peace.

a thousand words to say. their number grows with each hour. here is the final day.

paul talks much when you get him going. here is a boy who has seen much that most one say no one should see ever. his journeys across africa were…..rough. but he smiles. his life is filling him to breaking points, as if there was water inside him trying to be free, swelling the skin, bursting the seams. his face glows as he talks about his heavenly Father. He loves me so much. i feel His blessings, His presence, His constant love.

he tells me he has four eyes; two physical ones, and two spiritual ones. God shows him things. he knows things he never sees. his stories of this second sight are seemingly endless. he tells me that God has shown him something. and he knows that he has a very big future. the way he talks and carries himself and acts, i believe it. and he gets things few people get. he understands that helping others is one of our main, God-given roles in life. he knows that he has been blessed beyond measure and his plan is to share as much as possible with as many as possible. this came up when we were talking about my helping of him, today manifested in a new guitar. he was overflowing with thankfulness, just blown away. and his family in austria just sent him a laptop. people love this kid! but i said that i have been given much, so why shouldn’t i give much as well. and he felt the same way. once he told a boy in his house who was struggling to stop complaining, to let his prayers to God be only ones of thankfulness, and that he wouldn’t struggle so much. we are all blessed. we all have something to give. i think uncle tom said it well:

why, even a poor fellow like me has a work from the Lord; and Mas’r St. Clare, that has larnin’, and riches, and friends,–how much he might do for the Lord!

as the bus rounds the corner we say our final goodbyes, embracing long, blessings and peaces. hopefully not forever.

we go to a shin dig at tim and rachel’s later, happiness and sadness, celebrations of two kinds. today is that day of lindsey’s birth and my final day. and so we hold one party. most of the agape crew came, a few refugee friends; ali, mohammad, eli, asa. i take pictures and have pictures taken so as to remember their faces and the times shared. we all eat more than we need, rachel’s homemade guacamole and salsa disappearing quickly, and keep eating. and veritable joyous gathering. it seems as if it is over too soon, no time at all passing and then people are heading off. more goodbyes. but i have contact info for all of the refugees. and communication will happen.

tim and rachel give me a pashto dictionary and phrase book. i give them a map of afghanistan. i give lindsey the majority of a jar of peanut butter. i figure i don’t need to bring that one back to the states.

after i had bought the guitar i sat in the park above piazza del popolo and tuned it up, got it ready for it’s new home. then i played to my heart’s content, busting out songs to the trees and fountains and gravel pathways. usually i hum to myself and play quietly, but i didn’t really care today, i just let it ring, let it ring. an italian man and i talked. he liked the song i played, calling it beautiful. bob marley, man. good stuff. played some rich mullins too. guitar in the park. always a good way to spend an hour.

but i think most of my processing has been completed or has not yet come. well, i have a dozen hours or more in planes tomorrow to do a bunch of thinking. it is the end of one thing. it is a moving on. the next thing cometh. more on all this later, possibly.

but there is a sense of peace about all this. phil shared with me something he read in joshua; about how the people finally crossed the river jordan, kicked everybody out, and then joshua tells two and a half tribes to go back over the jordan to live. thanks for helping do God’s work, now you get to go back. he thought of me, one who is here for a brief time and then sent back. but the Lord still has things for me to do, i believe. things planned and unplanned, hidden and creeping up. there is a lot on the table. some of it lies in america. hopefully not all of it. either i will serve in this place again or i won’t. only time will tell. but just because i am leaving one place hardly means i will stop serving. much of that looms very close on the horizon. and i can’t wait to get started.

the next post will be from america. keep checking this from time to time, if you wish, as the Lord is still doing stuff, and i will be trying to start a ministry, and will probably want to write about it. but thanks for reading all of this.

and, bringing it home, the peerless rich mullins.  grace be with you, friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5hIIhfuEJY&feature=related