Well, the months have been passing rather quietly here. After the inspiration of the African countryside and the dearness of a hundred dark little faces beaming up at me, the Nebraskan life may not be exactly boring, but it’s not much to write about. The most exciting thing that happened this last month was Thanksgiving. Which is something I think almost every American would say in the month of November. If it had been Africa, I might have been able to say, “The most exciting thing that happened this month was our flat tire on safari in the midst of a herd of stampeding elephants.” But this is a waiting time.
I used to think I was really a very patient person. If you had asked me in highschool, I probably would have written that virtue in boldly confident letters right at the top of my “I’ve got this down” list. But that was before I was sent to teach kindergarten, tutor two children whose first language was not English, work one-on-one with a special need’s child . . . and, after three amazing journeys to the far reaches of the world, come back . . . to Nebraska. I no longer consider myself patient; I now consider myself a person whom God is very patiently teaching to be patient.
I’ve been sitting here, not writing, waiting for (well, besides a one-way plane ticket back to Africa) something amazing, I guess. Some incredible story reminiscent of the incredible things God did in Africa - or, better yet, a story about kids from Africa who come to visit Nebraska. Sort of like when the Matsiko choir delighted us with their presence. I was all prepared for God to send a choir a month. It was going to be grand - we’d have scavenger hunts and bonfires until it got too cold; then we’d switch to indoor games of hide-and-seek and singing around the piano . . . Only that wasn’t what God had planned.
Instead, I have found myself waiting here. And then every so often, I get an invitation, not to join an upcoming sojourn to the Dark Continent, but to drive an hour or two away to sing at a small-town church in Nebraska. Normally, the audience includes all of thirty people. Now don’t get me wrong - I love to sing, regardless of the size of the audience. These invitations have just been in a direction other than what I’ve really been hoping for - you know, an assignment to Africa.
Well, just before Thanksgiving week, I was on my way to sing at a church two hours from here. I was driving along at 62 mph, through the empty cornfields and Nebraska’s meandering little creeks as the sun was beginning to set, and I suddenly had an irrepressible urge to sneeze. What do you do? I sneezed. My third-grade music teacher once informed the class that it was absolutely impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. I didn’t believe him, so I tested it out. Turns out he was right. There’s some sort of reflex that forces your eyes shut in order for you to actually sneeze.
Anyway, I had just reopened my eyes after this random sneeze, and there, right in front of me, was a deer racing across the road. I’m not very good with distances, but if I had to make an estimate, I’d say the thing was somewhere between four and ten inches in front of my car. Inches. Driver’s side and everything. I could have told you the color of his teeth if he’d had his mouth open. There wasn’t anything I could do. Sixty-two miles an hour right after a sneeze isn’t a very simple thing to modify in the half-second it takes to not hit a deer. But that was okay. I didn’t have to do anything; the deer did it all for me. There he was, sprinting for all he was worth, and I’ve really never seen a deer run that hard before. I could have told him he wouldn’t have had to run at all if he’d have stayed on the side of the road, but it was a little late by the time I saw him. But he missed me. By inches, I’m sure, but it was a clean miss. I didn’t even have time to touch the brakes. I sped past as the frantic deer - we’ll call him Bambi - sped past, and then three more deer bounded across the road right behind me. If I had slammed on my brakes, I’m almost sure they would have slammed into my car. But there we were, one rather suddenly breathless driver, Bambi and his three friends - and not a single one of us had as much as a scratch to show for the encounter.
“A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” I’d never thought of that verse out of Psalms in terms of deer before, but it lodged itself quite unshakably in my head now. I felt safe. Carefully looked out for and utterly safe. I made it to the church all in one piece, sang the songs I’d come with, and ate a delicious early-Thanksgiving meal with the people who’d come. We had turkey, not venison. And then one of the ladies at the church took me aside and said that, as she was preparing for me to come, she was suddenly impressed with the urge to pray for me. More specifically, to pray for my safety in traveling.
Seeing what I have seen from God, I cannot look at all this and call it coincidence. Obviously, He wanted me there at that church on that specific night. Why? I don’t know. Do I need to know? No. But God has a plan. Here, even in Nebraska, even when I’d much rather more than anywhere else be in Africa, God has a plan. And, even in the waiting, He is working. Even in the seeming silence, He speaks and moves. Even when He calls me away from what my heart really wants to do, He is calling me towards Him. That is good. And so I wait.
