Joy bringer

Sometimes, we just go through life doing the things we do and relating the way we know best, not taking out time to sit and think through our actions and relationships. We act like entitled people, people who deserve the relationships they have and have a right to the way they act. Until such a time that we repeatedly receive the same feedback from our relations, and it hits home that our behaviors and responses are affecting different people in similar manner.

Over the years, I have always been talked about as the one who is always smiling and more recently, I have realized I am also spreading warmth and joy. In fact, my Mom said each time I call, it gives them (parents) joy because I make laugh through the entire call. I can’t tag ‘funny’ against my name, so that is pure simple joy and happiness. That statement opened my eyes to some compliments I had taken lightly before, like an entitled human. I can’t count the number of times people tell me I am easy to talk to, or I make them smile when I do, etc. I just now realize that positive impact.

Beyond that is the impact you have on someone not just for the day but in a lifetime. I recently reconnected with an old friend from high school. She has been out of the country for over 15years already and we haven’t seen each other for those many years and haven’t communicated for about 10years now. As we were chatting, she reminded me of a Bible I had given her when we were in the University, something I didn’t recall. I simply laughed because I thought maybe she was mistaken – then she sent pictures of the Bible with my name clearly written on it.  

My first reaction was to tell myself ‘You had started this a long time ago’. She told me how that Bible has helped her through tough times, and she intends to pass it on to her kids. That made my night!
Sometimes we hold ourselves from doing things that are nice, and we don’t realize we are depriving others of happiness., joy, consolation, etc. I sincerely can’t remember the exact time I gave that Bible to my friend, neither the events around that period or the type of discussions we had that led to that action. Whatever the circumstances, I gave her a gift, that probably didn’t mean anything to me because I had unlimited supply to Bibles from my parents, but it has probably changed her life. Let us consciously remember to leave people feeling better – be a source of encouragement, joy, happiness, kindness… and above all LOVE.

When dying is better…

Driving to work today and listening to news, there was a report of continuous killing of young men in the NE county of Mandera, Kenya, bordering Somalia. It was focused on a village that was burying their 47^th young man killed in 2016. The journalist was curious to know why young people still choose to travel to Mandera with the risk of being killed by terrorist and he was told by one interviewee that people go out there because they make more money in a day in Mandera than they would have in four months in their village. ‘When living takes the second seat’, I thought.

I know in one of my articles I wrote about living and being alive – it’s a recurrent comparison in my head I must have written about it. Anyway, that is not the point here. The point is people have been subjected to a state of depravity and desperation dying becomes more important than living. Immigration to Europe has become an EU problem – immigration through dangerous routes. People who have never seen a stream going across the sea; people who can’t imagine how wide the Sahara Desert is decide to attempt to traverse it into Europe, even on Camels; young girls with or without degrees scorn at articles about abuse of their kind in SE Asian countries and the Middle East and still stake their families’ wealth in order to travel to these places and join the others living in sub-human conditions.

Just like so many things happening in my country these days, there are a lot of situations you can’t understand unless you live them. How can the risk of dying be more important than life? Why do these young people go through all these, with good knowledge of the dangers in a-yonder? I’ve obviously never been in that state, never felt that way, but I know one thing – for me to live is Christ and to die is gain!

2 Corinth 3:17 – ‘Where the Lord is there is the Spirit and where there is the Spirit there is Freedom.’ Freedom will not make troubles go away, it will not put food on the table, but it will give life a meaning. If you find freedom in these dangerous adventures in search of daily bread, by all means forge ahead. If you find freedom in staying back in your village, you got my respect as well. Just be free! It is challenging to talk about these things to people who can’t even have bread for today, let alone think about bread for tomorrow… to whom posterity is like trying to reach the horizon… but the Word of God is real for everyone in every circumstance – trust God, the God who opened the heavens and rained down manna to a people who were already complaining and losing trust. Shalom Peace has nothing to do with physical peace, just sleep through the turmoil. Jesus slept through a storm that threatened their boat. I’m not saying all will be dandy and cool, but things will be better.

My heart bleeds at these news reports, it’s sad and it’s real. The future is dying in search of better lives. God created this world with enough for everyone but greed has eaten up the very core of humanity. While others live lavishly, their neighbors are dying in search of better lives. God’s ultimate command is the solution to the world’s problems – ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ – Love yourself, dying can’t be better than life, unless it is dying in gain because you lived in Christ. To the rest of the world Love Everyone!

