My attitude was slightly pessimistic during our last full nite in Africa.  A week earlier, jay had the idea that we invite all the friends we had made over the past six weeks to meet us in the same office where our friend, just two weeks earlier, became a believer.  jay thought it'd be cool if i played a mini "concert" and we completely lay open our hearts about why we came half way around the world to spend a month and a half. Our friend working here agreed it was a good idea and i went along.  I really didn't feel like playing though and i was already getting ready for the worse; none of our friends showing up.  i was thinking this attitude wasn't too far fetched considering we were in africa, which is well known for people not sticking to close to plans.  

My attitude this nite reminded me of a similar one i had a few months prior.  I remember how difficult it seemed getting logistical things ready before our trip and foolishly spoutting to jay about how i didn't really need to go to africa.  I told him i was content with staying in arkansas and playing shows, and that the only real reason i was going is because i knew jay couldn't go alone.  i realized, almost immediately, that what i had said was foolish and prideful; and after being in africa and seeing what our Father's doing, i'm made even more aware of how dumb i was for making that statement.

As the night progressed my pessimism slowly turned into humble gratitude.  not only did all our friends from all over that scattered city show up; even a dude we never met before came to celebrate.  There ended up being close to twenty guys there, and all the guys there we knew, who weren't believers, spoke english.  This kinda freeked me out because i knew the guys were hearing the good news twice, once in english and once in their heart language because our friend was translating our explenations of the songs.

i still kinda had a bad attitude about playing, but just before i played, one of our friends there who spoke english and was a gifted musician himself, asked me what style of music i played.  i was able to get into why i play music back in the states:  that its driven mainly from a relationship with the Father above and wanting to share our Father's love through what we play.  The more I was sharing with my friend about our motive for playing music the more my heart began to be soften and my mind focused on sharing the good news in love. 

and with this jay shared with our friends why and how our Father allowed us to be in africa, i played 4 songs about our Father's Son, our musician friend played a couple native songs, we scarffed down cookies and coke, and we were able to have a couple deeper conversations with a couple freinds their about our faith.  It turned out to be a sweet nite, and i almost didn't want to leave.  this entry has not been proof read on account that i have to practice with the band.  For everyone who prayed for the work in africa while we were there:  a very big THANK YOU, and you were there in the work as well.       

There's something about spending 45 mins. in an African internet cafe typing an explanation to someone about why you used an expletive in your last entry, and then your computer being one of the 3 out of 15 that shut down b/c of a power surge just before you were about to press send (and hotmail didn't save the draft).

there's also something about buying a glass bottle of coke from a village corner ducan (the word for store) in the middle of sudan and hearing Avirl Lavigne blaring from a tiny AM/FM radio inside.

there's also something about a friend here offering me a little of the local snuff; and while trying to be culturally relevant, barffin' my brains out all over the street.  I didn't find out till after the fact that everyone here throws-up on their first time, and the snuff here is about 100x stronger than dip back in the states.

tomorrow nite is our last full night in country and we're hoping to get a lot of friends together we've met over the past few weeks (most brothers, some not) for a mini-concert.  hopefully we can share some of our songs, and our hearts with them.  Most importantly, we hope it can be one last chance to share the good news with our friends before we head home. (and hopefully this is the last time there will be 'somethin' abouts')   

we haven't had internet access this past week because we've been livin' in a small village outside the capital city, and its the Eid (a 4 day long celebration, after people have been "fasting" for a month, where people go house hopping and filling there bodies with sugar cookies and Pepsi; a diabetic's dream!!).  we're in a newly opened cafe in the capital where they have free wireless internet, so i'd like to take this small window of opportunity to type a few 'somethin' abouts':

there's something about being less than half a mile from one of the oldest rivers in the world where Matt and i can take a dip in nothin' but our boxers and then jog down its sandy/muddy banks in order to dry off (still dressed in nothing but boxers).

there's also something about being able to sleep everynight outside underneath a blanket  of stars (with the occasional shooting ones), with cool desert air blowing over my face until i fall asleep. 

