This September, I had the chance to spend a few weeks
teaching at a bible School in western Rwanda. As a youth, I had lived in
Nigeria, but this was the first opportunity I had to return to Africa in thirty
years. I was excited, but also a little nervous. Things operate differently in
Africa, and as a young man I struggled to adapt to some of that. While the
excitement far outweighed the anxiety, I undertook the trip unsure of how I
would handle some situations.
We stayed and worked in the suburbs of the large Gisenyi-Goma,
taking public transportation back and forth between our lodging and the school.
Typically, we rode in minibuses, and on our first day, I was directed onto the
bench seat of a particularly well-used example. At some point, the owners had
removed the original factory seats, and installed replacements, which worked
quite well, except for the fact that they were several inches taller than
ideal. I couldn’t sit upright without my head smashing into the roof, so I sat
with by backpack on my lap, and my head bent down on top of it. I didn’t count,
but I suppose they squeezed five or six of us across the seat, a tight fit. I
was wedged between the sliding door on one side and a young woman and her baby
on the other. Once the jostling in our seat stopped, the woman began breastfeeding,
which I was fine with, but space was tight and I suddenly became very aware of
where my hands were. I tried to lean away from the woman – who was completely
unruffled by the situation – to give her a little extra space, but to do so I
had to lean against the sliding door, which the driver had to slam three times
to get to stay closed. I didn’t entirely trust it.
The bus stop was on the left-hand side of the road, and the
driver had stopped the minibus half on the shoulder, half in the oncoming lane
of traffic. Fully loaded, he decided it was time to depart, but traffic was
heavy, and there was no gap in his lane, nor in the opposing lane he’s have to
cross to get to his lane; so, he just started driving. We traveled, half on the
roadway, half on the shoulder, facing oncoming traffic, turning two lanes into
three, for several minutes until traffic cleared and we would merge into our
appropriate place. I sat, half afraid I’d fall out a rickety sliding door, half
afraid to lean into my neighbor and test Rwanda’s tolerance for inadvertent
groping, head bent down with neck craning to watch head-on traffic come
barreling towards us. I realized there are quite a few people in my life who
would have some serious problems with this situation; but . . . it was fine.
Somewhere inside me, a little voice said, “Ah, there it is. We know this. This
is how it’s supposed to be.”
I felt a deep sense of peace. An understanding that this was
exactly where I was supposed to be, exactly what I was supposed to be doing,
and it was all going to be okay; not a guarantee that the sliding door wasn’t
going to fly open and send me tumbling down the roadway. That remained a very
real possibility, but I felt certain if that possibility became reality, it
would still be okay. I was in God’s
will, and if this was where and how it ended for me, that was fine.
We had a wonderful time in Rwanda, embraced by a gentle and
hospitable people, blessed to bless the work of the church. Many things didn’t
make sense to me. Many things didn’t seem like they should work out, but they
did.
I came home, refreshed and encouraged, but not for long. I
felt as if my feet hit the ground at the airport, I began sprinting, and didn’t
stop for weeks. There was drama in some of the organizations I help to run, friends
in need hadn’t come to need less in my absence, the relentless march of the
news cycle, stressful enough on its own, began to have very tangible impacts on
people around me. I felt stressed and exhausted, and began to wonder how it
would all get done. Then, I heard that voice again. It just said, “Nate, you’re
still on the bus. I’ve got this. You are where you are supposed to be. You are
doing what you are supposed to be doing. I’m not saying the wheels won’t fall
of this thing, but if they do, it will be okay. If you fall, it will be okay.
Keep doing what you’re doing.”
That thought has stayed with me over the months. I’m still
on the bus. This thing is crazy. I can’t fix it. I’m not supposed to. God’s got
it under control. I don’t need to grip the steering wheel so tightly. I’m not
the one driving.
