Hey everybody,
When I've been standing for a little bit too long I get to thinking. Because when blood isn't pumping to my muscles it's pumping to my head. That's why I think that I get a headache if I think too long. 'Cause that happens.
I've been thinking, and right now I have absolutely no ambition to write, yet I'm typing out letters on a keyboard. I've been doing this for a while today. This was the last day of school for two weeks. I'm now officially on Spring Break. And where or what am I doing, you ask? Why, traveling to Macedonia of course! Our long enduring mission with the people of this newly independent country is consistently upholding and moving forward. The first six-eighths of the team has already departed and arrived in the country where they have stayed for three days now. Almost four.
Yes, it's been two years since my last visit to the beautiful country of Macedonia and its capital, Skopje (sko-pee-ya). I am anxious to visit once again the city of Veles. What a wonderful, old city full of history and culture. Quite a mixture of culture really, what with the Gypsies in the hills and the Macedonians in the valley. We have found that the Macedonians sometimes do not like to associate with the Gypsy people. Perhaps most of the time. They are reclusive to inter-mingle. However, a wonderful thing is happening that shall surely prove to be a great testimony for our God. The body of Christ in Veles (which is a very small part of the body) is learning and making an effort to connect and have godly relations with the Gypsies. They are attempting to close the racial gap, to bring true unity to the body as Christ had prayed, that the world may know that He and our Father are one. And so that will be part of our mission while we are there.
I will be leaving in two days, Sunday. I suppose it would be good to pack the necessary items for such a trip. I think that I shall do that. Also a good thing to do; Pray. A lot. This trip is really a more personal journey than have been the previous endeavors. I have, over the past year, become more aware of who God is and what it takes on our parts to follow Him, what it means to follow Him. I believe it can tie directly into how the Macedonians and Gypsies relate to one another. For you see, I have a city in me that splits at the lineal seam.
Dreary monotonies wear at your flesh and tell you that you're only growing more sparse and secluded unto yourself, which effects I can see. You begin to realize your identity and what it is that you've tried to portray, you see who it is that you wanted to be and who you have presented to yourself without care of acceptance by yourself. Insecurities and inhibitions, along with regrets, prove that you've become what you've wanted and it left you looking to become something else. The person that you saw in yourself and tried to bring out into professional life is still the embodiment of what it is you hate inside. There's still the fear and there's still the addictions, and the longing for an easier way out.
I've found that true satisfaction in God is the only redemption for all my thinking. When I am truly joyful in Him I can see the form of what He made me to be, and it's not all this questioning why it was better in the old days. It's not trying to prove to myself that I am a success. Christ will take what is actually me, and what I've created becomes nothing but a void. There's a hope and a purpose for tomorrow. The microwave I use to speed me along doesn't really slow time as I assumed. In time I recognize that today is presently upon me and Christ is the director of an act too comedic and epic for any thought process or book full of victories to truly expound upon to the depth of which I have need. He has made us to be like Him. What that is cannot be wholly understood right now through any human mind, but seek understanding and knowledge and wisdom. One day, our self-made embodiments of doubt will die eternally and we will live with absolute freedom, declaring and rejoicing in the satisfaction that Yahweh alone is. Regardless, we will know truth, or the lack thereof. But eventually, we will be one race or the other.
Help me to be the embodiment of You.
Andrew
