Saturday, March 29, 2008

Confessions

I feel the need to, in a way, console you about some of the things that I may write on this blog, and not to feel as if I have been discouraged beyond rescuing or depressed as I use this space to confess some of my innermost conflicts and convictions about my life here Sierra Leone. Life here is hard, it is very true, but the community that I forming around me is the strongest prescription against despair and discouragement, and that is the church! My community here only grows stronger here as we all go through our culture shocks, meet up with our breaking points, experience frustration and tiredness in any given day. The joys that we share among us are hedged and cemented in by our troubles and our difficulties. Who can truly experience joy when one hasn't discovered suffering? Who can find endurance and long-suffering if one isn't faced with trials? Don't be discouraged as I attempt a transparency here, attempt to make this a place of both my confession of hope and fear, and even fleeting moments of cynicism. How long can wounds and sadness be disguised and covered-over, only to become an infection of faithlessness and selfishness? Often the least cruel thing to do is lance the wound.