Shalom!

Being to Doing...

Why haven’t I written for so long when I have such wonderful thoughts to share? Why do I give in to excuses – ‘I’m tired’; ‘I’ll write later’; …? Or maybe I’m scared by my very own thoughts?

I want to write about how my son’s personality is so independent, how I learn so much from him about living with no limits and not being embarrassed by the craziness of my thoughts and not having to apologize for being me.

My entire life I always desired to ‘be me’, and in a way I guess I always have been because like my son (funny how I’m comparing myself to him and not the other way round) I grew up with a mind of my own. Mind! Most of the time my thoughts were unadulterated – for example I wasn’t one to be influenced by friends and I rarely ever was the average of my friends. I was me.

Many people tell me they admire my freewill and independence – and it’s been hard to fully accept the praises because I knew something was off – a disconnect between my thoughts and my actions.

I’m sure if my friends read this they’ll think I’m under-rating myself, but I know I possess far more than they ever see or hear. They don’t know the internal struggles I’m having with myself – the longing of translating ‘being’ myself to ‘doing’ myself.

‘Doing’ myself is my new internal voice (maybe not new… but let’s just assume it is) – it is more than just having an independent ‘mind’ to actually saying and doing what is good for me. This seems nuanced but stop and think – there is a separation line as thick as dreaming and living a dream. Am I losing you?

If you are like me there are those moments when you wish you said exactly what you were thinking instead of that diplomatic answer you gave; wish you persevered on an idea you had – how different the outcome would have been!

I strive for honesty, and if you’ve been reading my articles and know me, you’ll know I’ve been doing an okay job. Now I want to give more meaning to the honesty by saying and doing what my mind is saying. I’m guessing you’ll be reading more about this in future blogs.

But this is not a process for the feeble minded. I’ve come a long way, I’ve worked on my mind… my thoughts… and I’m still on that journey. I’m at a point where my mind has been cultured in a way that I can trust my mind enough to take the risk… are you?

My Brain Won't Function

What’s the date of today? My brain just can’t remember. To know I have to count back from my return date, the only information my brain can give me now. So I’ll return home next Monday 24^th… today is the Monday before which means today is the 17^th.

Although I work out every day, I still develop a feeling of exhaustion (sounds like its deliberate but it’s not). My body doesn’t feel tired but my brain feels tortured! My brain cells seem to have gone to sleep. Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like I just want to sit outside and stare far into the horizon than sit here? Is it a consequence of eating three meals a day?

Breakfast is good… I take a couple slices of slightly toasted brown bread (and fool my brain it’s whole wheat bread, or is it?), a couple spoons of baked beans (and I wonder why it has to be sweet – the manufacturers must have poured a good quantity of sugar in the mix… why can’t people just do homemade beans?), some mushroom (again looks like one that was grown in an hour and I wonder why it doesn’t taste like mushroom I buy from the local market), fruits (I literally have to drain out sweet water from the fruits – granted fruits are sweet but the taste of that liquid tells me some sugar missed its way into that bowl) a cup of tea (no sugar added – happy I’m in control of this one), and a glass of juice with no sugar added (but I’m still suspicious the manufacturers added some sweetening even if not sugar). That’s exactly what I took this morning and I wonder why I’m feeling awful.

Maybe it’s the sessions (yes I’m at a training in another country)… maybe the facilitation doesn’t tie in with my learning style – read read read – something I love to do on my own and not necessarily listen to someone doing it during sessions when I have the material in front of me. Or maybe it’s the duration of the workshop – two weeks is a long time for any kind of in-service training. This is the 8^th day – dawn to dusk. Or maybe it’s the content – been there, done it… now redoing it just sounds a little over-dosed?

Maybe it’s other people in the room – or maybe not. Everyone has been fabulous and I can bet myself (don’t want to get anyone involved) that >70% participants feel like me but everyone’s hanging in there – kind of solidarity in torture. Haha! Shhhh… did I laugh out loud or my weary brain is playing tricks on me? Sigh of relieve, no one seems to be noticing, or maybe not, not sure of anything now. Look at them waiting for lunch time and dinner to strongly vocalize their feelings at the table, and that’s when I feel better knowing people are in a worse place than me. Those discussions make great deserts after eating same kinds of foods every day for both meals.

