After chapel had concluded, it was time for "daily tea." This time, complete with "biscuits" (cookies) was another good time to visit with and meet some more people. We then sat and talked as a team, took some photos and not too long after it was time for lunch. Today's lunch was rice with a tomato and onion sauce on top, a breaded type of white fish, some "baked beans" and what I think were beets. I went to sit down and eat and soon after a student named Thabo came to the table and asked if he could join me. We began talking and soon after he invited me to his dorm room to see the video of this morning's service. So with plate in hand, I walked and followed him back to the men's dorm. He soon began telling me that he wanted to "know more about America." "Andrew, I want to know how you see life and learn from you," he said. We talked and talked about many things from what he saw America to be as a South African to me sharing my philosophy on life. It was pretty heavy stuff, but as I spoke I realized that I've got a perspective on life that I hadn't ever really formed or shared aloud before. He asked me how I would deal with opposition and what my response would be. I told him that I always like to ask questions. I want to understand why perspectives are the way they are and where they are coming from. And this has made me think more; more about my philosophy on life and how I believe Christ has called me to live. I've been reading through the LoveWorks journal/devotional we were given before we left and found the page titled, "On Questioning..." There is a quote that is from Rainier Maria Rilke which says in part...
"Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
I want to question to find answers, but not just that. I want to question to get deeper into issues of the day, ones that are great such as how to better be instruments of His love and how to respond more effectively as Christ would to indifference and injustice and inequality. As I think now of my time after lunch with Thabo, I was at first very apprehensive and wanting to stay at the table and keep eating. But I am grateful to God for showing and teaching me through the time I had to share with and listen to Thabo speak. This is only Day 2 and I am even more looking forward to what the Lord will continue to do and say to me during my experience here.
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