CoD V.2.3: On a Personal Note...

Well, having brought you up to date on the bulk of my ministry news, I've been debating just how open I should be on personal, non-directly-ministry-related stuff on this blog. On the one hand, I'm not the most comfortable sharing personal stuff in public, although that does often depend on how personal and how funny it is. For example, I have no qualms about telling you I've been feeling unusually gassy lately, there must've been something in the beans... Plus, you're probably a lot more interested in how God's working in Mzenga than in the proper working of my alimentary canal.

On the other hand though, if you've been reading this blog for any ammount of time (whenever i do get around to posting), can I really expect you not to begin caring about what's going on with me on a deeper level? Someone (me!) who's so charming and eloquent, whose hair is so luscious, whose ways are so winning, and who's so well-known for his modesty? Let's be serious, i'm probably almost as close to your heart as I am to my own dear mother's by now, and as such, you probably do wonder how i'm doing on a more personal level, fret when you don't hear from me at least once a week, and worry when I come home late. Not to worry, with the lack of electricity in the village, everyone's asleep well before 10, it's almost like an unofficial curfew, there just isn't anything to do, and you don't want to waste that much kerosene anyways.
On the personal level though, after some debate, I have decided to share with you some of my more momentous news...

By far the most important, historic, and vital of my personal happenings in these last 10 months would have to be the fact that - brace yourselves people - I have met a girl. Ha, you may scoff, half the world's population fits that description- just walk in a straight line and you're bound to meet a multitude of girls. But Ah, I would answer sagely (yet modestly), this is not just any girl, this happens to be a most uniquely special and unusual girl! Let me tell you the whole story then:
I first met her around 4 years ago, in the winter of '04-'05, when we did the Perspectives class together in the basement of BBC (Perspectives is a class on the history of mission, you should take it, see Wayne Matthews :D). Besides noticing that she was a fellow lefty and saying hello once or twice, we didn't really connect. In fact, she didn't remember meeting me at all! Given how memorable I usually am, one can only conclude that she must've had some weird form of amnesia, and only retains a random selection of her memories from the time. Either ways, much like The One Ring, the memory of her lay dormant for an entire age (two years at the least) in my mind, and wasn't awakened again until the summer of '07. This same summer, the starting date for my TIMO team having been delayed for an entire two months (which at the time was so discouraging!), I volunteered to help out at AIM's Scarborough office. In the process of generally helping out, in a most unusual coincidence, I happened to come upon her prayer card.
Much like Smeagol wrestling Deagol for The One Ring, my mind wrestled the inertia of the years in trying to remember where I'd come accross that name and face before, until finally, towering gleefully over it's vanquished enemy (the Inertia of the Years), my mind was triumphant! It (my Mind, i know, this is getting a tad complicated) did not go on to eventually become Gollum, so I'll abandon this allegory now.

What did happen however was that I remembered who Lindsay was, and noticed from her prayer card that she too was currently on a TIMO team, but hers was in a closed nation in North Africa, which happened to be where I felt called to go long-term (North Africa generally, not specifically the country where she was working). Not really knowing anyone else currently ministering anywhere near North Africa, I decided to take this opportunity to email her and ask about her ministry in the North.
That I did and on getting my email, not remembering who I was (seriously! Can you believe it? She thought I was this older, bald, bespectacled gentleman she met at the class) she figured since I was just asking some ministry questions, and I was with TIMO, I couldn't be some strange weirdo (ha, if only she knew!) so she might as well email me back, which she did. So we amiably emailed each other back and forth a few times, and I learned a bit more of what it was like to minister in a Restricted Access Nation, which was great.

Several months later, for some reason that made sense then, i sent her the address to this blog. That's when she first saw a picture of me and was smitten. The blog had fulfilled it's purpose. Nah! (well maybe, who knows?).
What really happened was that we continued emailing each other. By the time my questions were over, we'd become friends, at least electronically, and had heard a good bit about, and had been praying for, each other's ministries (she having been an year ahead of me in her TIMO team, but she'd also spent some time in Uganda before TIMO). Through this time we also found out a lot more about each other, like that we were both from Southern Ontario, she being from near Guelph (am I from Southern Ontario? I'm from 3 different continents, but most lately from Sd Ont anyways...); we both felt called to minister in North Africa; we both had the same Myers Briggs personality (yay ENFPs! we rock! woot woot!), and similar senses of humour, interests, passions, etc, etc, etc, etc. Etc. By this time she'd sent me some pictures as well, and it was rather obvious to me that she was very beautiful. Here's an example of the first picture she sent me of herself - that's her on the left, smiling happily at the camera (one of her teammates is on the right).
After several months of getting to know each other considerably better, by this time having become good friends (she in the North and I in Tanzania!), I asked her, early this year, whether she'd be interested in pursuing more than a friendship, purposefully moving towards something (quite a bit) more serious. Surprisingly, she said yes. Wait, did I write surprisingly? I meant to say obviously. Obviously, she said yes. :P
So that we did (pursued a deeper, more purposeful friendship) for several months, until finally this last July (three months ago!), I having had a week-and-a-half's vacation after my first year in Africa, and she having finished her TIMO team, we met and hung out at Arusha (Northern Tanzania, near Mt Kilimanjaro!) and Nairobi (Kenya's capital, the happenin' city of East Africa) for the entirety of my vacation. Some ten days we spent together - virtually every waking moment - and every day I loved her more. There was no cap/end/limit to it, but on our last day together she had to leave to return to Canada.

So we've been emailing and/or calling virtually on a daily basis since then, and there's still no end in sight - my love has continued growing every day since. Almost every day I've found some new, wonderful fascet to her brilliant personality.

So what do you call someone like that? Lindsay is her name, but title-wise i mean? 'Girlfriend' seems trite in a society where children date a different person every few months, but I haven't had the opportunity to propose to her yet (i figured it'd be kinda lame to do it online or over the phone). Hopefully that'll be rectified soon- she comes to visit me in January! - but until then I'll have to settle for Love-of-my-Life-Future-Wife-and-Soulmate (LomLFWaS). So my Lomlifwas (sounds Welsh!) and I would greatly appreciate your prayers.
We could certainly use prayer for the relationship, although so far it's been wonderful- the closest we've come to a fight was when she said my sweatshirt needed a wash, and I said nah, you get used to the smell. I ended up relenting, and the sweatshirt got washed, but that's it really. Nonetheless, it's not easy being 10,000 kms apart.
We would also love and appreciate your prayer for our future plans- we hope to be married in the Fall of '09, and return together to North Africa in 2010. We've been praying about a specific people group in the North East.
Here's another picture - isn't she lovely? Notice the sparkle in those bright blue eyes! The way the cloth flows around her delicately shaped nose, and the folds just below, which show that she's beaming.
Nah, seriously, because of where she's been ministering for the last few years, it would not be wise to post up unvelied pictures of her or write down her full name. Her first name really is Lindsay, that was not changed for the purposes of this dramatization. If you'd like some real pics though and/or would like to learn more about where we're hoping to minister in the future so you can pray, email me at my aimint.net email address, and I'll joyfully get back to you. Thank you for praying!