For years I’ve wanted to travel to Africa.  It probably began towards the end of high school and beginning of college.  That was right around the time that I began to open up to God’s call for me to the ministry.  It was also about the time that my cousin Tiffani graduated from college and promptly moved from Chicago to Nairobi, Kenya to work as a librarian.  Her stories over the years of life in Africa, the adventures she had and the closeness to God she experienced there all deepened my desire to go to Africa.

In college I began to read books like Richard J. Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity and a number of Henri Nouwen’s books that were challenging the culture of busyness and consumption that I was (and remain) immersed in.  For some reason Africa became the place in my mind where a Christian could finally be free of the over-scheduled life of busyness and by necessity would have to live simply rather than by greed and consumerism.  Both then and now I longed for more stillness in my life, for a life of sustainability rather than one full of cool stuff.  Africa was a beacon, it was there I thought, that I would finally learn these lessons and following Jesus in these radical ways would just become easier.

In my later years in college I began to discover Jesus’ heart for the poor, and God’s call for his people to stand for justice in this world.  This compounded the mythical power of Africa in my imagination.  Africa was a place where God would be more present simply because of the poverty and injustice there.  And so I longed to visit Africa so that I might meet God in a new and more powerful way than is possible for a privileged kid with a Masters degree in America.

But when I went to Africa God was the same.

And that made me think.  It made me think that instead of internalizing God’s heart for the poor, I might have used it as justification for feeling distant from God.  And if that was the case then feeling distant from God probably had a lot more to do with me not paying attention and not spending enough time in prayer than it did with my surroundings.  I still wish I could embrace a life with more simplicity, I still long for more silence and prayer in my life and less scheduling and busyness.  But right now I’m thankful that God helped me to deconstruct yet another mythical place where being a Christian is somehow easier and reminded me that it’s not about where you are, it’s about who you’re becoming, whose voice you’re listening to.  Because even in Africa, God still speaks in the still small whisper and even in Africa following Jesus still takes a lot of faith.