Hmmm, where to start with an update of the last few weeks? After seeing quite an assortment of some of the crummiest apartments in Nampula, I finally found a place I like. The rent is $500, which is sort of what I was looking at, as the idea is that I will share it with someone, specifically I am hoping to share it with a girl called Kelly Jarvis, who just arrived in Nampula this past week in order to teach at the SIL school for 2 years. For a while I was incredibly undecided, though, because suddenly my roommates mentioned that Kelly needs to stay on the SIL centre, go through orientation and only then make a decision on where she wants to stay. During our email correspondence, though, she seemed to be keen on the idea of us sharing the place. I guess for me it came down to a spiritual struggle of What is the Lord’s will for me? and I found myself once again in a place where I just didn’t know whether I was doing the right thing. It’s as if I believe, basically, in the “All things being equal, do what you want” approach to the Lord’s guidance, but when I need to make a decision, I somehow still want a sign, or inner peace about the decision, or some other really clear token of what I am supposed to be doing. Eventually, I decided that I was being silly and acting contrary to how I believed the Lord deals with us, and after praying about it and weighing up the pros and cons of my options, I decided to go ahead and sign the contract, and trust the Lord for whoever He wants to put in there with me. Last Saturday we moved some furniture (a lounge suite that I can borrow from some people who just went away for a year) and some of my other things, even though, had there ever been any doubt, it has now become overwhelmingly clear that I will not be ready to move over there completely before I go to South Africa. I am getting excited about this new phase of my life though! For a while I was simply sad about everything that is once again changing, and the fact that some things I will miss about living with Angie and Allison, but one can’t live in the past and I am ready to look forward to new, good things in my new place!
Just when I had about given up on receiving the books I need for the reading programme, I got 10 of the 12 boxes I am supposed to get on Thursday. So now everything has suddenly gone into top gear again as I am trying to get this mailing taken care of as quickly as possible – I was feeling stressed about work as it was! And then on Thursday something else sidelined us – when I went out for my walk that morning, the guard (whose things I usually get from him at that time) was nowhere to be seen. I thought it was odd, but first left it and decided to deal with it when I come back from my walk. Well, he still wasn’t there, and when I went over to where he normally sits, his shoes and backpack were still there…. To make a long, complicated story short, somewhere in the early morning hours a bunch of men had come running out from the back of the houses somewhere, and our guard thought they were chasing a thief, and started shouting “Thief!” himself. Suddenly, they turned on him, saying that he was looking mighty suspicious sitting there in the shadows (uhm, that’s where he always sits, how is that sinister?) and beat him up very badly with a sjambok, then had him thrown in jail. Poor Allison had to deal with all this on Friday, since I had this tonne of work and Angie had to teach, but the Lord was really gracious – just as they were about to transfer him to the main prison, one of the policemen came and told his brother that he can go, he just needs to get back on Monday for a discussion between all the parties. I was very relieved, mostly because I have just felt really overwhelmed by everything – it has been very hot, I have been trying to get a lot of work done as well as taking care of things at the new apartment, and with all these extra things, my overwhelming feeling was “I don’t want this! I don’t want to deal with this!” But, as always, the Lord makes things work out again and I am left feeling that I somewhat overreacted… I will be very glad when the next two weeks are over and I can have a break.
