Overwhelmed

Where do I even start? We are living in Kovol now for about 5 days. And one thing is sure: the Kovol people are extremely generous and have been overwhelming us with food. The local food keeps just pilling up in our house. We share it then with them, and then suddenly we get even more. Also, they love to cook with us. As soon as some hear us getting up, they start walking around our houses to spend time with us. They are just waiting for us to come out. Today there were two different village groups waiting with food to cook with us. One group had hiked some hours, so they got to cook with us today. The other village was from here (Kokoma). They brought the food and will cook it tomorrow with us. It took the whole long afternoon to prepare and cook with them. Louis loves their food and he is also starting to enjoy being here with the kids. The people are giving us a lot of space and respect. We feel so welcomed and loved by them. But it feels also awkward when they bring a bunch of food and just stare at us.

On the other hand, we are overwhelmed with the work that needs to be done in our house. We keep having water leaks, we have lots of mold and I don’t have any clean nor comfortable or private space in my house. I haven’t eaten any western food for almost a week now. But Philip is working hard daily on projects, except for the time visiting with the people. The challenge is to balance our time now.

When I think that one day these people here might be my brothers and sisters, I get excited. When they say: ‘We are in the darkness and we want the light that you have’, or ‘we want hear the truth’ or ‘you have something so much better to tell us, this food that we bring is nothing compared to that’, I am encouraged. Do they really mean it or is there another expectation behind it? I am sure it is both. But no matter what, we really do have the best thing in the world that we want to share with them. It is better than the food they have. It is incomparable. It is going to be a long overwhelming road for us, but we have God’s strength and his power that we can count on. I actually want to be so much more overwhelmed in my daily live with who God is, what all He has done, is doing and what He can do. I am excited to see what he is going to do here with the Kovol people. It is tiring, honestly it is harder right now then I thought it would be with two little ones and living with no comfort. But it is worth it because He is.