there's something about carelessly digging into a intestinal casserole at a wedding feast and not realizing until after you've swallowed.

there's something about, in a city of 7million, running again into a guy who only two weeks ago was ranting behind matt and i saying, "i'm gonna kill you fucking jew," but now wanted to sincerely sit down with matt and here about our Father's Son because he seems to be searching for something more to this meaningless life.

there's also something about having the possibility of going to one of the world's oldest rivers, under midnight's darkness, and see a couple friends be dunked under it's almost ageless waters to start their journey of faith.

there's also something about a Holy God allowing a filthy sinner like myself to be apart of such a beautiful work.       

i'm humbled to annouce that we have a new brother in the family. (this next post will be extremely long but please hold on till the end, especially if you've been yarping for the work here, plus the length makes up for the many months i haven't posted).

as some of you may know from jay's entries, we have been back in the capital city for the past 5days now, and our return seemed very premature, or so we thought, considering we still had a good 20 days of treking left.  night before last, and into the next morning, was a humbling indication of why our Father wanted us back in the capital city.  Our friend, whom we came here to help, was a bit discouraged about coming back here at the beginning of our trek, but he knew it was important for jay to recover and for us to get hiking permission to certain villages we mapped out earlier.  The security office here mistakenly forgot to write these towns on our travel permission slips.  Our friend and i figured we'd only be here a couple days, get our permission, and head back out; leaving jay here to recover and do work already started here.  After a week we would come back to pick up jay and head out again for the last part of our journey.  our friend's team leader seemed cool with this at first but called later and said he wanted us to stay here and work while Jay recovered.  Our friend was even more discouraged by this but was very willing to admit that the Father wants him here to serve in whatever way possible, even if he doesn't get the chance to do adventurious hiking thru uncharted territory. He swallowed his pride and admitted its best for us to be where our Father wanted us, so for the next week we'd be here in the capitol.  Amidst some confusion and wondering what God wanted us to do here, jay and our friend both agreed that our time here will involve some intentionality with contacts and new friends we've made on this trip so far. 

One friend we made earlier, whom i'll call Busta cuz jay thinks he looks like Mr. Rhymes, was planning on hanging out with jay and i again since we were back in town.  It had previously been discussed among us and some of Busta's friends that he was pretty close to being a believer; that it'd just take some time sitting down and sharing with him what our father has done in our hearts and share some verses.  we had iftar at busta's house after sunset and stayed there a bit hanging out with some of his family and friends.  After this we headed to the only mall in the entire country where we bowled at the only alley.  after our game all headed over to an office where we had coffee and coke together.   It was here on the second story of an office building at around 2am where we began talking about new life.  Through the help of two friends who translated and shared themselves, jay and i were able to share with Busta how we felt God used jay's sickness to bring us back to the city to share with him about his love.  we also shared with him how we didn't think it an accident that we all became friends so quickly and gave us a special connection thru music.  we were able to share some of our songs with him earlier last week and it seemed the Spirit spoke to him thru the message.  after about 3 hrs of discussion and looking at scripture our friend decided he wanted to be a child of the Father.  He agreed with what we shared and said he believed in the message and that he wanted to yarp but needed help because he never really talked to the father before.  one of busta's friends, a local, lead us in pr-y-r then helped busta yarp out loud to the father in arabic, asking for his salvation.

as the six of us sat there in that office together yarping to our father, it was extremely humbling to me to realize that our friend was passing from death to life, from darkness into light; just like a baby leaving the mother's pitch black womb and poking his head out into a whole new world to start life's journey.  Our friend, by the grace of our father was being born again.  and just as labor sometimes can take hrs, we were willing to stay with our friend all nite to answer any questions he may have had.  And just as a new born babe doesn't come out of its mother walking around, rather its gently held, handled, and fed by its mother; our friend will need a lot of spiritual nurture and encouragement as he begins this new life our father has given.  It was an honor to see our father birth new life into our brother.   i guess coming back to the city was completely worth it.

thank you for your pr-y-rs.  you are apart of the father's work here and apart of our new brother's life.