down.  Sandi's husband is in the blue shirt and glasses.

The two girls with big beautiful curly mops are 2 more of Sandi's daughters and the girl in the right is her future daughter-in-law.

And here is the true stars (of my life!) and also a very typical reaction to little Aden when he first arrives in a village.

Spiritual Exercises

We were really blessed that right when we came back to Sierra Leone (and after we scurried to unpack our entire house), we hosted a team from Chile.  Mr. P led our entire team (consisting of 14 people right now including children) and some local ministry partners through a spiritual retreat.  We started going through a book called The Exercises Volume II: Invitations by Brian Rice.  It is based off the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola… a Jesuit priest.  All the Jesuit priest wanna-be’s had to go through Ignatius’ spiritual exercises before being accepted into the priesthood.  While Jesuits are a Catholic group, the exercises are great for any Believer to go through as they seek to know and love God more intimately and to do His will and Kingdom Work more entirely. 

Our team has really seen the fruits in the past month of these exercises.  Small accountability/sharing groups have sprung up within our team where there was none.  Personally, my relationship with God has grown toward more of an experiential knowledge of Christ and his love while I admit that prior to this, my relationship with God consisted as more of a “head” knowledge.  

According to Ignatius, the purpose of his Spiritual Exercises is “conquest of self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.”  I had to look up the definition for inordinate and found that to mean “excessive.”  When I first started these exercises, I did find I had some ‘inordinate attachments’ in my life.  Things I wanted and that I planned for that may be against the will of God for me but I wanted anyways or would push to get whether He said okay or not.  

Here are some more principles of Ignatius that we have been working through in order that we might be free from such attachments:

1.     Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

2.     The other things on the face of the earth are created for man, to help in attaining the end for which he is created.

3.     Hence man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he mus rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him.

4.     Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things as far as we are allowed free choice are not under any prohibition

5.     Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life.  The same goes for all other things.

6.     Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created

Ummm… can we say these things are hard and seem utterly impossible?  These were the first thoughts that ran through my mind… “How could I ever not prefer health over sickness, and if not for me, for my family?” It has been really good to go through these exercises and work through these questions with God and most likely will be something I will have to go through many times in my walk with God.  

I would truly recommend this book to anyone who feels slightly distant in their relationship with God and would like to go deeper.  It is a little painful as you let go of your wants and desires, but oh so freeing and rewarding as you live a life in closer communion with God.  John and I did read another book (The Exercises Volume I) that prepares you to go through the 2^nd book but it’s not entirely necessary.

And here is a picture of Aden from this morning before breakfast when he brought me my camera to take a picture!

New House Part I

So here is some pics of the new place and I think you'll see why it will take 6 months before our house is ready...

So here's the kitchen:  Right now we have no cabinets (below the counter or on the wall) We are, therefore, having to store a lot of stuff on the counters or below in boxes and totes.  In the lower left corner you can see our stove, and the in the lower right corner you can barely see our chest solar fridge.  To the left of the sink you can see our water filter.  I really like the counters because they are deep so Aden can't sit up there while I am doing food prep.  I also really like the tile on the floor and the counters.  The kitchen and the bathrooms are the only rooms with tile.

Here's the view sitting on our couch.  Through that hole in the wall is our kitchen that we just looked at.  You can see our computer station and our dining table (as well as a still unpacked suitcase and my beloved starbucks cup)



Here is the opposite view of the living room taken from inside the kitchen through that hole.  We have a screen door that I love for breeze but keeps the skeeters out.  You can see a brief view into Aden's room.  Our bedroom door is in the far right of the photo.  Aden is playing at our little coffee table/foot rest.  You can see the cement floor in the picture.

Here is our guest "shower room."  You're not supposed to need a shower curtain for these "shower rooms" but I'm thinking we should probably do one anyways.  Right now, we keep Rhya's food and water bowl in here.  In the back of the shower, the original building had these weird slates... not sure for what? But we knocked them out of each of three rooms and will eventually make them into shelves.  But through that window you can see John and I's bathroom.

Here is our guest "toilet room" Apparently it is not uncommon to have separate rooms for toilets and showers.  You can see John and I's shower threw the 'window.'  On the ground you can see our trashcan, a blue bag that we put a lot of John's tools (not sure why it is in the bathroom during this picture?), and that paint tub is where we put Aden's dirty cloth diapers that we usually clean in the toilet for #2's and in the sink for #1's.  Don't worry if you come to stay at our house as a guest, I will take those out of there and clean the sink for you :)

Here is our pantry.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this room.  I can close it to keep the dog and Aden out but it is quite spacious.  I still have some organizing to do but we have been very busy since we landed so this will do for now.  Also the lighting in this room is due to the sky lighting that John put in when he designed the ceiling.  I love how bright it is... I was a little scared of our old pantry because it was super dark in there and I didn't know what kind of bugs were lurking around.

Update on the maggot situation...

Ok... so in my attempts to try and get the mango fly larva (sounds so much better than maggot) out... I think I crushed him to death and now my body is resorbing it.  However, I actually think it might be the better way to go then waiting for him to get big so he can 'worm' his way out while I suffocate him (despite how his satisfying killing the little bugger would be!) 

Hopefully I won't have to face this dilemma again... I decided to use the dryer with all my clothes after they line dry.  Supposedly, you either have to use a dryer, iron all your clothes, or not wear your clothes for 48 after they dry.  We try to use the dryer as little as possible since we can't run it on solar due to it's high energy requirements. I thought I did wait for my clothes to have been dry for 48 hours but they may have been still damp when I put them away. 

Here is a picture before I accidentally squeezed him to death.  You can see the dark part in the center where the larva continues to breath.  Yuck!!

I have a maggot living in my skin...

So I had high intentions to write some really in depth, spiritual posts this past week.  And I did write one.  But you never saw it because it got lost out "there" somewhere in the world wide web and I couldn't think of writing it again and then had a mental block of writing any blog.

But back to my super interesting title of my blog.  I finally got it.  Something that I have been avoiding for the last 2 years.  A mango fly laid its eggs into my clothes.  I wore my clothes and an egg burrowed into my skin and thus my problem of now having a maggot growing in my skin. 

The internet tells me the lesion begins to look like a little crater.  The center is where it comes up to breath to get air.  But in a day or 2, as soon as its big enough... I am going to suffocate it with vaseline and as it wriggles out to get some air... I'm going to pull it out a watch it die a most painful death in some bleach water as punishment for infesting me with a parasite. 

I already tried to do it but "it was not ready" as the internet tells me because it didn't come up for air.  However, I may have already killed it in my futile attempts.  If that's the case, my body will just resorb it.  

I took a picture of the maggot living in my skin.  I decided not to post it because my internet is SUPER slow these days and well... cause its gross.  But if you want to see... let me know and maybe I'll post it or send you an email :)