In the early days of living in Uganda it was interesting to learn about some cultural differences that would affect everyday life. If someone told you there was a meeting at 10am, it meant people would start getting there at 11am and the meeting would probably start around 12noon. If someone was due to come to our house and they said they were ‘near’ it could mean they had just left home and were far away. If you asked if it was a long walk to get somewhere and were told it was short, it probably meant it was an hour or twos walk not a twenty-minute stroll. If in a restaurant and they told you the food was coming, it meant it would be another hour! Patience was definitely a virtue in those early days.
The thing that is hard though is when the work, the ministry you are involved in takes time. When you’ve laid foundations, talked to communities, trained people, talked and prayed and prayed some more and it feels nothing is really happening. Where’s the progress? Where’s the development? Where are the signs of change? Where is the fruit of my labour? It’s not easy, first to persevere when the work is hard but then to be patient as seeds grow. In our humanness we need tangible signs and something to write home about, otherwise they might wonder what we’re doing!
I love the prayer in Colossians (Colossians 1:3-14), what a fantastic prayer, to be equipped with ‘great endurance and patience’. We need that on the mission field don’t we? Sometimes it can feel things take a long time in our eyes but remember we are seeing things through different cultural eyes. Last week I commented to my Ugandan friend ‘Patience’ that it still felt hard to make progress in a certain ministry we work in together. She without hesitation turned and said, ‘But things are changing’. For her she saw it but I didn’t. For me it still felt we were waiting for something to change but she saw that things were changing, she saw the progress. I felt slightly rebuked in a loving way that I had bemoaned the situation but more so it was encouraging to see things through her eyes.
The cultures we live and work in don’t always see things as we do, we have different cultural eyes. More importantly God does not see things as we do. When we plant a seed in the ground, we can not see the first signs of growth, they are unseen to us. God sees everything! There is much happening unseen, so persevere and continue in patience to trust God and serve him in all you do.
‘And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience….’ Colossians 1:10-11a