Surprise… It’s real!

For a while now, I have been pulling blanks on ideas for my son’s 5^th birthday. Last year, we organized a birthday party at his martial arts club and he loved it. However, that was too macho for me because I did all the preparations but then everyone kept calling on his dad to make a speech and all the thanks were showered on him. Understandably, martial arts clubs are full of testosterone… and there was a lot of beer which I hate for a kid’s birthday party. So Sept 23, 2015 came and passed with no party for my little champ. I felt so bad for him because he had framed the picture of a perfect birthday that he had shared with his cousin and us.

Sept 25, I had an epiphany… cupcakes with frosting and stuff written on them. Ok, I know I am good with making cakes and cupcakes (yes I am!) but I have never attempted icing or frosting. I have the accessories still sealed up like I got them from the shop and I thought this was a great opportunity to redeem myself from the guilt of letting my son’s birthday pass without a party. I’m not a fan of frostings as they just add calories, but who cares – it’s a birthday. If there is any day to sin against your diet, this is it! Again, being on the moderate side, I decided I won’t use butter for the frosting, I’ll do simple icing. I headed to the shops and bought the ingredients and balloons, including a blue balloon!

 Saturday evening, I bake the cupcakes. On Sunday as God will have it, my hubby took our son out and I stole that opportunity. I iced the cupcakes and I’ll say for a first timer I didn’t do too badly. I wrote ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY EJ’ on the cupcakes but it was sloppy (but visibly clear) because my icing mixture was runny and set up the living room. When they returned, I handed him the blue balloon in hand and yelled ‘surprise’ as he was entering the house. He was so shocked he ran and hid his face against the sofa. And then he saw the cupcakes, the candle, the birthday sign on the wall and more balloons and he ran to me and asked if I did all that for him. When I said yes, he hugged me and went to blow off his candles and the rest is history.

Have you ever had a dream that came true or almost? His dream didn’t come true on his birthday, but eventually it did. Relate that with your life, sometimes things happen almost the way we wish but not at the time we wished it, because God has better timing than us. Oh, I haven’t told you his dream yet – I’ll try to quote as best as possible:

“On my birthday, I will be sleeping and Mommy and Daddy and Aunti Elvin will come and wake me up and say ‘surprise’ and give me a blue balloon. I’ll get up, take the balloon, run downstairs and let the balloon fly up into the sky, and then it will burst in the sky. Then I will come back upstairs and everyone will sing happy birthday and I will blow out the candles”

He didn’t take his blue balloon downstairs though – remember when make promises of what you’ll do if something else happens and it does but you forget your part of it? Oh well, life happens… God stays the same- Faithful as always.

Thanks for allowing me to take you through this journey of my son’s birthday. He means the world to me, and I am happy sharing part of my joy with you.

Friday Sept 18, 2015 or Is it?

Friday 13^th is a myth! Friday 18 Sept 2015 has been real. I decided to blog this because my niece, Joy, says I am a drama queen. When I narrate things that happen to me, she says it happens to everyone, they just don’t narrate it like I do. I love her, but I think she is wrong – I think I am unique going through unique experiences.

Today, I left the house around 6:50am, which normally should be a more or less smooth ride across town at that time. Alas, as I was approaching the hill to Quartier General, I noticed the queue of vehicles and took a decision I thought was smart – go through Cradat, then Chateau, Emia and then into town. Easy ride to Cradat, then the traffic begins. With a stick shift on a hill with an almost still traffic, that is a nightmare. I eventually meander my way through traffic and secondary roads and decided to park until the traffic started moving. That was at 7:20, a distance I would normally cover in 7mins had taken me 30. I called my husband and he says he’ll bring the other car, which thank goodness is an automatic drive. He eventually arrives a few minutes after 8am, and gave me the car. 300m later I feel a jolt to the right, and there is this small-ish blue car resting against mine. The driver, a lady came out asking me ‘tu es pressé pour aller où? I stared at her, dumbfounded by her defensive attitude since clearly she had cut infront of me illegally with no warning. I told her to check out the position of her car. She told me ‘mais tu m’as cogné par derrière’. At that point I just stared at her and I knew she was trying hard not to look like the guilty party that she was… This stupid notion of driving in Cameroon where someone cuts sharply in front of you and their rear gets your fender and they scream that you hit them from behind… God bless my soul!

