If I were just a rat in a maze, I’d be fired. I would chew holes in the walls before I’d be relegated to wandering pointlessly and stupidly through a bunch of arbitrarily placed obstacles. Unlike the computer named Joshua from the movie WarGames, I recognize futility fairly quickly and reject it thoroughly.

The season seems to have come to an end in this Country that we’ve invested 3 years of our lives getting to know. Even in that short time we’ve seen it over and over, for one reason or another, on good terms or bad, people leave. It makes me laugh to think of our budget problems. I made nearly what we need as a family of 6 as a 20 year old in junior college. Half way through my career, nearly 5 times that. Now, we have come to a place where we must pay to volunteer, where would-be philanthropists are exploited like a booming niche market, & nationals have the business sense (baatho) to double or triple their prices when they see our white faces. The system & status quo, the rat maze, has foiled us.

We like to believe that we’ve been fruitful. There’s a very long list of accomplishments to show for the years invested. We both speak another language now, my wife surpassing me significantly. We appreciate and understand another culture, not everything is bad about this place. We’ve pitched in everywhere we could, helped everyone who asked until we had to start saying no. Maybe that’s fruit, maybe it’s not. Who ever knows?

For the first year support was generous, we could even give to others in the way we were accustom to. In the second year, it was adequate, but in the third it dwindled. At 1/3rd of the requirement our savings has continued to leak. Maybe that explains the very common 2 year term in modern missions? Maybe it emphasizes our poor self-promotional and marketing skills? Maybe it is just God’s will, or maybe we just don’t have enough Facebook friends?

Life is a bunch of doors. Some open, some close, some need to be broken down and some need to be avoided. God’s will is not so fickle, we are. Every one of us. We create systems, rat mazes, to bring the illusion of stability. A fabricated solid ground. We synthetically satisfy James 1:6 via our system, but in the process John 3:8 warns us that something is wrong.

We took steps this year to fix the leaks. I invested heavily in a door that was somewhat open. However, the realization, among other things, that even if our support did not drop on news that we’ve become so greedy as to supplement our income (after 3 years our remaining supporters are not so fickle) that “door” would only cover another 1/3rd of our budget. When the process of going through that door lapsed we had to face reality. It wouldn’t work & was better left avoided.

We’ve heard it all. The peanut gallery would say, how can it be so expensive to live in one of the poorest Countries on the planet? Well, technically they are right. We are easily within budget if we squeezed our family into a small flat, ate rice twice a day, and walked everywhere. It has a romantic ring to it. From their ivory towers it’s such a distorted perception of reality that leaves them slaves to their own double standard. Thank God for people that get it. Having been here, and done this, we get it more than ever. All too well.

So I’m up bright and early at 3 AM. A dozen or so mosquito bites and a heavy heart making it difficult to sleep. Ironically, as we begin the process of discovering what the next steps are, I can start by categorizing the factors to consider into those same two buckets…. The mosquito bites, and the heart. In my heart there are so many people that I know here that would love our dear Jesus so much if they would give themselves to Him. The “mosquitoes” are pretty much everything else. “The system” has done a great job at ensuring that we spend so much time dealing with the mosquitoes that our lives have little time left for anything else. Wherever we are in the world it’s not so different. We’re match makers, match makers in mosquito infested places. Maybe the mosquitoes won this round, maybe God did, maybe both? Ironically, besides the mosquito bites I feel so healthy just now. Even my chronically throbbing back is fine just now. Ah, my wrists are throbbing… yeah, I’m still here, on earth. Time to stop typing.