“Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me.
Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.
Sever any ties, but the ties that bind me to
your service and to your heart.”
In April I visited Africa. Now, I’ve been to Africa before, but it was Egypt. Somehow Egypt didn’t fill my mind with Adventure and Intrigue and Beauty beyond words. It was pyramids and sand. Lots of sand. This time I went to South Africa with three friends, and they would hunt and shoot, and I would hunt and observe. Magnificent…
Hunt and observe? How does that qualify as hunting when you don’t shoot something? Hunting is more about the sights and sounds and smells and the silence, the peace. The “kill” is just the biproduct of doing the hunt the right way. My college football coach didn’t talk about winning. He spoke about doing things the right way and the scoreboard would take care of itself. He would retire as the ninth winningest coach in all of college football. When you go into something and put the idea of winning or the thought of the “kill” to the side, it frees you to be completely unburdened by the results. The results will take care of themselves and, yet your soul is nurtured and your mind is filled with thoughts and ideas that were never there before. It is almost transforming.
Each of my friends had a Tracker and a Professional Hunter. I accompanied one of my friends each day. We had amazing gospel conversations with several of the Professional Hunters (PH). One day one of the PH’s asked if he could take me to the shooting range and then out to shoot an animal. I told him that I had not come for that but was grateful for his kind gesture. He said, “But what about your Bucket List? Isn’t this a Bucket List item?” I told him that it was not and that my Bucket List was a bit odd. I told him that my Bucket List was meeting people like him and sharing our life stories and meaningful things that have the potential of changing one’s life and, in turn, one’s world. Each day we spoke about Jesus and His love and His desire to have relationship with His creation. Each day we hugged him and told him that he was greatly loved. Each day we prayed with him.
Our last morning, my new friend (PH) told me that they had never had people like us there, ever. He went on to say, “Has anyone ever told you two guys that you are great men?” That is not a common question. It is less common for a man to even approach a question like that. But he asked it because there was something that he encountered in us that caused him to believe he could be vulnerable with us. I told him that the downside of meeting me was that going forward, he was stuck with me. I told him that we would be friends for life.
I have said this many times: “Love and True friendship are inconvenient.” Africa is a far-off land. It is inconvenient, but it is in the inconvenience that real friendships are forged.