I get to the office at 8:40, and realized my husband forgot his keys in the car and he was going back home. I had to go back home and give him the keys and then came back to the office. Murphy was right: “if something has to go wrong, it will”

Does this happen to everyone?

Desire is… not all

Does this seem like a total 180 from my last post? Not actually. I mentioned I desired something so badly and I’ll let you know when I got it – well, here’s a spoiler… I didn’t get it!

I have just traversed the most challenging time in my professional life, a situation I thought I’ll have a grip over when it happened, but boy was I so wrong. I had desired something, wanted it so desperately I went out of character to get it, but all that energy didn’t hold at the end. I thought I had failed myself, thought the whole world can’t understand me and are too blind to see, etc. I have never been more in touch with my emotions, and never expressed myself quite like that before. People always tell me I am very composed and calm even in difficult situations – oh well that was put to the test. I seemed composed and calm but there was this raging wavy sea inside of me that I wanted to explode, or implode. I was so angry, and for more than a month was pondering about how easy it is to encourage others in difficult situations but you can’t apply those encouraging words when you are the one in a situation. All the stuff about: ‘when a window closes, another one opens’; ‘light at the end of the tunnel’; ‘everything works for good’; ‘God knows why’; etc., did not work at consoling me. Each time someone said that, I felt like punching them. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see that light at the end; that purpose; the good to that situation; the doors that were opening, and so on. All my thought was geared towards giving myself time to ‘heal’, I didn’t want to accelerate the process – I was letting time to time. It wasn’t until last Wed, that was about a month and half from the situation, that I felt like I could talk about the situation without feeling bitter or remorseful, and I felt then I could actually write this article. Then on Friday, I had a huge reality check…

On Friday I met my dear friend, mentor, God-fearing and one of the kindest human beings I have ever known. We were discussing over lunch and I told him what I had gone through. He stared at me straight in my face until I finished my narrative, and he told me the Truth. He asked if I was a child of God – yes of course (now I’m thinking, where is he going with this). I started defending immediately about how I know everything happens for the good to them that love God, etc. but then how I couldn’t see that when I had the situation. He let me blab on for a while and he asked/told me:

 “why do you fight over a small ‘thing’ like that when God has bigger ‘things’ for you?”

“The person who wanted that thing is that person you created, not you”

“A child of God doesn’t compete, they just get what God has made for them…”

He went on and on, pricking my conscience and the God-man in me, challenging me with the Word, and making me see how ridiculous I had felt and behaved in that situation and in the aftermath. He reminded me of who I am in God’s eye, and that I shouldn’t belittle that. He diagnosed my issue to the fact that I have been ‘spoilt’ by God and that I needed that experience – although I didn’t need to feel and act the way I felt and acted after it happened. He counted my blessings, something I couldn’t bring myself to do in the crossover service of Dec 31 2014, and asked me how ungrateful I can be being stuck because one thing didn’t work the way I wanted. As you could imagine, he told me things I can’t mention here, he told me THE TRUTH and called me out on my stupidity. Some of the things he said I can’t mention here because they were so deep I am still meditating on them and asking God to inspire me and enlighten me to see the purpose of the Words He said through my friend and how I can apply them to make me a better God-person. God is great!

I am not yet ‘there’, but I am working on it. God has challenged me to return to the place He had taken me to, and I intend to go back there and grow spiritually. My experience challenges Napoleon Hill’s definition of desire. Desire does not transcend everything, no matter how keen and pulsating it is – the love of God does. We need to buffer desire (which has no heart) with the love of God (which is God’s heart). This is my point of view and I am solely responsible for every word in this article.

This article is dedicated to my friend, Mr Tambe. Thank you and I love you sincerely. Not many people have the courage to look me in my eyes and tell me the truth without judging me or condemning me. I’m still contemplating some of the deeper things you told me, but I know with the Love of God, I will come to understand them and be a better me. First of all, I need to regain the level of confidence I had in myself before this situation, and then grow from there. Shalom!