Sit down and think a minute

The last load of building supplies bounced down the road for Wadupe yesterday!! We sent out the roofing, wood, and some extra cement. The engineer is already rolling with it. He is now getting forms built to pour the cement beam around the top of the wall. By his estimations the roof should be finished in two or three weeks. Then its just doors, windows, desks and students. It has been a long frustrating journey; thanks for being patient. How simple it would have been to lead it all myself, bring in a crew, modern machinery, and hand them a school in a few months. But the time has been worth it. The frustrations and the ups and downs, all worth it. Because it's not, and never has been, about a school. The other day I stepped into my latrine and saw two muddy footprints on the seat. I sighed deeply and wiped them off and closed the door behind me. For the next few minutes I sat there fuming about ignorance. "Is it too hard to figure out? It looks like a seat...with a hole in it. You sit down on it, duh. Don't squat on it with your dirty feet, and then leave it dirty for the next guy." It had been week like that. One cultural thing after another that got under my skin. This was the straw that made the camel think deeply. So I did just that. The staff probably wondered why I was in the latrine so long. But the Lord was dealing with me...weird timing, but whatever. I recalled all the things that had bothered me that week, a tactic the evil one uses to keep you angry, and then it hit me... "The project is the people." That man was probably thinking the whole time that I was the stupid one for raising the latrine hole up so high, and here I was getting angry because the local didn't use the foreign toilet correctly. Billy, I thought, it's not about having a clean seat, or a community that understands how to use a western style toilet. It's about laughing over our differences and celebrating our commonalities. It's about showing each other a better way to live. I could have just giggled and wiped it off. I could track him down and teach him how to use it. Or I could just use the local style latrine next to it. No need to get angry over silly things that don't matter. He got my seat dirty; I raised his hole up too high and put a plastic ring around it. But there is something greater that the local squatter and I are about. There is something much more important here than how to use a latrine. I know this is crazy...but seriously, how often do we murder people in our minds because of something that doesn't matter. The thought hit me hard, then the beans hit me, and after the whole ordeal I just felt better about life. So as we chip away at this school, as the community struggles to understand what I mean by "develop yourself," and I struggle to understand what they mean by "I couldn't come work because I had friends over," and as we all struggle to figure out the latrine situation, we have to remember it's us and how we love each other that really matters. Love is not self seeking. Love the Lord, Love your neighbor, and laugh about everything else. GOD is Greater billy