It's
Saturday, so I finally have time to sit down and write a little. Our
first week (though it hasn't been a full week yet!) has gone quite well,
though not without some hiccups. We're getting a handle on doing
public transport with two kids, and Hristo and Vania Arnaudova were very kind to take us in their car today to several different
stores so we could avoid lugging back several bags of things we needed
on the bus.
On our second night here, neither Lisa or I could
get any sleep, so at 2 in the morning I decided to be productive and
give myself a haircut. I love my buzzcut; it's so simple and easy to
maintain! Things were going swimmingly when, having shaved the right
side of my head, I realized the clippers were literally smoking.
Apparently, while our travel electricity adapters work just fine for
most of the stuff we plug in, the clippers use just a bit too much
power. So, what do you do when it's 3AM and half of your head is
shaved? You spend an hour sitting still, while your wife spends an hour
with a pair of scissors doing her absolute best to make you not look
like an idiot.
As I was sitting there at 3AM with not much to
do but hold still, a scripture idea crossed my mind. The apostle Paul
in 1st Corinthians 4 discusses how the apostles have come to be seen.
He says in vs. 9-10, "For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on
display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in
the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to
angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ". Now, I
don't mean in any way to claim apostleship, or to equate having a bad
haircut to what Paul and the other apostles endured for Christ. But I
couldn't help but think, as I sat at 3AM, "if I were back in the States
this would never have happened." I probably wouldn't have been awake at
3AM, certainly wouldn't have cut my hair at that hour, and my clippers
would have worked just fine as they always have anyway.
But
what I was reminded was that I'm in Bulgaria to be a spectacle. I have
no dignity of my own; all of that is an illusion anyway. All I have is a
God who justifies me, and a message for those with whom I come into
contact. If I have to be a "fish out of water" that looks for a short
time like an absolute fool in order that God can be glorified, then that
is a small price to pay compared to the suffering of our Savior, or the
example of the fathers of the faith like Paul. If my humiliation can
be used to bring another soul to reconciliation with our heavenly
Father, I will rejoice and give myself a crazy new hairdo every morning.
Friends, keep us in your prayers. I'll try to write as often as I can. Blessings on you all!
