pots.

Friday nights, for worship, we have been listening to the Pineapple
Story. It's a funny man speaking about his mission experience in New
Guinea. He has a problem because people keep stealing all the
pineapples out of his garden...the garden that he is starting to help
the people. It is so upsetting to him and he tries all sorts of
things to keep them from stealing. Anyway, finally, he decided that
he didn't care anymore. He told God, "You know what, I am trying to
do this for you anyway, these are your pineapples Lord. If you don't
want them stolen then do something." And so it went. The man just
started spreading the word that he had given his pineapple field to
God. Soon after, everyone stopped stealing pineapples because they
couldn't justify stealing from God!
I love this idea. Just give everything to God and leave the
success to him. If you give everything to him then he can take care
of it or "give it" away as he feels. We worry less about things and
become more generous.
I've been painting the inside murals of the church for four days now
and things are starting to shapen up. We've got big winding trees
and rivers and bubbles and huge colorful sunshines. The other
workers (TB patients) have learned alot about painting. There is
ALOT of paint all over the floor, and they start with new shades of
blue mid-wall sometimes, but we're taking the mishaps and mess-ups in
stride. When it is finished, we will call it abstract, deep, and
meaningful so that anyone who questions our techniques will simply
have to realize that they just don't have artful eye that these
Chadian painters did.
Everyday there are funny requests for just a little bit of
paint. The first day it was Jon Jac (the night watchmen) who wanted
a little paint in a cup to paint the bed in his watchtower. Then
there was Degal (the gangly other night watchman) who wanted me to
paint his family name plate (rusted rectangle metal sheet nailed to
his mud-hut wall) and then write his name (all three of them) along
with his title at the hospital (I painted it bright orange...I'm not
sure it's what he had in mind). Oh dear. Then the women come
everyday with their metal pots. The original factory paint coat has
chipped away in some places and there are these spaces of silver
showing through. It doesn't look bad. If fact, I've seen my mom
come home with things that looked very similar from the antique
stores. But in their head they have this idea that it is better to
have paint on the pot. So they come and dip their fingers in my
paint cans and smear red, green, and yellow into the chips. Now the
pots look real....different. I can't help but laugh and I am more
than happy for them to take some of the paint for their pots. It's
such a little thing that is seemingly making them very happy. I
did think for a second, "Oh man, Emily, if you start giving out a
little paint, EVERYONE will want paint." But then I thought about
the pineapple story, about the story of the 5 loaves and 2 fish. My
paint is nowhere CLOSE to running out. So now the paint is God's
paint. If he wants it splotched on pots around Bere, Chad, I'm all for it.