It’s amazing the perspective you can get in just a short time. Before I left I had spent months preparing, asking questions and researching about Togo I read about it’s culture. I studied it’s language. I trained to refine my understanding of the Bible. I inquired about the technical setup and tried to gain a scope on the mission that I was being sent to do. And despite all those long months of preparation I have gained more insight in two weeks. That is not to say that somehow those were wasted months; quite the contrary. What I learned then has been invaluable. But the complete disruption of everything you know, the upheaval of all that is familiar, when you begin thinking to yourself, “what have I gotten myself into,” you put trust in God that He is in control.
After arriving at HBB and getting to know all of the staff I set out to start my mission. But where should I start? Another technology missionary had been here for several weeks helping out and with much help from my Togolese coworker was able to get me acquainted with the ups and downs of the facility and it’s infrastructure. This didn’t give me a starting point. The goal isn’t just to keep everything running. It is to set a long-term future vision for the facility’s technology – something that had never been done or, to my knowledge, even attempted.
After several days of poking around gathering a mental inventory of resources I began to realize just how overwhelming just maintenance would be. The network that connects all of the computers was failing, computers themselves were constantly needing some part or another, all desperately needed upgrades, and spare parts were scarce. To make the task more difficult, any quality parts, if they can be found at all, are almost certainly in the Lome. And that was just equipment issues. Most of the staff needed more training on just basic computer functionality –
How could a facility with so much need be built up to meet quality technology standards? I knew where it should be, the ideal setup, but ideal and reality never exist in the same realm. I pleaded with God. “How can this be done? There is little funding to buy new equipment. The current stuff is out of date and as much a hindrance as a help. And even if I had all of equipment, how would we help the staff to understand it? Most know only basic computer skills. I only have a year, Lord. How can it be done? You have the wrong person!” When I sought wisdom from the senior missionaries I kept hearing a common theme; it went something like this, “I just observed for several months before I suggested any major changes.” But I would always object. With only a year, I didn’t have time to wait around for months just watching.
Then God pointed right at the root of this grumbling attitude. I had been trusting once again in my own understanding and pushing forward in areas where God was not pushing along side. Like so many of God’s servants I had complained that the task was too big, the time too short, that I was not capable.
But the truth of it is that I was complaining against God, that He was incapable of accomplishing His mission through me, that He didn’t know what He was doing. Like Peter on that stormy night in Galilee, I was looking at the raging waves around me rather than God who was in front of me and I had begun to sink!
So I prayed. I prayed in repentance of my lack of faith, that God would increase my faith, that God would show His power through these difficult circumstances.
God brought me to the story of Nehemiah, one of His great administrators, a true servant-leader who started his journey with a passionate prayer to God and trusted that God was able. Then God showed me something that I had forgotten – that before Nehemiah decided what changes to make, before he told the people what he was going to do, he went out by night to observe the state of Jerusalem’s disrepair without bias influence. Nehemiah knew what end goals he wanted to accomplish. He knew those before he even asked the king’s permission. He knew the state of Jerusalem’s destroyed walls and the oppression of it’s people. And still, when he first arrived, he observed for three days.
I saw now the wisdom of waiting and resolved not to make any policy changes or anything that might require more training for several months while observing and learning about why things were done as they are. I let go of the proud notion that this facility would somehow ceased to function because I didn’t make immediate policy decisions. This too was true of Nehemiah. Jerusalem’s walls had lay in ruin for decades before God burdened Nehemiah to take action. The community had survived with some difficulty before his coming with the king’s blessing. A little while longer to make informed, wise decisions would be more influential than a swift but uninformed ones.
More important than the restoration of the wall was the second effect that Nehemiah’s coming had. While he built the walls he also united the people and corrected their sinful habits. God used Nehemiah and a secular building project to sanctify His people. By trusting God and not his own understanding, Nehemiah was able to accomplish what would seem impossible, to clear away years of rubble and build 4.5 miles of wall and gates in only 52 days.
I can’t say that God will raise up the technology here to the plans that I might have for it in this year, but God who created the vast and infinitely detailed universe is certainly capable. To any who doubt he boasts…
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?”
(Job 38)
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