Baby U

Greetings from N’Djamena. We are wrapping up the week and heading back to the U.S. It gets harder to leave each time as acquaintances have become friends and friends have become family. I’ve needed family here! Stepping into a new culture is to become as vulnerable as a baby.

I’ve been a big baby this week. I am dependent on others to speak, move, and inform me of what to know. It’s exhausting and humbling but concurrently good. It can even be funny! For example, the words for storm and fight are very similar in French. Just this morning I tried to ask someone about last night’s storm and ask them for a fight instead. We all got a good laugh and my friend replied, “you are a baby here.”

I’m privileged to be in N’Djamena. There is much to share in due time. What God has done in my heart this week has taught me a lesson in dependency. I’m learning how to be a baby again in a foreign culture. If I truly want to learn and grow, I must be willing to get low. Low before God and others and be willing to learn what I do not. I must learn to crawl before walking and learn to walk before running. You know I am a guy that likes to run! It’s hard and frustrating. I end the days exhausted but thankful to God.

Because I am a baby in this culture, God has opened my heart to the children of Chad during this trip. Children are everywhere in Chad. The total population of Chad is around 19 million and 9 million Chadians are under 14 years of age. There are several reasons for this that can be summarized in the difficult life that is Chadian life. There are many challenges here that culminate into a life expectancy of 53. Chad has the shortest life expectancy of any other country. Sickness, malnourishment, and conflict are a way of life resulting in a country for the young.

I’m an old man here, yet also a baby. I’m O.K. looking foolish if it means I might learn and love the people more. C’est bon: It goes well. Some of the people appear to be trying to figure me out too. Particularly the children. When I wave or make a face they shout phonetically “nezzar” which is white man in Arabic. They too smile and laugh.

Four children will be etched in my mind. In a local village, I was sitting on a bench under a tin shed. It was 107 degrees, so it was like smoking myself in an oven, but it was better than the direct burn of the sun. As I sat, 4 children kept peaking around the corner observing me with tepidness. I noticed it was about every 2 minutes they would conjure the courage to stick their heads beyond the corner of the wall to observe me. After an exchange of silly faces and subsequent retreat, I quietly positioned myself on the opposite wall so that their next observation found their faces next to this crazy “nezzar.” They took off running but my motion of reassurance eventually led them back for a conversation. A conversation of mostly smiles, laughs, and more silly faces. Heart conversation.

It's good to be a child. It’s good to be dependent. That’s the danger with age and knowledge, they don’t automatically correlate with wisdom. Wisdom is always tethered to dependence. Primarily with God but also with others.

There is a paradox between age and childlikeness. We believe one alleviates the other, but God’s wisdom would say otherwise. If we don’t approach God like a child how else shall we come? Chad is reminding me of dependency. A new culture comes with a great opportunity to learn and grow from a place of dependency. A place I should never outgrow.