Cars need water...just like me

Have you ever heard of a car that consumes more water than gas? After 2 accidents and 3 different cars, please say hello to the "Silver Bullet":

You may be thinking, "John, what happened to your old car?" Well..

...No longer will I have random strangers walking up to me to ask if I love dogs (the RUF actually stood for Reformed University Fellowship)
a campus ministry at PSU.

Back to the silver bullet- A few weeks ago I got rear-ended while sitting at a traffic light, my life became a bit more complicated. Questions arose in my mind like: Why now, when I am only gonna be in Philly for another two m onths? How am I ever gonna be able to manage an already crazy schedule without a means of transportation? Am I gonna have to ask people for rides all the time? I ask people for too much already! I was blessed last week by a family friend who had an extra car sitting around that I could use. The only thing is that the car tends to overheat, so when I drive more than 15 miles or so I need to make sure that I've filled up the engine coolant or I risk a meltdown. Fitting, that yet another experience in my life would draw a metaphor for how the gospel of Jesus speaks to me. Allow me to explain:

Why write about my car journey? Well. like the car, I can go for a time on my own strength, but will inevitably end up overheating. I repeatedly choose the temporary fix for my problems (like filling the coolant tank, just to last another 15 miles) so that I don't have to deal with what really needs to be fixed about me, more than I even know! So I try to chug through the problems, hoping that they'll go away... but I can't, and it very quickly drains my energy, passion, and joy. But that's the beautiful thing about Jesus. He's like the best mechanic in the world: he knows whats wrong, knows how to fix me (think along the lines of an installation of Mr.Fusion from Back to the Future Part:2), and when the bill comes up as more than I could ever pay he tells me its on the house. I think I would probably need to draw at least a couple more ridiculous examples before this metaphor would be complete, I'll just leave it at that because you get hopefully get the gist :)

Courage

I like to think that I'm a pretty courageous person, moving from Philly to live in a relatively physically scary East African environment. What's funny to me is when I'm given little moments of clarity when what I like to think about myself meets how myself really thinks in situations that require courage. When it comes time to actually show some courage, my knees usually turn into something of pistons chaotically firing up and down in a V2 engine with irregular fuel injection (or just uncontrollably for those of you who can't picture that). Hands get clammy, stomach starts to get sick- a natural batman in the face of injustice.

In all seriousness, though it isn't my strong suit, I do believe I've grown a lot in understanding and practicing real courage in the past year (along with having my healthy share of cowardly flights from scary situations). What I have been slowly learning throughout this time is that the power behind courage is where a person puts his or her faith. I have had to come to terms with my failure to be courageous (the shaking of the legs is probably the Holy Spirit shaking me in frustration) owing to the fact that I quite simply put way too much faith in myself.

I'll never have the courage to tackle injustice when the strength of my courage comes from faith in the weak, broken, hypocritical person that is John Sender. I will fail every time but the reason I try again and again is because I radically underestimate two things: The depth of brokenness and injustice in the world, and the weakness of my spirit and body. The corruption of any courageous action I make with faith in my own ability takes no longer than does the realization that I am a hypocrite, just as broken as the thing I am trying to fix. Furthermore, nine times out of ten I fail to even try to be courageous for fear of eventually realizing just how weak I am.

But a courage born out of faith in Jesus, the perfect savior, is a most fearsome of characteristics, because it is belief born not out of hope in my abilities, but hope in someone infinitely more powerful and incorruptible who is bent on redeeming all things. Not only does it allow you to stand up against what's right, but it cultivates unprecedented actions of love through deepest empathy. Jesus may not have had a cape or spandex, but his faith in the father was so perfect that he was able to face the full brunt of the injustices and sin of the world on the cross, and turn and say "not my will, but yours be done".

So I know, if ever I am to have courage to face the world as it really is (knees unshaking :)), the same words will be on my lips, and his name will be written on my heart.

In The Dark

The following is a true story:

Nighttime... heavy footsteps crunch the sun-baked ground outside...
It's been about an hour now since I first laid down to sleep. Yet, I'm certainly not one wink closer to seeing the back of my eyelids, it's too dark for that anyhow. What's more pressing than the darkness though is the fact that there is something outside, possibly very close now, closer than I'd like in any case. I begin to dwell on the defenses of my dwelling: closed off from the outside world (check), walls thick enough to repel the large gorillaish animal that sounds like it's stalking outside of the safari tent I'm inhabiting tonight with two fellow interns (not so check).

I tell myself "Don't be so paranoid, there are no gorillas in South Sudan, or Mundri town anyway". That's when I felt the breath; the hot, sticky, stinky breath close to my face... whatever it was, all we were seemingly separated by was the fabric screen in the tent, and a thin mosquito net.

Sheer terror.

Uncertain amount of time (infinity I'm sure) later I muster up the courage to turn on the light on my watch, which in this darkest of environments emits enough light to make a fair area glow pale blue. Laying right in front of me... is my fellow intern Jordan, who I had forgotten had moved his cot up against mine earlier that day, and must have rolled over in the uncomfortable sweatiness that is part of many nights in South Sudan. I can now fall asleep, comforted, if not feeling altogether ridiculous.

This memory shocks me (no... not because it involved a gorilla, I still don't know what was crunching the ground outside, but who really cares, haha) In the matter of one night I had completely lost my bearing on my surroundings, and feared for the worst when I could not see. This is so true of many things in my life, when I can't see what is before me, I start to panic, perhaps more subtly than that night in the tent. I don't trust God to protect me, to provide.

One thing is true though, He has never let me down, never broken a promise, and guides my steps, even when I am holding a hand over my eyes. I want to write more, but I have a headache.

Trust God, he loves you.