just another rainy day ;)
My day started off at 2 AM today. I woke up in a coughing spell after coughing for fifteen minutes. I sat up in my bed and five minutes later, I tried to fall back asleep but could not. I heard Bro. Kelvin praying as he does every morning at two. I percieved that the Spirit wanted me to stay awake and pray. I spread a mat on the floor and began praying in the Spirit quietly for an hour so as to not wake Lahai. The hour of prayer was acknowledged with ten minutes of rain. Lahai woke up at three because his face was burning unbelievably. He went out to wash his face with soap. He returned and tried to fall asleep but could not. We talked for an hour and I can't remember now what we spoke about. At four he tried to sleep again but kept tossing. He woke up and walked out again and I didn't go looking for him. I continued to pray and my back began to hurt.I took the cue and sat on my knees and began praying in the Spirit until the rest of the house woke up at five for morning praises. This hour of prayer was again acknowledged by another ten minutes of rain. I felt much better after all the prayer. At six, as dawn was breaking through, I got back to the room and spread a straw mat on the floor and lied down listening to Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt. This was followed by Boys II Men, Annie Lennox, Blackstreet, Alison Krauss, Black Eyed Peas, Billy Holiday.... I strummed my ribs to Ben Harper, and played the harmonica to Bob Dylan until Sinatra put me in the mood for breakfast. I figured if I was going to continue "Singing in the Rain," I may as well have some breakfast to keep me going. Sorry all, it was just a melodic day.
During breakfast Lahai and I had an encouraging talk. It's really quite a sight to watch a Sierra Leonean get excited in his speech. "Broda, when the Devil comes wif all his might, der is one ting you must NEVA do! Don't eva give op!" The excitement as he was recounting some of his experiences with God was priceless. He told me of a time when he had absolutely no money to get to church for the Bible Study. The night before, he prayed to God and entrusted the matter into His hands. In his sleep, he had a dream that his sister handed him Le2000. When he woke up from sleep another one of his sisters - not the one he saw in the dream gave him Le2000. "Trust in God, Oh!
God has NEVA let me don yet!" They say "Oh!" at the end of a sentence the same way we say "man!" at the end of a sentence. There was such sincerity and reverence in his speech, and he was completely excited about the paths God had taken him. I am sure we all have reasons to be as excited about what God has done in our lives, but we just aren't. It's a shame.
Sometimes at night, after the generator has been shut off, while we sit outside watching for dogs, we engage in conversations where I tell him something about the Black Hole, or the Bermuda Triangle, or even recently, the Earth's core, and the research on Mars. His response to each of these very new pieces of knowledge is; "God is fearful Oh! He is so mighty! Oh God! prepare me and take me home!" I wish I had the Encyclopedia installed on my computer so I can show him pictures of everything. I came ready with a Childrens Bible, a book of Aesops fables, books on Middle Eastern history, etc, but an encyclopedia would really have been nice.
We dug up the backyard all day and cleared the weeds and prepared the land to plant cassava and potato leaves. It was quite back-breaking and I frankly didn't feel as strong as the others. I did however help on and off, and I dug trenches around mounds of dirt to allow rain water to flow. It was such a dirty job! There was trash and I won't even say much more than "Those rascal dogs!!!!"
I finally took a bath again and was ready for bed, but the barrel arrived and we had to struggle to get it indoors and that worked up a sweat. I finally got my hair clipper and some more clothes. My darling mother sent me two technicolored shirts. It's got every color you can imagine. Kind of like the coat Jacob gave to Joseph in the Bible.
Suddenly I feel charitable.
posted by bthomas24 @ 11:59 PM
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